Monday, May 30, 2005
Titanic
The movie "Titanic" was on tv last night, and I sat with Mr. Funky for a while to watch the ending. When it was the big hit that it was in 1997, it struck a chord with millions. Some of the millions were teenagers who saw it multiple times for Leo DiCaprio. Others were fascinated by the sheer magnitude of the disaster, and insight to all that happened on that night so long ago.
The ending of the movie shows how many people faced disaster with great courage and strength - older couples lying entwinded in the beds of their cabin knowing what their destiny was, and facing it together. Muscians spending their last hours playing their instruments - with strength and dignity. Parents tucking their children into bed, knowing they would not wake but making their last moments feel safe. Watching this movie in 1997, these episodes seemed so far away, so long ago, and that strength very unfamiliar.
Watching it in 2005, I was struck with how often since 1997 we have had to see this kind of courage in so many, in so many different situations. I couldn't help but think of the people in the towers and on the planes on September 11. Or think of the hundreds of thousands in the beach villages of Asia whose lives changed in an instant on a Sunday in December 2004. As we know now, so many people faced terrible uncertainty with the same courage and strength we had only known from the movies. Watching "Titanic" in 2005 gave the film a whole new level of modernity, familiarity and reality. Has our world changed this much? That tragedy has become everyday reality? I'll have to ponder that a bit.
PS - Don't get me wrong - this movie, apart from the re-building of the ship, really sucks, as a movie.
The ending of the movie shows how many people faced disaster with great courage and strength - older couples lying entwinded in the beds of their cabin knowing what their destiny was, and facing it together. Muscians spending their last hours playing their instruments - with strength and dignity. Parents tucking their children into bed, knowing they would not wake but making their last moments feel safe. Watching this movie in 1997, these episodes seemed so far away, so long ago, and that strength very unfamiliar.
Watching it in 2005, I was struck with how often since 1997 we have had to see this kind of courage in so many, in so many different situations. I couldn't help but think of the people in the towers and on the planes on September 11. Or think of the hundreds of thousands in the beach villages of Asia whose lives changed in an instant on a Sunday in December 2004. As we know now, so many people faced terrible uncertainty with the same courage and strength we had only known from the movies. Watching "Titanic" in 2005 gave the film a whole new level of modernity, familiarity and reality. Has our world changed this much? That tragedy has become everyday reality? I'll have to ponder that a bit.
PS - Don't get me wrong - this movie, apart from the re-building of the ship, really sucks, as a movie.
