Titanic

Titanic. Reflecting man's immense ego, his confidence, his effort to "make a mark in time." How dark, how tragic. Cameron's movie showed the human side of the tragedy, yet faithfully re-created the event itself, in all its dark horror.

The movie had shortcomings for me. Primarily, the lead character, DiCaprio, as Jack Dawson. He was too happy-go-lucky. The actor did not, probably could not capture the the spirit of a real artist who has seen the depths and embraced the wind. Carefree spirit he was, but he did not strike me as one who had "really lived." He came across as hollow... his tone, his voice... In other words, the actor was inadequate to his task.

Nevertheless, audiences can be forgiving and in this case, in the presence of such a 'big' well told story we overlook the shortcomings, desirous to be swept away in the event. And Titanic is such an event. It's re-enactment is an event. And the audience, without risk, without shame, without cold or pain, could say, "We were there. We know what it must have been like. We were there."

Yet, we were not there. For had we been there, our lives might have been altered. As spectators it is too easy to turn the page... to continue on our course. For true and lasting change, we must perhaps experience our own personal Titanic.
Journal Note, January 31, 1998

It proved to be a stunning disaster. The RMS Titanic was a British registered four funnelled ocean liner built for transatlantic passenger and mail service between Southampton and New York. As we all know, she never completed her maiden voyage. On the night of April 14th, she struck an iceberg at approximately 11:40 PM and sank just 2 hour and 40 minutes later.

At the time she was the largest vessel on the seven seas, 882 feet 9 inches in length, and more than 46,000 tons.

On April 10th 1912 the Titanic set sail from Southampton with 2,200 passengers and crew, four days later the Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank. 1500 people died and 700 survived.

The website link below contains unbelievable amounts of detail on this historic event, telling the individual stories of every single person on this ship, the survivors and the lost... and the story of the great ship itself, so full of promise and a perpetual emblem of shattered dreams.

http://home.att.net/~wormstedt/titanic/