As many of you will be aware James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) will once again be in cinemas as of Friday, only this time it’s in 3D. What fewer people will be aware of is that between the 13th and 28th of April the BFI , alongside selected cinemas across the UK, will be screening Roy Ward Baker’s A Night to Remember (1958). Although Cameron’s film is still something of a spectacle on the big screen some picturegoers may find it refreshing to mark the centenary of this famous sinking by means other than a 3D dose of Kate and Leo.
For those who have yet to see it, the focus of Baker’s film is to tell the tale of the Titanic as it happened by drawing on the experience of the most senior officer to survive the disaster: the ship’s second mate Charles Lightoller (Kenneth More). So subtle were Baker’s techniques that at the time of its original release Variety described the film as possessing an “impressive, almost documentary flavor.”
In addition to the expected “iceberg” segment the film records the post-SOS drama of the nearby ship Carpathia (the ship was four hours away, the nearest ship: the SS Californian was just 10 miles away but had switched off their radio for the night) racing towards the Titanic in the hopes of saving some of its soon-to-be-doomed passengers. This strand of the narrative effectively portrays the layers of tragedy surrounding the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe.
As it was made in 1958 this film does suffer from some inaccuracies; Cameron had the benefit of making his film well-after the Titanic’s wreck was discovered in 1985. In Baker’s film the ship does not split in two – a fact only confirmed once the wreck was discovered – and it passes off the 1938 christening of the RMS Queen Elizabeth as the launching of the Titanic (in fact the Titanic was never christened). But these are minor quibbles, much of the praise bestowed on Cameron’s epic can be just as easily dished out to A Night to Remember. The panicked lifeboat scenes are thoughtfully directed; the tensions between first class, second class and steerage passengers are clearly and sensitively depicted and there are some truly poignant images of personal items, representative of young lives, lost beneath the waves. There are even echoes of Cameron’s most lauded moments to be witnessed as the ship’s band plays on through the trauma.
On a personal level, rereleasing a film about an infamous tragedy in 3D exactly a century on leaves a bad taste in my mouth. There’s something a little bit tacky about sitting for three hours in the dark wearing ridiculous glasses and listening to Celine Dion whilst simultaneously knowing what icy demise awaited the 1514 people who didn’t make it onto a lifeboat a hundred years earlier. Perhaps you may think this too serious a stance and maybe the important thing is just to remember, with the how being a less important factor. Undoubtedly, however, A Night to Remember is a more sober, dignified memorial to what happened on that fateful eve and as somebody who, generally speaking, isn’t all that inclined towards the sober and dignified side of life I feel I should seize the inclination when it takes me.
