# 7: A Night to Remember
Hey buddies,
How are you doing? However you are, it’s okay. It’s amazing how much secondary stress we can release by remembering that. It’s okay!
7/14 FUND RACIAL JUSTICE/ACTION ITEM:
I’m sure you’ve all heard the gut wrenching story of Elijah McClain’s death. If you are horrified by this story, there are several action items you can take to support his family and demand accountability for his death, including a GoFundMe, a petition, and an automated email.: https://linktr.ee/Justiceforelijahmcclain
If you do not want to use the automated email, you can find all of the pertinent contact info of officials here: https://justiceforelijahmcclain.yolasite.com/
7/14 MOVIE BY A BLACK FILMMAKER REC:
I am breaking my own rule and recommending a TV show this week. But! It’s an HBO show so it’s basically like a mini-movie, yeah? It’s called I May Destroy You and it is one of the most unique and unsettling portraits of sexual assault that I’ve ever seen. Major TW for that, of course. It is written by, directed by, and stars Michaela Coel, a Black British woman, who is a total dynamo. You can find it pretty much everywhere except Netflix.
#7: A Night to Remember
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 1958
Run time: 123 minutes
Language: English
**As always, this post contains spoilers**
You know that saying “we’re all in the same boat?”
Well, if there’s anything I left A Night to Remember with, it’s the reminder that on the sinking Titanic this wasn’t totally true.
The film begins with a montage of a few different people preparing to leave for their 1912 voyage on the Titanic: a few extremely rich people, one not-so-rich person, and a Second Officer, which is like an Assistant (to the) Regional Manager of ships. From the beginning, the class disparities onboard are a major focus of the film.
The ship is boarded and it is truly enormous. The interior shots of the ballrooms and cabins are very similar to the interior of the 1997 epic. There is an “Unsinkable” Molly Brown character who gives Kathy Bates’ version a run for her money. There is even a scene of the steerage passengers (the lowest class) dancing, which also mirrored the scene in Titanic. In fact, there are several shot-for-shot or verbatim similarities between this film and Titanic. And I definitely don’t know this because I watched Titanic the next night and wept into Josh’s shoulder saying, “it’s so MUCH.”
For the first 40 minutes or so, the film does a sort of circular route of scenes: rich people being rich, impoverished passengers, men working in the boiler room, convos about the weather and iceberg situation, dude doing Morse code to talk to another ship (there is SO much Morse code), ship receiving and/or missing Morse code, rich people being rich, men in the boiler room, etc. This route doesn’t do much to develop characters, but it does a lot to embody the Titanic as its own living entity and to further highlight the fact that there are two ships within the Titanic: first class and everybody else. Unless it’s the crew serving the first class passengers, never the twain shall meet. I was pretty bored at this point, TBH.
And then…something happened.
The iceberg collision itself was fairly anticlimactic given the special effects limit of the time but then they show the collision from inside the boiler room, where the walls are punctured and the men are instantly flooded and my stomach dropped just like it did when I saw Titanic in the theater the first time (and maybe when I saw it the next night). And from here on out, I was anxious.
The crew, including the architect, Mr. Andrews, one of the few named characters who you actually get to know, works to determine the extent of the damage, how to receive help from nearby ships, how to get passengers off the boat, and how to prevent panic. There is a great scene between Mr. Andrews and Captain Smith where Mr. Andrews describes the extent of the damage and their fate: a 300-foot gash, 2,200 people on board, 1,200 life boats, 90 minutes until she sinks. Captain Smith says, “But she can’t sink. She’s unsinkable.” Andrews replies, “Well she can’t float.” OOF.
For the next hour of the movie, the Titanic tries to get the attention of a nearby ship to no avail: the other ship doesn’t understand the purpose of their emergency flares, doesn’t see their blinking SOS Morse lights, and doesn’t have a 24-hour Morse lab so they miss all of those SOS messages, too. These missed messages had my hands in little rage fists.
A ship 4 hours away, the Carpathia, receives the Morse but, of course, 4 hours is too long to be of any urgent help.
Meanwhile, as some steerage passengers are kicking around some of the ice on the deck from the berg, a pair of first class passengers watch from above. The rich man says, “Let’s join the fun!” And the woman says, “But they’re steerage passengers.” To which I thought, “and you’re ALL sinking, mama.”
The first class passengers are alerted to the Captain’s orders that everyone put on their life vests, their warmest clothes, and all of the women and children will need to be loaded into the life boats. They are alerted very respectfully and calmly. As you can imagine, the rich people do NOT want to do this. They’re annoyed and resentful and they think they’ll be back on the boat and on their way to New York in a few hours. Many, many couples have a hard time splitting up. One man who got the truth from Andrews lets his wife and three children go, telling them he’ll see them soon, knowing he wouldn’t make it off the ship alive.
One of the eeriest parts of the film is how it is shot once it begins to sink: everything becomes more and more tilted. Characters stand at a tilt, drinks are slanted, and a sterling silver catering cart slowly rolls down the empty ballroom.
There is also one room on the ship that I call The Denial Room where rich men stayed playing cards, drinking champagne, and reading at, basically, a 45 degree angle.
The steerage passengers, on the other hand, get a curt bang on their doors and a yell from a crew member who basically says “get up and get on deck!” The passengers do this, but are blocked from going up to the deck until all of the first and second class passengers have boarded the life boats. By the time they are able to reach the deck, chaos ensues, of course, because there are only a few boats left and the crew aren’t even filling them all the way. All the while, the orchestra plays.
Eventually, it is clear that the sinking is imminent. Captain Smith, who had been trying to maintain calm since he found out their fate, yells into a megaphone: “Abandon ship! Every man for himself!” as the bow rises. Crew members, steerage passengers, and first class passengers who refused to leave, go down with the ship, jump off the side, or cling on until the last minute. A dozen or so people, including the Second Officer, climb atop one of the two collapsible life boats they failed to deploy properly before the ship sank. The survivors in the life boats watch as the boat disappears for good. The Second Officer says, “I don’t think I’ll ever be sure about anything ever again.” AKA: PTSD.
The Unsinkable Molly Brown
So what about that idea “we are all in the same boat?” On one hand, yes. They were literally on the same boat, which was sinking. You’d think this would be a great equalizer, right? But because the first class passengers were given first shot at the life boats and the steerage passengers were corralled like cattle until it was too late, they were essentially on two different boats. One that had just begun to sink and one that had, for all intents and purposes, already sunk. Sound familiar, America?
In the end, all of the survivors are in one room on the Carpathia: first class, second class, steerage class, men, women, children, and crew members. For the first time, they are all in the same boat.
TL;DR: it’s Titanic without the love story! I wouldn’t watch it again, but I’m glad I saw it.
Also, aside from the collision, I was shocked at how good the special effects of the sinking were! So, I looked it up, and found some truly satisfying and surreal photos of the Titanic model and the behind the scenes work:
Next up is John Woo’s The Killer which is the first Hong Kong film and the most contemporary, having been made in 1989! Josh is very excited about this one which usually means there’s lots of cool jumping and kicking.
XOXO,
Steph