Before getting into your post immediately above, two other notes from your previous one:
Yes, this Titanic was released on Blu-ray a year or so ago. For my part while I've gotten a few Blus I'm not upgrading most things unless it's something of a literally spectacular visual nature and a film I really like (e.g., The Guns of Navarone, Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Towering Inferno, etc.). I don't think Titanic will make the grade. Of course, Raise the Titanic un-made Lew Grade, so there you are.
No disagreement about Lightoller, for which mainly blame Walter Lord, who I suppose for literary/dramatic purposes made him the hero of his book, a depiction carried over into the film, with as you point out even more revisions of fact to give him all the good lines and deeds. Oddly, Cameron may have come closest to the real Lightoller, though that's not very close either, but at least he got off the unalloyed hero bit. Another odd piece of Lightolleriana is that in this film ('53) we never really see what happens to him. When last seen he's standing dutifully on deck along with the other 1499 people, singing "Nearer My God to Thee" instead of, like, you know, abandoning ship or trying to save himself or others or anything. On this basis I guess we're supposed to presume he drowned along with everybody else not already in the lifeboats. I assume this is meant to infer to the audience he had a gallant end, but considering the fact that he died just as this film was wrapping production (December 1952), it's sort of counter-factual. (Edmund Purdom, in his film debut, has a sizable role but didn't even get screen credit!) But any depiction of Lightoller has nothing whatever to do with the class issue.
On to other things....
I don't think Second Class is supposed not to exist aboard the '53 Titanic (if nothing else its existence is inferred by there being a First and Third), but you're right, it's completely unmentioned and unseen. Since it's irrelevant to the plot it's not too important in that narrow context, though it does leave open the questions about Purdue and the priest. I agree that the fudging of class divides was done to facilitate the plot. I just believe that the degree to which this is done is so far removed from any semblance of reality that it is a major mark against the film's credibility. This is especially true since class is made an issue when it suits the screenwriters' purposes (as in trying to show Sturges's nobility in going down to rescue the Basques).
But I don't understand two things you wrote:
here we have a world where the well to do of what we call First Class and the middle class types of what ordinarily are Second Class, are just free to mingle with each other which is much more plausible as a fictional conceit than having Second and Third be the ones to mingle with each other.
Where do Second and Third mingle with one another in this or any Titanic film? I'm taking this as a hypothetical comparison. But while it would be more plausible for the divide between First and Second to be slightly porous than between Second and Third, there would be absolutely no breach in the wall between 1st and 3rd. All class distinctions were pretty rigidly observed, certainly on board the ship. Also:
Julia herself is clearly from the background of Second that has mingled with First in other settings, or else how else could she have ended up married to Richard in the first place??
This is apparently correct (though we never explicitly find out how or where they did meet, the inference is that Julia was not one of the idle rich), but all this means is that there were ways and settings where the rich and the middle class did intermingle in society. There's nothing that says they met on board a ship or in another venue where classes were strictly segregated. But there were many ways on land in which people of different classes would meet and interact on a limited basis -- almost never socially -- and it was not unheard-of for an upper class boy to spy a pretty middle-class girl, woo and wed her. So Julia and Richard's pairing isn't at all implausible. But that doesn't mean that the two classes mingled freely and equally in society. They did not. Interactions, yes of course; these were unavoidable. But they didn't go to one another's homes, or take trips to Europe, or share the same clubs and professions, or (mostly) go to the same schools.
Of course, some values of First Class like in Norman wanting to sacrifice himself to prove he is a man and to behave honorably...
Why are self-sacrifice and honor "First Class" values? Don't you think someone in Third or Second might share those same impulses? Inadvertently you've hit on the major problem here: First Class is depicted as brave and honorable, never selfish, venal or dismissive of "inferiors" (Meeker excepted). Second is conveniently ignored. Third are not nasty or ignoble people but just poor lost souls who have to be saved by the selfless, gallant First.
Now as for how steerage is being depicted, let's first take note of why this would have gone past me after two years. We're talking about two brief scenes amounting approximately 30 seconds of screen time. First, we see steerage gathered at the base of the stairs getting instructions from a steward, then later, Richard and Sandy arrive and we get that "They can't understand" bit. But here's the conceit that's being overlooked. *All* of the steerage in this sequence are clearly foreign immigrants and what I was seeing was a problem based on the *language* barrier (Sandy in fact, when we last see him here is going over to start acting more like an interpreter). If there'd been some Irish or English being defiant and refusing to listen like the stupid people not listening to Gene Hackman in "The Poseidon Adventure" then okay, you've got a point, but I saw it more as a case of the language barrier causing confusion in their ranks. And besides, this isn't the only place where there was steerage so I think given how the film isn't presuming to give us the full story of the Titanic but is keeping the focus on a core group of fictional characters, why should we presume this is the only place where anything is happening with steerage? I have to thus reject your interpretation Hob, based on insufficient evidence. Maybe you can start a case for it based on these fragments, but it's not enough and can equally be interpreted in other directions. This is material that doesn't take up enough screen time to lend itself to a substantive treatise on the subject in contrast to the way Cameron hits things over the viewer's head with a sledgehammer.
Well, you've constructed theories based on even less evidence, Eric -- like the non-reason for class intermingling and the questionable notion of these students and the priest apparently traveling in First. That aside, I assume you know how such things work in the movies: when we're shown glimpses of people or events in a film we're supposed to take these as evidence of the totality. That's how movies work: they can't show everyone or everything, so they show representative samples of behavior that the audience is to take as indicative of the whole. So it is here. The steerage passengers we see are clearly supposed to represent all steerage. This isn't just supposition. Where else do we see
any Third Class in the film? There aren't any others seen on deck. The glimpses we get of them (except the one instance of the Basque wife signing the papers for Sturges outside the dining room -- and how did she get
there?) are all below in Third, including the shot of them holding a party where the little girl dances as a contrast to the immediate cut to the opulence of First's dining room. In the movie, this area
is Third Class. Not one steerage passenger is shown leaving or trying to leave Third, not one is shown on deck, not one is shown anyplace but in that common area in Third. In fact, the only steerage passengers we see escape are Sturges's Basques.
As to the language issue, while this existed on Titanic and was a problem, most Third Class passengers realized at some point that the ship was sinking and, fluent in English or not, tried to get out but were stopped by the stewards acting under orders. The scene of the stewards telling Sturges and Sandy that they can't make the passengers understand about the danger is a falsehood because in real life they never tried to make them understand; they were attempting to
prevent them from going up (which also proves that those in Third did indeed "realize the danger"). Not to mention that there were hundreds of Third Class from Ireland and Britain who did speak English, and others who spoke some as well; not everyone in Third lacked any understanding of English.
Besides, in this film the Basque woman
did speak English, quite fluently (she even read it, as we see with the documents); thus the notion that she needed someone to come get her and her family because she didn't understand what was happening due to a language barrier is ridiculous -- not to mention the fact that
Sturges only spoke to her in English, and she understood him well enough. What, his accent was clearer than the stewards'? This entire concept is belied both by reality and even what's shown in the film. Finally, if a ship is sinking I don't think you'd have to have a word in common to make someone understand what's happening and to shoo them up to the deck.
The unforgivable lie in this movie is that, as personified by the English-speaking Basque woman, steerage passengers were so stupid and unthinking that they not only couldn't grasp that the ship was sinking (we don't see it in this film, but which class's cabins did the water get to first?), or that they were being urged to get to the deck (which did not happen in real life), but that they were too terrified and resigned to their fate to even make an attempt to save themselves until someone "better" came down and forced the issue. Even in the film's terms, language had nothing to do with it, other than as an excuse conjured by Brackett to further depict the nobility of First.
Sturges's occasional lapses of character are seen as an aberration among his fellow travelers in First.
But I'm afraid the cowardice of Mr. Meeker who put on women's clothing to leave undermines that argument since there's a First Class gent who behaves worst of them all. (The irony there is that there isn't any evidence that a First Class passenger got off dressed as a woman but Daniel Buckley of steerage did have a shawl placed over him!)
OMG, as they say! I had already several times excepted Meeker as the film's one villain. I didn't think it was necessary to keep repeating him as the exception in
every single reference. So okay: in future, let it be understood that in any discussion Meeker is the presumed exception to any First Class behavior, unless otherwise stated. That caveat noted, I stand by my statement that Sturges's is the only aberrational behavior (in the sense of ever acting less than nobly or nicely) seen among the denizens of First Class in this film. Incidentally, the fact that you cited Meeker and put him in Sturges's company actually makes Sturges sound even
worse than I made him out to be.
I won't cite all your musings on what Lawson or Maltz might have written except to say that they would emphatically
not have come up with the kind of story you propose ("a sinister conspiracy slant about how there was some concerted cover-up to prevent the Titanic from having boats for all and how evil bigwigs in the corporate management kept it from meeting safety standards which ergo is why the state should have seized ownership of the lines and why state ownership is superior to private ownership"). That actually sounds more like the Nazi
Titanic! Whatever their politics they'd have done what they and their ilk always did -- write for the studios who were paying them. They may have been Reds, but their primary motives were green. But I think they
would have come up with a far more honest depiction of class aboard the Titanic, much as we saw in
ANTR.
Of course, while you're right that "society in general had simply come to have faith in technology to the point where it was perceived that an accident of the magnitude of Titanic...could never happen", that did not at all preclude the notion of state ownership. On the contrary, this was at a time when many segments of American society (the working, reformist, progressive and intellectual classes, broadly speaking) were very much in favor of state ownership of many industries, from steel to the railroads, and of breaking up trusts. And of course such ideas had even greater impetuses in much of Europe. So a script with this as a factor would not have been at all unreal or ahistorical.
But I just don't see an anti-steerage message in the film based on what we saw on screen.
Not "
anti-steerage" -- as I've said, the film does not depict steerage in a nasty or unsympathetic light. What it does is condescend towards them, treat them as hapless yokels, unable to cope or even
try to survive without the guidance of someone better than themselves...as well as falsely show the crew vainly but honestly attempting to help them, which is a complete fiction.
That's the problem, not that Third Class is villainous or unworthy. On the contrary, the film says they're poor-but-honest schnooks who need us smarter, higher-class people to give them a helping hand, maybe a pat on the head once in a while, even a job in one of our sweatshops. It's just egregiously condescending.
In this it has much in common with Cameron's nonsense, which treats Third equally condescendingly, if not more so, with its no-airs, salt-of-the-Earth, working-class people of good will, simple pleasures and boundless decency -- as seen by Jack's post-prandial invitation to Rose to "Come see a real party": cut to Rose dancing happily around with a bunch of smiling, laughing "real folks". Actually this is a common enough depiction of Third in most Titanic films, but at least in
ANTR we see some Third behaving less than nobly themselves. In fact, even Cameron showed some Third Class people in unflattering lights.
It was an incomplete picture to be sure, but incomplete based on the inconvenience of the story they chose to tell.
Yep, to a point. But it also reflected its writers' attitudes. I mean, if you posit that Lawson or Maltz would have written a version slanted to their own political ideas, why isn't it equally probable that Brackett and Reisch did the same?
I've often wondered what David O. Selznick's proposed 1940 film
Titanic, to have been directed by Alfred Hitchcock, would have turned out like. One of Hollywood's fascinating "what-if" projects.
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Eric-62-2
10 years ago
Appreciate the reply, hob. I'll start with the things you say you don't understand. :)
Where do Second and Third mingle with one another in this or any Titanic film? I'm taking this as a hypothetical comparison. But while it would be more plausible for the divide between First and Second to be slightly porous than between Second and Third, there would be absolutely no breach in the wall between 1st and 3rd. All class distinctions were pretty rigidly observed, certainly on board the ship. [/quote]
I'm simply making the point that if, I see a narrative construct being designed to eliminate the concept of Second Class quarters (ANTR already proved how hard it is to work them in as we acknowledged before) for the sake of simplified storytelling, then as a story what would be more "true"? First and Second mingling, or Second and Third? It's on that basis, that I would say that the logical end result created from a decision to eliminate the barrier of actual accommodations for Second that are separated from the rest, is to give us First and Second. It is thus, a plot gimmick borne of narrative necessity and nothing more than that (or another way of saying, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar). Of course First and Second are not going to end up at the same parties and the same social settings on-shore or the same clubs and dinners, but if we allow for some interaction that takes place, eliminating it here to show the clash between idle rich and the frontier spirit/Middle American dynami works narratively at least. It's something that as I say, I can easily let go for story purposes as surely as I can the inaccurate depiction of Lightoller.
Why are self-sacrifice and honor "First Class" values?
You misunderstand. I don't ascribe them solely to First Class, I was referring to those notions as part of the character of First Class "gentlemen" from that era, that are also on some levels the lingering vestiges of the days when men would feel compelled to meet with drawn pistols for the sake of their "honor". Obviously, Basehart, who we agree is more "Second Class" has his own recovery of honor when he goes to his death as well. The absence of a similar moment for someone in Third Class, I'm afraid has to be ascribed to the constraints of the narrative. We would need to see a Third Class male passenger perform the act, so all right, where in this story is there room for that? Obviously we can't have anyone from the Basque family perform the act since the head of it has stayed behind in Cherbourg. I again, have to chalk this up to practicality. Obviously if the film then is going to be like ANTR and be comprehensive, then leaving out a steerage moment would be inexcusable. But for *this* film, I don't see the problem.
Besides, in this film the Basque woman did speak English, quite fluently (she even read it, as we see with the documents); thus the notion that she needed someone to come get her and her family because she didn't understand what was happening due to a language barrier is ridiculous -- not to mention the fact that Sturges only spoke to her in English, and she understood him well enough. What, his accent was clearer than the stewards'? This entire concept is belied both by reality and even what's shown in the film. Finally, if a ship is sinking I don't think you'd have to have a word in common to make someone understand what's happening and to shoo them up to the deck.
We were talking about the general picture of things here and when I saw these two scenes I heard a cacophony of voices that indicated English was hardly their first language even if they did understand it. As I said, if there were Irish and English steerage in the scene, your argument has greater plausibility, but the clear intent was to suggest a language barrier. And in these scenes, there is no visible listing or flooding in this part of the ship to suggest a danger that would make it clearer to them. Do I call this scene perfect? No. And I certainly don't call it an accurate depiction of what happened, but I just don't see this treatise about steerage in general you're extrapolating from it. I just see a scene that's been constructed to serve the narrative interest of the picture in which Clifton Webb has to have this redemptive moment to show that underneath he is a man of character, and that there is a reason to understand Julia's sense of loss as she sees a reminder of the man she did love once (how else could we take seriously the idea that there was love between these two to begin with?) I don't presume to say this is serving Titanic history perfect, but I just don't divine the intent you are seeing here anymore than I would divine an intent to cover-up for White Star by not depicting Bruce Ismay and suggesting no company representatives were aboard ship as the opening scene does.
I didn't think it was necessary to keep repeating him as the exception in every single reference. So okay: in future, let it be understood that in any discussion Meeker is the presumed exception to any First Class behavior, unless otherwise stated. That caveat noted, I stand by my statement that Sturges's is the only aberrational behavior (in the sense of ever acting less than nobly or nicely) seen among the denizens of First Class in this film. Incidentally, the fact that you cited Meeker and put him in Sturges's company actually makes Sturges sound even worse than I made him out to be.
I'm afraid its now my turn to not understand you, Hob, because Meeker's transgressions take up far more screen time than what you're describing about steerage. Meeker is there to demonstrate that First Class has its true rotten types who will go to any lengths to save themselves (even if it requires dramatizing an apocryphal story that evidently never happened. Though its not as bad as the Voyagers episode that has BRUCE ISMAY getting off dressed as a woman). I know you mentioned Meeker before but you were also making sweeping comments about the behavior of First in general as being shown as perfect that didn't jibe with what I was seeing. We've seen in short two rotten apples up to this point, the one who can't be redeemed morally like Meeker and then Richard, who can only in the face of death finally find redemption for his misdeeds as a self-centered member of the idle rich who wrecked his marriage and family in the process. The real life figures of First Class who we see in this film are only meant to be window dressing (Astor, Guggenheim. We don't get to see Guggenheim say he is prepared to go down like a gentleman so those depictions come off as neutral to me) except for our Molly Brown stand-in "Maud Young" who is the clear "frontier woman" type and not an "idle rich" member. So once again, the film there isn't coming down as heavily on the side of First Class as your depictions would make it seem, other than the fact that the movie is principally *about* them. In a fictional story about fictional people, I can forgive that conceit. If this were ANTR keeping its story only on Astor, Guggenheim etc. it would be different.
I don't presume to know where Brackett stood politically. I see where one book describes him as "conservative" and of course I note the name of Richard L. Breen, who wrote the beautiful "Christmas Story" episode of "Dragnet" which is anything but a story of condescension about the poor (though I can sure imagine Lawson hating it!). But ultimately, I see this as a film that was catered to the Middle American audience by making the greatest statement for *their* values in the clash between Stanwyck and Webb, as well as the loosening of Audrey Dalton to Wagner.
What would Hitchcock have done? Fascinating to think, but in 1940 I don't think it would have been "more" accurate than 1953 or been like ANTR.
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hisgrandmogulhighness
10 years ago
This film is also one of my favorites . . . that's why I tear into it . . . I myself can't believe how inaccurate it is . . . that whole opening sequence . . . okay, I guess it's some sort of introduction of sorts to the story . . . they could've began it at Southampton . . . why Cherbourg? . . . and what's this about Capt. Henry Evans, sending some beat-up old flag from the supposed Star of Madagascar? . . . quite a bit of time is spent on a bunch of trivia . . . nothingness . . .
As if this is something so great, Lightoller dutifully asks the Captain (actually I think Brian Aherne is perfectly cast here) if the flag should be hoisted. Well, it's not top issue but up it goes . . . for what?
From what I understand Henry Evans was the Titanic's pilot from Belfast to Southampton . . . I believe . . . though I could be wrong . . . No Ismay present, but we get Sanderson . . . why?
This business of the Purdue students taking over the ship has always been a favorite anomaly with me about this picture . . . but then how could Annette and Giff ever get together? And why al that singing with these college songs?
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hobnob53
10 years ago
Mogul,
Well, as usual I tend to agree with your attitudes about this film. A few points:
They began the film at Cherbourg to give Sturges a reason to be just arriving from Zurich to catch the boat. Going to England would have taken too long. But frankly the film never really made anything of the fact that this was France and not Britain. If someone didn't know where Cherbourg was or didn't catch the references they could easily assume it was England...not that it makes much difference. Of course, after Cherbourg the Titanic went to Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland, which isn't depicted at all.
The whole "Star of Madagascar" business was just a fiction to show some cheap and easy sentiment. In fact, all the depictions of the British in the film are uniformly positive but worse, nauseatingly clichéd: cheery, good-natured, sentimental, honorable, and so forth, with lots of good (fake) Cockney accents and the like thrown in. This was part and parcel of the way Brits were usually depicted in Hollywood films (yes, with the occasional stubborn idiot, supercilious villain or bumbling fool) -- particularly the upper and working classes, and of course anyone "official", especially anyone seaborne. 20th Century Fox was especially noteworthy in depicting Brits in this way. Unfortunately in Titanic it's way overdone -- as I've said before, this "Oi! Get a move on and 'op to it!" and related kinds of folklore dialogue are annoying and ridiculous in the extreme.
The lack of Ismay and the phony "Sanderson" (who doesn't even make the trip) were obviously intentional distortions. Charles Brackett had room for only one villain in his film, hence the completely fictitious social-climbing coward Earl Meeker. Given his innate bias towards the rich and powerful he couldn't dare suggest that there was actually anybody on board who was a real villain or coward, let alone someone connected with White Star and thus partly culpable for the ship's shortcomings. In fact, never once in this film is White Star blamed for anything. The shortage of lifeboats is barely mentioned and never shown as a fault of or deliberate decision by the steamship company. (In fact it was Ismay who rejected Thomas Andrews's original specs that called for lifeboats for all, though later he and the line tried to exonerate themselves by stating, correctly, that even with only enough lifeboats for one-third capacity they still carried slightly more than the outdated regulations required.) This too is in keeping with Brackett's conservative, pro-corporation prejudices, though at this time the Hollywood censors mostly banned any depiction of businesses being venal or corrupt. As with Meeker in this film, negative depictions of corporate types only occurred in the form of such persons being the exceptions to an otherwise noble and forthright group of human beings working in an honest company, and ultimately brought to justice.
I think the college songs were just another means of showing these were good, clean American kids, none of those high-falutin' rich boys from Europe. Rich young men from America were okay, but them Europeans, I mean, well...they was furriners! Besides, Brackett got to stick the song from his own Alma Mater, Cornell, into the scene.
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hobnob53
10 years ago
Eric, to your reply:
Yes, I understand that a lot of the fictions they wrote into Titanic were done for practical, dramatic reasons -- the classes mingling in ways they never would have, the behavior ascribed to certain characters, the need to highlight the film's stars. All that's understood and as such isn't particularly a problem.
But there is a problem in some depictions, notably the lie that crew members tried to do everything they could to help steerage but that they "simply will not understand the danger", which is a slander against Third and also a disgusting inversion of what actually happened. This and many other of the film's myriad historical inaccuracies and falsifications go far beyond the point of simply being "practical".
Therein lies the issue: that in taking this tack the film conveys the notion that First Class were all a bunch of honorable reg'lar folks (the clownishly villainous character of Meeker excepted) with no airs or prejudices; that Third consisted of good-natured, simple, trusting souls but people who were so fundamentally stupid, emotionally out of control, panicky and cowardly that they refused to even try to save themselves and needed the intercession of others to help them; and that in general there was no venality, no dishonor, no barriers to either social intermingling or a spot in the boats, anywhere on Titanic, again save for the straw man of Meeker.
Similarly, the "language barrier" is another straw point: no one in steerage refused to leave because they lacked English (at least not when it became obvious what was happening); the Basque woman spoke English and still insisted on staying below decks; there were hundreds of Third who did understand English. The amount of time spent depicting Third -- or Meeker -- is a straw argument on your part. You know very well that the amount of actual screen time devoted to showing some aspect has nothing to do with its import, or certainly not with the impression it's meant to convey -- whether of Meeker being a sniveling jerk or Third being a bunch of cows. In fact, in most films just a few minutes, even seconds, of screen time can convey volumes.
These "practical" changes to reality don't occur in a vacuum, with no further meaning beyond making the narrative move more easily. You talk as though they are inconsequential or that they don't convey any attitude or depiction of the nature of both life on the ship and the way not only individuals but entire classes behaved. In fact, they convey a very class-conscious prejudice: in favor of the noble First and condescending towards the sheep in Third. It's not nasty or vicious but it is overwhelming. Excuses about "practicality" don't wash here. It's entirely possible to be dramatically "practical" while showing a more faithful and honest look at the variegated kinds of people that inhabited all three classes, and what class conditions aboard ship really were like.
I'm afraid its now my turn to not understand you, Hob, because Meeker's transgressions take up far more screen time than what you're describing about steerage.
I don't know what's so difficult to understand here, Eric. My comment was only in response to your point that Meeker had been depicted as cowardly, which in turn stemmed from my
one-time failure to
yet again note him as the (only) exception to the otherwise uniform depiction of the nobility of the upper class. Prior to that I had specifically cited Meeker as that lone exception; all I said later was that I didn't feel it was necessary to have to repeat that point about Meeker in every single reference to class depictions. Hence, my attempt to state that from here on out let's take it as a given that Meeker is the straw-man villain of the piece. Obviously, I was wrong: I guess I
do have to keep making that Meeker caveat every single time I discuss this matter. Otherwise this leads to yet another needless exchange pointing out I had failed to note him
that time. So I guess I will have to keep repeating the point over and over and over.
Anyway, Meeker isn't in the film to "demonstrate" that First had its villains. He's there to provide a dramatic foil. As you've repeatedly said, this movie's many plot contrivances and falsifications are all done in the name of "practicality", of an easier narrative flow. I don't agree that that was the motive (or certainly the sole motive), but to your point, if your take is correct, then making a First Class passenger the villain is nothing more than another example of this "practical" approach. After all, as you point out, the film mostly takes place among First Class passengers. Given this fact it would have been virtually impossible to have dredged up a character from another class to act the part. And in fact, by showing us this one "rotten apple", the script emphasizes its core [sic] point that the other folks in First were all good, nice, selfless people, noble and without selfishness or bias. Meeker is a useful foil all around.
Charles Brackett was a deeply conservative and active Republican. This is one reason why there was always tension between him and Billy Wilder, who was a liberal Democrat. The differences between them made for a highly creative partnership but ultimately Brackett, a refined man who didn't like depicting the shadier side of real life (the reason he refused to join Wilder in making
Double Indemnity) was simply too un-adventurous and un-daring for Wilder's more risqué and cynical tastes. I once told an audience that where Brackett was urbane, Wilder was urban, with a much more worldly, cosmopolitan (or European) view of things than the native-born Brackett. (Having your entire family gassed by the Nazis is also apt to make one cynical about the human condition.) Brackett was comfortable among the upper classes, was one of them and shared their social and economic values, and always depicted them in a favorable light, or at worst, like Sturges, as straying but redeemed at the end. Meeker was a rare exception and as a straw man was there as much to emphasize how out of step he is with "real" rich folks as to provide an easy villain. (Though Cal in '97 made Meeker seem like a model of complexity!)
Titanic was a perfect venue for Brackett to show his class prejudices. It wasn't only left-wing writers who used films for their own purposes.
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Eric-62-2
10 years ago
But there is a problem in some depictions, notably the lie that crew members tried to do everything they could to help steerage but that they "simply will not understand the danger", which is a slander against Third and also a disgusting inversion of what actually happened.
We're still apart on this Hob. What is your take on the ANTR "chop chop" and "hooligans" sequences? If anything, those would according to the philosophy you're arguing be worse depictions of steerage than what this film did. The former we've got a language barrier, the latter we've got people who don't care and would rather go back to sleep.
the film conveys the notion that First Class were all a bunch of honorable reg'lar folks (the clownishly villainous character of Meeker excepted) with no airs or prejudices
No airs or prejudices? Clifton Webb was doing a good job of demonstrating otherwise up to the time of the sinking with his airs and prejudices of a distinct kind as was Audrey Dalton. Were we supposed to see loaded lines given to secondary characters like Astor, Guggenheim etc. in order to properly validate this point? This again is coming off as a severe case of overreaction to me. We've got one disreputable figure in Meeker, who behaves worse than any one else in the film, we've got Webb, the victim of his own self-destructive prejudices who has also been putting similar attitudes inside his daughter as well up to this voyage. That's more than enough to show First as filled with people who have demonstrated that their social standing has not left them from the affliction of original sin. If Meeker only represents a dramatic foil and thus means he can easily be eliminated from the discussion, then I'm afraid consistency requires the same with the role steerage serves in this story. Otherwise, it amounts to a selective presentation of the evidence and that's not how the film can be viewed if you're going to read this seemingly sinister intent on the part of the screenwriter. We're talking ultimately about something that takes up an equal if not less amount of screen time than Meeker, so that means we have to give them equal weight or else there's no point in having a further discussion on the matter. If Meeker is but a mere straw man to show the ignobility of what the First Class "code" is not supposed to be like, then alas, steerage has to be seen in the context of just the straw man device needed for the film's leading man to receive his redemptive act in which anything else becomes a narrative distraction of the first order and results in an inferior film with poor pacing.
I note that Brackett and the entire "Titanic" writing team also that same year gave us the script for "Niagara" which to me always stood out as the film that showed the superiority of middle class Jean Peters to evil Marilyn Monroe! :)
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