Netflix Comes Through: Titanic the Movie Edition

Unless this is a cruel April Fool's joke, Netflix has returned Titanic to its line up.  The time couldn't be better.  As I wrote two days ago, I recently attended a lavish recreation of the last first class dinner on the Titanic.

The night before the dinner, we had all sat down to watch Titanic the movie,  If you are my age (30) you probably remember it coming out in middle school.  You probably saw it once, or twice, or if you're like my dad, 12 times (no joke).  For all the "I'm the king of the world!" silliness, it's actually a pretty good movie.  Like I said earlier, the juxtaposition of all those leaders of industry, luxuriously sailing on their unsinkable ship, sinking into the ocean is very compelling.

I noticed another thing watching the movie: the Part.  Worn by the insufferable aristocrat Billy Zane:

"Isn't it beautiful Rose?  It's as if Moses himself parted it."

And the charming rapscallion Leonardo Dicaprio:

"I'm too free spirited cut my hair"

The Part definitely was in style in the late 90's.  I wore it myself, though I never remember any girls like Kate Winslet being attracted to it.

My favorite scene, without a doubt, is when the guy sees the iceberg that will doom the ship and yells, "Iceberg!  Right ahead!" in this awesome British accent.  I've tried recreating that accent thousands of times without success.  To get to that scene, you have to suffer through most of the Jack and Rose romance.  And our DVD froze right after the infamous "Let me take off my clothes so you can draw me" scene, and right before the "Lets fog up the windows in the backseat of a car" scene.  Both of those scenes, incidentally, had a profound impact on my understanding of human sexuality in middle school.

Alas, the DVD froze.  I never got to hear the guy yell "Iceberg!  Right ahead!" so I had to say it out loud a half dozen times and then Youtube it a half dozen more.  So thanks Netflix, for putting Titanic back online.

Would You Rather: Titanic Edition

I just returned from the Titanic Dinner, an epic recreation of the first class meal served on the night the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and went down.  That 13 course dinner in-and-of-itself deserves a blog post, but I don't believe my palette is so well defined as to do it justice.  If I may sum up: I ate a lot, and had a great time.

Part of the fun is museum that accompanies the dinner.  The story of the Titanic resonates, even without Jack and Rose.  That ship epitomized an age of wealth and optimism.  It embodied the idea that man could control and shape their own destiny, that the old rules didn't apply.  Hence: the unsinkable ship.

Ultimately though, its a story of man's limitations and mortality, and a warning against hubris. (Spoilers ahead)   Of course, the Titanic did sink.  And while a million fascinating stories survive from that fateful night, the tale of Bruce Ismay fascinates me.

A man of impeccable mustache

Bruce was the managing director of the White Star Line.  He inherited his daddy's company, and by all accounts did quite well.  The Titanic was his dream child, a ship of unparallelled size and luxury that would dwarf the Lusitania and Mauretania of the rival Cunard Line to shame.  Indeed, many witnesses recount him urging the Titanic's captain to increase his speed, in hopes of notching a record trans-Atlantic crossing time.

When the Titanic hit that iceberg, Bruce encountered a difficult dilemma.  You're a rich gentleman in the prime of your life.  There aren't enough lifeboats for everybody.  What do you do?

Use your status and power to secure yourself a seat, knowing you'll forever be called a coward?

Or perish, sacrificing your life that women and children might live, and burnish your legacy for all eternity?

Some, like billionare Benjamin Guggenheim handled death with surprising grace.  Guggenheim put on his formal dinner attire to meet death like a gentleman, saying "No woman shall be left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward."

Same goes for Isidor Straus, of Macy's Department store fame.  When offered a seat on a lifeboat next to his wife, he firmly refused.  His wife then refused her seat saying "as we lived, so we will die, together."

John Jacob Astor, the richest man on board, asked for a seat and was refused.

And Bruce?  Bruce of the too-few-lifeboats and the full-speed-ahead-damn-the-icebergs?  Bruce got in.a lifeboat, the highest ranking White Star official to survive.  Some say he helped load women for an hour before taking a seat.  Some say he dressed like a woman to secure himself a seat.  The truth is likely in between.  What is for certain is this: Bruce Ismay became a villain in the American and British press.

They labelled him a coward.  They called him a brute.  His suffered cartoons and poetry, editorials and articles, all mocking his manhood.  And ridiculed and ashamed, he lived 25 years longer than all the other men I mentioned, dying finally in 1937.

So if I could ask any of those dead men anything, I'd ask, would you want to trade places with one another?  Would Ben Guggenheim trade places with Bruce Ismay?  Would Bruce trade places with Ben?

If we all must die, should one not cling to desperately to life and choose to die well?  If life is short and finite, does how people remember us after we're gone matter?  Would you pay for 25 years more of life with shame and ridicule worldwide?