Titanic

Plot synopsis:
In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team aboard the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh search the wreck of RMS Titanic for a necklace with a rare diamond, the Heart of the Ocean. They recover a safe containing a drawing of a young woman wearing only the necklace dated April 14, 1912, the day the ship struck the iceberg. Rose Dawson Calvert, the woman in the drawing, is brought aboard Keldysh and tells Lovett of her experiences aboard Titanic.
In 1912 Southampton, 17-year-old first-class passenger Rose DeWitt Bukater, her fiancé Cal Hockley, and her mother Ruth board the luxurious Titanic. Ruth emphasizes that Rose's marriage will resolve their family's financial problems and retain their high-class persona. Distraught over the engagement, Rose considers suicide by jumping from the stern; Jack Dawson, a penniless artist, intervenes and discourages her. Discovered with Jack, Rose tells a concerned Cal that she was peering over the edge and Jack saved her from falling. When Cal becomes indifferent, she suggests to him that Jack deserves a reward. He invites Jack to dine with them in first class the following night. Jack and Rose develop a tentative friendship, despite Cal and Ruth being wary of him. Following dinner, Rose secretly joins Jack at a party in third class.
Aware of Cal and Ruth's disapproval, Rose rebuffs Jack's advances, but realizes she prefers him over Cal. After rendezvousing on the bow at sunset, Rose takes Jack to her state room; at her request, Jack sketches Rose posing nude wearing Cal's engagement present, the Heart of the Ocean necklace. They evade Cal's bodyguard and have sex in an automobile inside the cargo hold. On the forward deck, they witness a collision with an iceberg and overhear the officers and designer discussing its seriousness.
Cal discovers Jack's sketch of Rose and an insulting note from her in his safe along with the necklace. When Jack and Rose attempt to inform Cal of the collision, he has his bodyguard slip the necklace into Jack's pocket and accuses him of theft. Jack is arrested, taken to the master-at-arms' office, and handcuffed to a pipe. Cal puts the necklace in his own coat pocket.
With the ship sinking, Rose flees Cal and her mother, who has boarded a lifeboat, and frees Jack. On the boat deck, Cal and Jack encourage her to board a lifeboat; Cal claims he can get himself and Jack off safely. After Rose boards one, Cal tells Jack the arrangement is only for himself. As her boat lowers, Rose decides that she cannot leave Jack and jumps back on board. Cal takes his bodyguard's pistol and chases Rose and Jack into the flooding first-class dining saloon. After using up his ammunition, Cal realizes he gave his coat and consequently the necklace to Rose. He later boards a collapsible lifeboat by carrying a lost child.
After braving several obstacles, Jack and Rose return to the boat deck. The lifeboats have departed and passengers are falling to their deaths as the stern rises out of the water. The ship breaks in half, lifting the stern into the air. Jack and Rose ride it into the ocean and he helps her onto a wooden panel only buoyant enough for one person. He assures her that she will die an old woman, warm in her bed. Jack dies of hypothermia but Rose is saved.
With Rose hiding from Cal en route, the RMS Carpathia takes the survivors to New York City where Rose gives her name as Rose Dawson. She later finds out Cal committed suicide after losing all his money in the 1929 Wall Street crash.
Back in the present, Lovett decides to abandon his search after hearing Rose's story. Alone on the stern of Keldysh, Rose takes out the Heart of the Ocean — in her possession all along — and drops it into the sea over the wreck site. While she is seemingly asleep or has died in her bed, photos on her dresser depict a life of freedom and adventure inspired by the life she wanted to live with Jack. A young Rose reunites with Jack at the Titanic's Grand Staircase, applauded by those who died.

Tags: intrigue

Review:
Really exiting is the film from collision till sinking, i.e. when the real drama emerges and the splendid special effects do their jobs; not one aspect of the outlined drama is forgotten, it is fast-paced and very well directed.Of the cast it is Sybille Schmitz who excels, while other members also do a very good job; they must have done so otherwise the whole propaganda aspect would not have come across.
It is often said that he speaks his lines as a Wehrmacht officer on duty, but for me his machine gun like delivered lines sound more like the staccato of the regular commentator of the Deutsche Wochenschau (compare this, when you have the possibility).Though this film is obviously anti-British, it is rather anti English capitalist establishment and their decadence than anti-British per se *; an anti-capitalism not so much based on (to generalize) theoretical arguments, but (as most of fascist ideas) on the petty bourgeois middle class mentality and jealousy towards others who are better off.
It has been ripped off at least twice, first in 1958 for A Night to Remember (a story widely known) and recently by James Cameron who for his Titanic but boring endeavour stole quite some story ideas and complete scenes; check this when you have the opportunity.It is often written that this film was not released in Germany cause of the death (suicide, murder?) of its first director Selpin.
That's what happened to co-director Herbert Selpin in 1942 before the release of Germany's film contribution to the Titanic saga.
The retrospective made many think about the complexity of life in 1933-1945 Germany.One of the films I saw was the 1943 "Titanic" which had a small premiere followed by an order from Goebbels pulling the movie.
After she goes down, what else is there really to say?There are some interesting special features on the disc including an early commercial short made by the White Star Line showing the amenities of RMS Olympic, another luxury liner built before Titanic (technically, Olympic wasn't a sister ship of its more famous and briefly triumphant successor but the differences aren't important).This is an important release for Titanic buffs but also for those interested in film-making in Nazi Germany.
In fact, it's very surprising that the German film industry was able to mount such a first class production as this in the midst of the war.Which brings me around to the propaganda aspect of the film: to my mind it's been very much over stated in accounts on the film that I've read.
And while it is true that Bruce Ismay is turned into a first class villain, driving his ship without regard for safety straight into the iceberg -- it's also been that way in every other Titanic film in which he's been portrayed (for example, the recent TV mini-series TITANIC -- which shows Ismay down in the boiler room screaming at the stokers to make the ship go faster -- like that really happened!).
And if the film portrays the rich millionaires like John Jacob Astor as people who will use money, class, and power to achieve anything -- well, it's no worse than some of the stories -- printed amid all the bravery and self-sacrifice slop -- that appeared in 1912 newspapers.
Remember, after the disaster Ismay and the White Star Line were acquitted, people were led to believe all the First Class men died bravely, Captain Smith was blamed for everything, and the poor souls who lost everything when the ship went down never got a penny in restitution.
Thus, in the end, considering all the un-truths and legends that have sprung up around the Titanic story, I believe this film plays a lot less like a Nazi film and more like an anti-capitalist one.
This German Titanic of a film is a definite "must" see for anyone interested in the fascinating and tragic story.
There are also several other story lines running through this film, including a healthy dose of romance, so don't think its all business.While some of the interior model shots of the sinking are obviously models, the scenes of panic and the real human drama makes this a film to watch.
Frankly There is so much to discuss that I'm having a hard time keeping this entry brief.If you love film, if you love Titanic stories, if you love seeing something different then see this movie.7 out of 10, but you'll be talking about so much more than most other movies you've seen in years..
So along with the usual drama of love and chivalry and overconfidence, there is a story of stock trading and of racing the ship at top speed in order to break the record and raise the company's value per share.All of which isn't totally improbable, and as a weird Nazi view of the world it's pretty fascinating.
The interpersonal acting is uneven and a bit stiff going, usually, with some caricaturing used as a way to avoid character development.If you want a classic older Titanic film for the pure drama of the disaster, I suggest the 1958 A Night to Remember (a British production) over the American 1953 Titanic which has star power but is boring by comparison.
Filmed during the dark days of WWII, this German effort lacks none of the luster or acting quality of important cinema produced under less stressful conditions.The film shows some obvious political propaganda, aimed at pointing out the "greed and ruthlessness" of British stock market speculators.
At the same time it has to be admitted that it's a BIG improvement over the 1950s American version with Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb, basically a soap opera with a tacked-on ship sinking.Is there any propaganda value in the film?
A German officer aboard repeatedly clashes with Ismay, President of the White Star Lines, over the heedless speed at which the ship is traveling.
Despite the fairly obvious pro-German edge on it, and no matter what the politics behind it stand for - there is probably some truth in the depiction of the English, and that is something that is worth sitting through Nazi propaganda for..
In this spectacular depiction of the TITANIC's disastrous voyage , the stories of many passengers are told, including the British shipowner Ismael, whose greed is responsible for the disaster, and the ship's first officer  a fictive upright German  who tries to forestall it.Scenes of the sinking were used uncredited in the 1958 British film `A Night to Remember'.
Directed by Herbert Selpin - who shortly after died in a Nazi prison  this film features a strong cast an some impressive visual effects.After seeing this film, Propaganda Minister Goebbles thought the scenes of mass panic were not appropriate viewing for Germans who were then being subjected to British bombing.
The "Titanic" disaster movie sails again; and, this time, it's a German World War II propaganda film.
While the shot of the Titanic (using a model) was incredibly sloppily done (with VERY fuzzy camera-work to try to hide that it was a model), the rest of the film looks pretty opulent and the acting was very convincing considering it was made in 1943-- as things were turning VERY bad for the Germans.
I don't mind movies changing history, or taking various different variations on a story but this movie is nothing more but a piece of Nazi propaganda, used to especially make the English look bad this time.
The did the story in such a way that it seemed as if the greed and lust for money was the reason for the Titanic to sink.But of course this angle could had also been taken years later, in basically every other Titanic, so I'll judge this movie as a movie, rather than a propaganda piece.At this point, I have seen every relevant Titanic movie.
Once one gets past the oddity factor of having a German hero and hearing these "Britons" talking in German, the end result is a very interesting version of the Titanic disaster: my rating veered between ***1/2 and *** all the way through the film and, though it definitely has its faults, I decided to go with the higher rating because of its undeniable artistic qualities – not to mention the singular and decidedly fresh viewpoint offered for this oft-filmed ship-set drama.The characterizations offer a microcosmic dog-eat-dog world in which various financiers (and other upper-crust members of British society) teeter on the edge of bankruptcy and are further tensed up by petty jealousies, a theft of jewelry and, finally, the sinking of the ship itself; the stock market element (a major plot point) recalls another disaster film, THE END OF THE WORLD (1916), which I've just watched.
Still, the most interesting character is perhaps the female lead played by the beautiful and tragic Sybille Schmitz – she had appeared in Carl Dreyer's VAMPYR (1931), and her life story would eventually be fictionalized in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's VERONIKA VOSS (1982).To get now to the cons I mentioned earlier: the ship only sinks at the very last minute (although, while one shouldn't expect much spectacle, the special effects are very well handled for the period) and the courtroom epilogue is somewhat anti-climactic as it reveals that many of the despicable protagonists survived the tragedy (which was perhaps a mistake).
Ironically, while the film was intended by the Nazi regime as anti-British propaganda, TITANIC was eventually banned in its native country because of the intensity of its scenes of panic and terror!.
The torpedoed liner went under in less than half an hour, and "Titanic"'s depiction of lifeboats falling from the davits to spill people into the water or swamping from being piled high with frantic swimmers once at sea again looks more like a scene from a "Lusitania" film.
The story of this film project is almost as interesting as the story of the Titanic itself.At the height of the war, Goebbels started planning a massive movie spectacular that would present the Titanic story as a parable of Anglo-American capitalist greed, with a fictitious German officer heroically battling the cynical boardroom villains, out to secure the Blue Riband at any cost, to save their shipping line from bankruptcy.
The film would only come to light many years later, as a historical curio.As this version was pure propaganda, we get all the Titanic clichés we expect (before they became clichés), with heavy emphasis on fine dining in gorgeous evening dress with a grand orchestra, while the freezing water pours into the engine-room and then rises steadily into the cabins.
Aside from the mind-boggling incongruity of it being made in war-time Nazi Germany, this movie is a jumble of gross caricatures tied together loosely with idiotic story lines.The "English" (and John Jacob Astor)are money-grubbing financial types.
Titanic (1943) *** (out of 4) Very interesting and highly entertaining version of the disaster told through the eyes of a German director and cast.
However, it is influential in the continuing "Titanic" pantheon and merits a viewing by students of the tragedy.First, yes, this was made by Nazi Germany mid-way through World War II, and was designed to make the English (or more accurately, Imperialistic Capitalism) look bad.
The women in the film - and they are almost all quite stunning - take offense at this attitude in their men from time to time, but the real hero is a fictional, moralistic (ha!) German officer who has all the benefit of hindsight but a complete inability to do anything to avert the catastrophe.Scenes from this film were stolen in most later versions - apparently all the people in the lower decks do in these Titanic films is gather 'round and watch one of their members dance or play an instrument - and the similarities to James Cameron's 1997 version are inescapable (e.g., the blue diamond heist, the lifeboat farewell scene, Captain Smith left alone on the bridge).
There are a few outstanding performances by the women, Sybill Schmitz shining in particular as a weird sort of German stand-in for the famous Molly Brown, but the male leads are almost all caricatures (Astor is portrayed as a financial thug still making deals as the ship sinks, Captain Smith is a cipher controlled by Plutocrat owner Bruce Ismay, and so forth).Speaking of Ismay, he is portrayed as the arch-villain of the tragedy, orchestrating an attempt to break the speed record to New York in order to support his company's stock value (it wasn't publicly traded, so this was completely fictitious).
Not only is the film of historical importance as a pluperfect example of Nazi agitprop, the backstory's as tragic as the events unfolding on screen:Third Reich Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels heartily endorsed the project because he thought the tragic tale was "a classic case of British incompetency" but, ironically, after its completion he banned the film in Germany, thinking the scenes of panic and despair hit too close to home for a beleaguered populace in a time of heavy Allied bombing.
The RAF commanders ordering the strike reportedly thought that the ships carried escaping SS officers." More than 5,000 lost their lives that night (five times Titanic's death toll and the second worst maritime disaster in history) and it's said that survivors in the water were picked off by Nazi snipers as they tried to swim ashore.
The protagonist of the film is Hans Nielsen, a fictional (I assume) German first officer who insists to the head of the White Star Line company that the Titanic is not ready, as well as reminding him and his captain that they are moving too fast through iceberg-infested waters.
I think this version is interesting and had some good scenes – the lowering of a lifeboat from the passenger point-of-view – as well as telling a complete story as it includes the inquest at the end.
This version of Titanic is a propaganda movie created under the swastika during the Third Reich era in Nazi Germany.
On the side, the courageous Germans on the sinking ship try to save the passengers and are not able to be corrupted and controlled by shareholders, thieves and rich women.Apart of some wrong historical facts and the negative description of British and American values, the movie is though rather an entertainment movie.
BACKGROUND: "Titanic" was a pet project of Nazi Germany's evil propaganda minister, Dr. Goebbels.
Direction was entrusted to Herbert Selpin who had successfully handled movie versions of other maritime disasters, despite the fact that Goebbels was well aware that Selpin had little love for the Nazi regime.
it was just kind of fun to see what a German movie about English speaking characters sounds like.I LIKED IT WAY BETTER THAN the 97 version with the ridiculous running around shooting while the ship is sinking over problems domestic and I loved when the cable channel introduced this film saying "nobody was king of the world in this version." at the same time this version delivered happy endings for some of the little lambs...instead of the drawn out tragedy of "my heart will go on and I will give the blue diamond (as in the almonds?) a dramatic trajectory..." cornball almond joy saccharine schmalz Hollywood poo.Well, I prefer, actually, being pandered to with a few people living happily ever after.
This 1943 German version of the story of the sinking of the Titanic is pure German propaganda.
While remarkable that a film such as this could be produced while Germany was at war, the film is full of historical inaccuracies, and many real life people had their roles in the sinking fictionalized.In the film the British and the wealthy are the villains, not the iceberg.
In the film Astor is attempting to buy the majority of the stocks of the White Star Line so that by the time the ship reached NY he will own not just Titanic, but the entire shipping line.The heroes of the film are, SURPRISE, all German.
The fictional second officer in command Peterson who all along warned the owner and the captain that there was ice ahead, and a wealthy Baltic woman, one of the thought to be villains of the film, who comes around at the end and tries to save some people.
The film portrays the crew and wealthy passengers of the Titanic, as well as the chairmen and managing directors of the White Star Line, as being slimy and despicable, concerned only with winning awards, profit, setting records and making money.
Director Herbert Selpin was himself executed for expressing anti military sentiments.Unlike the German version of the tale, the 1953 "Titanic" has little to offer modern audiences.
Some snippets of steerage life are shown with a remarkable scene involving a rather sensual Gypsy dancer - hey weren't the Nazis trying to wipe them out too?The special effects were reasonably decent and thanks to German war policy the filmmakers had their pick of idled German ocean liners using the ill-fated Cap Arcona - whose sinking a couple years later would kill over three times as many people as died on Titanic.
"Titanic" is a German 1943 film, so this one is almost 75 years old.
The German government, more precisely the minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels approves a movie that features social injustice, denounce wrongdoings by a major institution (White Star Line and its owner) which always claimed to be flawless, we build a ship that doesn't sink, he approved such project when it was written and then when it was made yet later the Nazi arrested and killed the movie's director because they noticed the parallel made with the nation who was killing millions.
What draws attention in this version is the sole fact of this being a story focused on the human error brought by the arrogant White Star Line president, Mr. Ismay and his way to rush the ship to New York in order to profit with the company's actions.