Review of the Movie: Titanic

by William H. Garzke, Jr.

The loss of the Titanic was one of the worst maritime tragedies of the twentieth century. To understand what ensued in that disaster, many books, movies, short stories, and television documentaries have been authored to explain what befell the most luxurious, safest, and largest vessel of her time. The movie, "Titanic" is the latest of many of these to describe this disaster. It was an expensive attempt using an awesome and expensive recreation of this famous ocean liner that was 90% scale.

The director, James Cameron, has endeavored to create an elaborate historical fictional re-enactment of the brief and tragic maiden voyage of the Titanic. The movie is long, very detailed in part, and contains a shipboard romance that ends with the tragic loss of the ship. It has very gripping moments, particularly in the flooding scenes when the main characters of the film are trapped below decks. The greatest recreations of this movie are these scenes that capture the sheer terror when people try to escape a sinking ship.

The film is not entirely accurate from a historical point of view and does not capture all the significant events of this liner's brief and tragic career. The essence of the story, however, is told. Two examples of events not described in the film are the coal fire and the events that occurred just after the ship left her quay in Southampton. Nonetheless, there is much packed into this gripping three-hour drama. When the Titanic got underway on April 10, 1912 amid much splendor, a mishap almost took place. This great ship narrowly missed colliding with the liner New York. The wash from the Titanic's three large propellers put great tension on the restraining lines of this smaller ship and they failed, causing the smaller ship to move towards the Titanic. Quick action by attending tugs to the Titanic prevented an embarrassing encounter between the two vessels. As the large and luxurious new ship majestically headed towards Cherbourg, her next port of call, her maiden voyage was to become a most memorable and tragic event in maritime history.

In my review of this film, I am going to critique the major technical inaccuracies. Unfortunately, there are parts of Cameron's Titanic movie that are slightly flawed in a technical sense. The greatest inaccuracies are the scenes depicting the ship's breakup. Mr. Cameron and his consultants did not take into consideration the latest plausible findings of how this ship broke apart near the surface. The ship's failure depicted in the film is not the same as the highly touted Discovery Channel's detailed television documentary, "Titanic: An Anatomy of a Disaster". However, it should be noted in Mr. Cameron's defense, that he has publicly stated that it was not his intention to have his movie be an historical documentary. Instead, the main theme of his picture was to be the events surrounding a shipboard romance of his two principal characters set in a scene of an historical tragedy. Nevertheless, the public comes away from this film with the idea that Titanic broke in two pieces at the surface and that the stern took a vertical position to sink. These concepts are not true.

Detailed research done by the Marine Forensic Panel of six technical societies as well as John Bedford and Chris Hackett of Harland and Wolff, builders of the ship, has shown that the Titanic sank under much different circumstances. This research work has shown that the ship chaotically fractured at the surface with her shell plating fracturing into myriads of small and large chunks with the decks failing like silly putty. That work has been captured in Discovery Channel production mentioned previously. It shows the inner bottom structure, though weakened by the forces causing the breakup, holding the bow and stern sections together as the ship begins its plunge to the bottom. The bow was almost completely filled with water to pull the stern under before the stern section could be completely filled in a manner that would not cause damage from water pressure to its structure. However, measures were already undertaken by the crew to make stern compartments as tight as possible to prevent their flooding. When the bow pulled the stern under the water surface, it was done at a speed that did not allow for the equalization of pressure. This caused implosions to occur in the stern section at different depths. This has been confirmed by an examination of the stern wreck as well as the testimony of several survivors who heard rumblings or explosions and saw upwelling of water after the stern disappeared below the water surface. During these implosions, the stern separated from the bow and inner bottom section. The bow glided to the bottom and plowed up sediments as it swept along the seabed, before coming to an abrupt halt.

In hitting the bottom, the inner bottom section broke free and burrowed its way upside down into the sediments, a few hundred yards from the aft end of the bow section. The stern, on the other hand, had a free fall, perhaps even tumbling before the stern end took the lead in its mad rush to the bottom. Upon impact, the stern end was buried in the sediments and the forward portions of the stern slammed down hard causing a shock response that led to further damage of weakened structure from the plunge.

The greatest inaccuracy in the movie is the depiction of the sinking of the stern that has been shown breaking free and rising to an angle of almost ninety degrees before its final plunge. People are shown holding onto anything they could grab for the elevator ride down to the water surface. Some survivors testified to a large angle, but computations have shown that the sinking angle was never more than 20 degrees. Even at such an angle, walking on a listing or trimming ship is extremely difficult. We know that the bow trim was not as great as demonstrated in the movie from a visual inspection of Boiler Room No. 2. This space was accessible from the aft end of the bow wreck during the August 1996 scientific expedition. Naval Architect Edward Wilding of Harland & Wolff testified to investigators at the 1915 liability hearings in New York that the boilers would become unseated if the ship reached an angle of 35 degrees. This is the same man who at the 1912 British inquest into the disaster testified that the area of flooding from iceberg damage was no more than 12 square feet. Subsequent studies by John Bedford and Chris Hackett of that same shipbuilder have verified his conclusions on the amount of damaged area from the iceberg collision using modern day computer techniques. This was also verified by Paul Matthias during the 1996 expedition by using sonar imaging to reveal six small slits in the starboard side of the ship that we now believe to be the result of damage to riveted seams. The fact that these boilers are in place give credence to the fact that none of the boilers in Boiler Room Nos. 2-6 were unseated from their foundations. Thus, the stories of boilers crashing through the ship are false. However, due to the buckling on the inner bottom structure in Boiler Room No. 1, those boilers did come free and plunged to the bottom when the ship broke apart at the surface or in its plunge to the seabed. Simple trigonometry shows that at an angle of 17 degrees, that we now believe the ship was at before she broke apart, the stern will rise out of the water some 50-60 feet. This distance from the perspective of survivors in the water gives the illusion of a much greater angle. Ships can sink at angles larger than 20 degrees, but the evidence in the bow wreck does not support this.

The movie's depiction of the reversing of the two reciprocating steam engines was oversimplified. Those who have written about this disaster are not familiar with the operation of those two large engines that are as high as four story buildings. Some authors and the movie have depicted these engines going from full ahead to full reverse. This is not correct. In order to place these very large steam reciprocating engines into reverse, the steam flow to the uni-directional steam turbine has to be shut down. Steam has to be redirected to condensers. This entire operation takes more than 30 seconds to accomplish. This is more time from iceberg sighting to impact. The ship was slowing down by the port turn to avoid the iceberg and its eventual encounter with ice. The engines were finally in reverse when the ship was cleared of the iceberg. However, the aftermath of the "Full Astern" maneuver was seen in the boiler rooms for dramatic effect in the movie. There, the crews began to close the dampers to the boilers that would reduce the amount of steam being fed to the engines. This true fact can be gleaned from the testimony of Frederick Barrett, one of the leading fireman whose testimony on the iceberg damage has been confirmed from sonar imaging and examination of the hull outside of Boiler Room No. 6. His testimony has been found to be some of the most credible of all the survivors.

The movie, `Titanic," is good historical fiction. The love story, however, is shown as a present-day "show everything" romance that seems incongruous with the Edwardian backdrop. The steamy romantic interlude in the 25-hp Renault automobile in a cargo hold is pure Hollywood artistic license. The actual car was crated. Furthermore, the couple's access from the boiler room to the cargo hold is not possible as there was a enclosed firemen's passage through those holds without access into those spaces. The scenes of the two lovers at the prow with their arms extended is again romantic license as no passenger was allowed in that section of the ship for safety reasons. Unfortunately some of the exotic detail that was used to help create this film was not given more time in the film. Certainly the great recreation of the grand staircase was a centerpiece of the drama, but the grandeur of some of the other public spaces and the first class staterooms were not. Much of this was either not photographed or wound up on the cutting room floor. Nevertheless, the special effects and the recreations within and outside the ship are outstanding and deserving of Academy Awards. Of particular mention are the recreation of the ship at sea, including Titanic's last sunset. The picture is good entertainment and is a must for those interested in this great ship.