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T H I S+W E E K Mondo Weirdo:
> Praise the Titanic!
Above the volcano
D E P A R T M E N T S The Surreal Gourmet
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Praise the Titanic! page 2 I L L U S T R A T I O N B Y the rich chowder of humans on the Queen gets even richer as the weekend
wears on and hundreds of bewildered, spandex-upholstered tourists, a
visiting group of students from the Ventura Christian High School,
attendees of the Loyola Marymount Ignatians' formal ball and at least
two weddings are added to the mix. Wherever I go, I come across small
groups of big men in women's clothing, tourists gaping and whispering,
teenagers tittering and snorting and serious looking members of the THS
who are virtually oblivious to anything that isn't related to the long-gone ship and its ghosts.
While the THS convention includes numerous scheduled talks, video
showings, a cocktail party, a Grand Banquet (period dress encouraged)
and a roomful of on-sale books and memorabilia, the theme of this year's
get-together -- besides the tragedy itself -- is James Cameron's new
movie, "Titanic," which is now in post-production and which
has attracted a teensy bit of controversy, partly due to a release date
that keeps disappearing beyond the horizon like a ship heading off into
a frigid sea, partly because Cameron's known as a temperamental
perfectionist -- a "rivet counter," as the Titaniacs say -- and partly
because it may be the most expensive movie ever made.
If you take the highest budget figure that's been suggested for the
Twentieth Century Fox/Paramount co-production -- $200 million -- and add
to it the $85 million that recent reports say could be spent on carrying
costs, prints and marketing for the leviathan cinematic divertissement,
you arrive at a figure that is 40 times what it cost the White Star Line
to build the real Titanic (about $7 million in 1912) and more than
seven times what poor Michael Cimino spent on his roundly reviled and
financially disastrous 1980 movie "Heaven's Gate" (reportedly $40
million, give or take a couple mil).
But the THS, a passionate group of true believers if there ever was one,
and the self-appointed guardians of what they see as a massive
sarcophagus that should be left at eternal rest 12,500 feet beneath the
Atlantic, are also eternal optimists. They talk little during the
convention about the gargantuan budget of Cameron's corpulent oceanic
opus and speak hopefully about the new movie. Mostly.
Ed Kamuda, who founded the THS in 1963, has a bit part in the film: "I
don't like the idea of a shoot-out on the first class stairway, and
stuff like that," he remarks. "But when you look around (the set) and
see the professionalism, and see that the extras love it -- they want to
do a good job -- you swallow your doubt. I just hope it doesn't get
washed under all the other extravaganzas -- the flood, the volcano. I'm
very anxious to see it. I saw the preview the other night. I almost
started to cry. I know it's going to be a good film, despite what
everybody else might say about it."
When it comes to the architectural accuracy of the ship Cameron created
for his movie, Kamuda's optimism is well-placed. The 775-foot model that
was built on the shore near Rosarita Beach, Mexico, is nearly as big as
the original (882.5 feet), and the elaborate interior details have been
precisely duplicated right down to the gilt scrollwork on the
balustrades, the chandeliers and the first-class dining room chairs,
all of which were custom made to match the ones used on the Titanic.
Even the china in the film was specially manufactured to resemble the
real ship's. And a second scale model, 44 feet long and accurate to
within 1/16th of an inch, is nearly as detailed. Such meticulous
attention to minutiae is impressive, if a bit wacky. It also explains how
you get a film budget up to the $200 million mark (though Kevin
Costner's "Waterworld" came within splashing distance of that amount and
all he had to show for it was a rusty bargeful of bad sculpture, a
profoundly lame-brained drama and a couple of close-ups of Jeanne
Tripplehorn's lips that must have had Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler
weeping with envy).
One afternoon I ask Kamuda what first sparked his interest in the
Titanic. "When I was in junior high school in 1952," he tells me, "I
came across 'A Great Ship Goes Down' by a reporter named Falwell, a
foreign correspondent for the New York Times. It just captivated me.
The next year 'Titanic' with Clifton Webb came out in the theaters. I
worked in a movie house -- I was supposed to be selling candy at the
counter, but I was always looking at the movie. In high school I started
researching the Titanic and then, in 1958, the movie of 'A Night to
Remember' came along and that did it. I was hooked. And when I started
writing to survivors, that really got me."
But there seems to be more to it than that. The THS members are not
merely fascinated by the facts, circumstances and personalities related
to the disaster. They are enthralled (like the rest of us, only more so)
by the near mythological scope of the story. In our ongoing
love/hate/devotion/terror relationship to technology and its
increasingly epidemic-like possession of our lives, our planet and our
future, the iconic nature of the Titanic and its compelling legend
pushes all our buttons, or should I say microswitches? At a time when we
feel even more anxious about technology and its supposed promise than
people did 85 years ago, a cataclysmic failure of a vehicle as glorious
as the Titanic is just the sort of titillating nightmare that we can
neither bear to think about nor stop thinking about. The Titanic was,
after all, the great mothership, the monumental wonder of its time, a
technological cocoon that might have been spun from the imagination of
Jules Verne with architecture by Piranesi, and the sort of machine of
loving grace -- mega-guardian of humanity -- that was to be poetically
conjured by Richard Brautigan over a half century later.
In trying to explain the obsession, it's easy enough to evoke millennium
fever and its attendant "What's to become of us?" hand-wringing, or to
call the Titanic the Challenger shuttle or Flight 800 of its day, a
quintessential symbol of human folly, the inevitable result of mortals
playing god ("Calling it unsinkable flew in the face of God," one
survivor remarked). But for those who believe that God is man's greatest
creation, instead of vice versa, perhaps the story resonates for another
reason -- like it or not, it distills into the events of a few hours our
very own circumstances, and in the most poignant terms. We are alone on a rock in space in the middle of nowhere (or in a
sinking ship on an icy sea if you prefer).
We can't go back and we don't know what's ahead
and nothing can save us -- not love, not religion, not wealth, not charm,
not hope, not even the greatest gizmo of all time. Life, as some guru
said, is like going to sea in a leaky boat. And thus we are compelled to
listen and retell -- to "fabelize" -- any story that encapsulates
essential truth with the sort of dramatic sweep of the Titanic disaster.
On Friday night in the elevator to the main deck I'm standing next to a
6-foot-2, 240-pounder in a beaded, blue lace cocktail dress. An elderly
tourist glances in our direction and loudly asks, "Why do all these women
look like men?" To which his wife replies, "Shush, dear." I walk into
the Britannia Salon just as Ken Marschall (a gifted painter with a vast
knowledge of the Titanic, who served as a visual consultant on the
movie) is beginning his slide presentation. "I'm skating on thin ice
here," he announces. "I didn't have a permit to take photos on the set.
I had to sneak these."
Meanwhile, over at the IFGE convention they're featuring videos tonight,
including "Lips like Elvis" by Cherie "Duke" Bombardier -- "a rant about
love, life, polyester, being likened to the King, blurry gender, hair
pomade, and the lure of power and frailty of fame." There will also be a
film entitled "Deconstructing Daddy" and another interesting sounding
video called "Fun Fur."
Unfortunately I don't get to any of them because Marschall's talk goes
on for more than two hours. To the audible approval of the audience he
rhapsodizes about Cameron's religious commitment to reproducing the
Titanic in painstakingly faithful detail, right down to the "buff color
of the funnels and the dark green of the winches." To underscore
Cameron's commitment to the project, which even his detractors in the
press haven't questioned, Marschall tells about the film crew in Halifax
eating lobster chowder that was spiked with PCP by a disgruntled worker.
"As soon as Cameron knew he'd been dosed," Marschall recalls, "he went
over to the crew doctor and said, 'Give me something to make me
throw-up.' He didn't want to miss a single day of shooting!" As
Marschall continues with an exhaustive explanation of how the Titanic
broke in two at the surface (the four-story opening for the dramatic
forward grand staircase created a weak point in the superstructure), I
wander off down the hallway. Ahead of me, three weary IFGE members,
their heels slung over their shoulders, are also calling it a night.
By late Saturday afternoon, I've had about enough of the Titanic. I've
seen the eerie wreck footage taken by Dr. Robert Ballard, who discovered
the site in 1985; I've gawked at the scale models; avoided buying a
T-shirt, a mug or a cap; had Millvina Dean autograph my program; and
I've even dropped 60 bucks on "Titanic: An Illustrated History," a
handsome coffee-table book written by THS historian Don Lynch and
illustrated by Marschall. But I'm getting a little woozy from the
whole scene -- the long, musty-smelling corridors, the art deco
everything and the continual deluge of Titanic trivia combined with the
disorienting, albeit festive, presence of the IFGE constituency. I'm
ready for a drink, a double. Fortunately, the Grand Banquet begins at
6:30 in the Grand Salon. Coincidentally, the IFGE reception, "Personal
Servant Auction" and awards dinner is also being held tonight, in the
Queen's Salon.
As I arrive for the Titanic banquet, the situation in the foyer of the
Grand Salon makes it clear that some renegade THS member has finally
gone completely overboard with this whole authenticity thing. I can
handle the fact that many people are in turn-of-the-century costumes,
and the live ragtime music, selected from the White Star Line songbook,
nicely evokes the Titanic's brave musicians who came on board to bolster
spirits and played as the ship descended. But I question the taste of
whoever it was who arranged for an inch of water to cover the carpet at
the entrance to tonight's event. "Who thought this was a good idea?" I
ask a Queen Mary employee. "Busted water main," he says with a shrug.
"We're gettin' it cleaned up as fast as we can." I wade to the bar,
order a double martini with four olives, and find my table.
I'm seated with a couple, friends of Dean, who have come all the
way from Wales for the convention. The gentleman has a Vandyke beard
and is wearing a white tuxedo jacket. His wife is in a beaded black
gown. The young woman to my left is dressed in a gray Edwardian-era
dress with black velvet trim, which she had specially made. She's
carrying an ornate ebony cane with a sterling silver head and clutching
a keepsake -- a White Star Line passenger list from a 1931 Atlantic
crossing. Elsewhere there are men in naval officer uniforms and women in
the type of huge hats you'd expect to encounter on the head of the queen
mother at Ascot. One grand dame walks around dragging a 10-foot-long
purple feather boa. And a few tables away, Catherine Crosby is wearing
the same mink coat that kept her mother warm onboard the Titanic the
night of the disaster.
After dinner, Dean gives a funny, rambling talk about the odd
questions she gets from reporters. "A Hungarian journalist asked me what
I think about Africa," she says with astonishment. "'Well,' I told her,
'I haven't thought anything about Africa at all, but now that you
mention it, I think it's very serious!'"
Every now and then I hear a shout from the direction of the IFGE banquet
down in the Queen's Salon. The auction must be taking place. The idea is
that the bidders buy a personal servant to wait on them at dinner. Among
the servants being auctioned off are "GirlJordy," "Miss Angelika," "Miss
Sweet 16" and "The Dream Team: Tami K. and Miss Daddy Dumptruck." If the THS master of ceremonies, Lynch, weren't about to announce the
Titanic raffle winners, I might sneak over and put in a bid on "The
Dream Team." I'll bet Miss Daddy Dumptruck could find out what the hell
happened to my cheesecake with strawberry sauce that should have arrived
15 minutes ago.
Even though I spent 20 bucks on raffle tickets, I don't win the
lithograph of the Titanic, the Titanic film crew T-shirt, the film crew
coffee mug (inscribed "Titanic: Southampton 1912-Mexico 1997") or the
bottle of Belfast Special Dry Gin, featuring a color picture of the
Titanic's sister ship, Britannic. I'm somewhat placated, however, by the
story Lynch tells about visiting Dean at her home in
Southampton: "We showed up and she ushered us into her living room,"
Lynch says. "And you know Millvina is a very gracious lady -- she'd heard
that Americans like ice tea and it was a warm day, so she offered us
some. Only problem was we couldn't really get it cold. And if you've
ever met a Titanic survivor, you'll know why -- they're not real keen on
keeping ice cubes around."
Douglas Cruickshank's last article for Salon was "Dining in Captivity." Read a review of "Last Dinner on the Titanic", a cookbook collection of recipes from the ocean liner's ill-fated journey. |
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