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ast Sunday evening I took a much- needed break from the unending round of dinner parties — this is Gstaad in February, and the place resembles the American Embassy in Saigon circa 1975 — in order to see Titanic. I had read most of the reviews and was duly impressed by the terrific spec- tacle. It certainly brought back memories of transatlantic travel in the good old days, when the only NOCDs (not our class, dear) one encountered were the stewards, the officers and, occasionally, the captain.
Caricaturists are known for their ability to ridicule a person with a few strokes of their pen. This is what the writer and direc- tor have obviously set out to do. If any of you, dear readers, have not seen the film, do not let me deter you, just note the fact that the film has everything to do with PC and nothing with common sense.
Let's start with the villain of the love story, the beautiful Rose's extremely rich fiancé, played by Billy Zane. He is por- trayed as an arrogant Nebuchadnezzar type, but better Nebu than nobody any day. In fact, the fiancé is a softy. He is practising affirmative action in taking a penniless young girl and her mother to share his for- tune. Like Rick in Casablanca, under that cynical shell the fiancé at heart is a roman- tic and a liberal.
When he offers thousands to Murdoch, the officer in charge, to secure a seat for himself in a lifeboat, he shows what capital- ism is all about: survival of the fittest. Just as Murdoch shows what fools old-type socialists are. He refuses the loot — in fact, he throws it back at him. Murdoch has absolutely no initiative, no drive. He could take the money and go for it, but, no, he dreams of paid company holidays and union get-togethers.
Predictably, the film hints early on that there's something wrong with the lifeboats. Not enough for everyone, it suggests rather pathetically. Yet there were enough boats for all the first-class passengers. Among the greatest outrages of this subversive and commie pinko film is the depiction of those poor stewards locking the steerage passen- gers below. Those stewards were perform- ing their honourable duty. By making sure the steerage passengers went down with the ship, they not only improved the gene pool of the New World — badly needed even back then — they also saved those poor wretches from the miserable life that awaited them in the ghettos of the Big Bagel. (The Big Pizza in 1912.) Bruce Ismay, the chairman of White Star Line, is my favourite hero. Ismay, however, is criminally libelled in the picture. Here is a man who could have easily done a Bob Maxwell and slid into an icy but painless death, yet he chose to live in order to sort out the paperwork and assist with the enquiries which were bound to crop up after the sinking. He chose a life of vilifica- tion and outrageous insult, all in the name of duty. The dastardly fink of a director portrays this unsung hero as a coward.
Finally, the plebeian hero of the movie, Joe Dawson, played by Leonardo Da Vinci DiCaprio. Early in the picture, he is invited to dine with the swells in first class. This is a horrid scene, full of cruelty. Just imagine how out of place young Joe must have felt. It must have embarrassed him awfully. I know for a fact that no swell worth his club membership would ever embarrass a pleb with such an invitation. This is a perverse film, dedicated to class warfare, a work worthy of Dr Goebbels. But worse was to come when it was all over. Ship owners, industrialists, arms deal- ers, bankers — even the conservative burghers of Gstaad — stood up and applauded. Jewel-covered peroxided women were openly sobbing. What the hell for? The rich guy made it. What was it that Lenin said about us selling them the rope they will hang us with? Titanic is a great film, and it could be an instructive one, too, as long as one sees it with the right perspective.
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