The Subject Was Movies: L'Atalante and Titanic
While I was viewing the movie, L'Atalante, at Hulu (the Final Film playlist is currently up, and I can recommend all the suggested movies, and they are free for the time being), I began to think that I had seen some of this before. Some of the imagery was very familiar. Then, in the swimming sequence, it came to me.
L'Atalante, made in 1934, was ripping off Titanic, made in 1997.
It was ONE of those TIME TRAVEL PARADOXES! Maybe James Cameron is from the Future! Or the Past! Or Somewhere Unfamiliar!
L'Atalante is movie about the marriage of a River Seine Barge captain and his lovely wife. It is a simple movie. It begins with the marriage (boy gets girl). It continues with the period of adjustment (boy and girl make love and make fights), it continues with the aftermath of one of the fights (boy loses girl, because he spitefully abandons her), and it ends with the makeup and continuation of Marriage and Barge Life (boy gets girl again, and he had better behave this time).
Now Titanic is a movie about the romance of a third class ruffian with a first class girl on the Atlantic Ocean. All the marriage and fighting stuff is between the high class girl and her son of captain of industry financé who is soon to be a Has Been in Engagements and Industry. There is more excitement on board the ship, because it sinks along with the Engagement. But the points to remember between the two films are True Love, Water, Swimming, and Boats.
This is the movie poster for L'Atalante.
This is the movie poster for Titanic.
Now Jack and Rose are not Bigger than the Titanic bow, or at least not physically. But you do see the symbolic joining of the True Lovers at the bow of the shop, just like L'Atalante.
Here is a better picture of that:
Perhaps Jean Vigo, who directed L'Atalante, had a prévoyant Vision of Titanic. No telling.
In L'Atalante, the bride tells her brand new husband (the Titanic was also brand new), that if a person goes swimming or submerges her face in the water (either way, one holds one's breath and waits for oxygen deprivation to begin its magic), that person will see her True Love. The newly minted husband, who is full of ethusiasm and sperm for his bride dunks his head in the Seine River and bunch of buckets. We assume that he saw her, it doesn't matter, they retire to their cabin to get even wetter.
The husband in L'Atalante later falls into the Seine after he fights and dumps his new wife after a fight. He doesn't drown himself, he swims
Jack in Titanic doesn't down himself, he dies of hypothermia, but he does sink gracefully like a huge diamond necklace, down to the bottom of the ocean.
While the L'Atalante husband swims his heart ache away and holds his breath, he sees his True Love. His Wife.
Jack does not see this following lovely lady in the water, but the audience does.
It is a rather extraneous, but dreamy and evocative shot in Titanic. Is it Rose the Illusion of True Love?
In L'Atalante, there is a sequence in the movie, where the wife visits one of the mates in his cabin to see all of his exotic souvenirs from his Sailor Around the World Travels. The husband comes in and in a jealous fit, orders her out of the cabin and begins to break all of the mate's crockery. After he leaves, the mate breaks the rest of it, yelling that the Barge skipper forgot to break it all.
After the Lady in the Water sequence, we see crockery breaking on board the Titanic.
I find it interesting that Mr. Cameron put these two shots together in his movie. Homage!
Mr. Vigo died at the age of 29 after the premiere of L'Atalante. He had other dream sequences (much like the dream atmosphere of the drowned Titanic in the movie) in his movie. Perhaps some of the dream sequences in L'Atalante were due to the fevers of his terminal tuberculosis and shortness of breath. I'll attribute the dream atmosphere of Titanic to Mr. Cameron's homage to L'Atalante.
And Atalante and Atlantic are very similar words, aren't they?
L'Atalante, made in 1934, was ripping off Titanic, made in 1997.
It was ONE of those TIME TRAVEL PARADOXES! Maybe James Cameron is from the Future! Or the Past! Or Somewhere Unfamiliar!
L'Atalante is movie about the marriage of a River Seine Barge captain and his lovely wife. It is a simple movie. It begins with the marriage (boy gets girl). It continues with the period of adjustment (boy and girl make love and make fights), it continues with the aftermath of one of the fights (boy loses girl, because he spitefully abandons her), and it ends with the makeup and continuation of Marriage and Barge Life (boy gets girl again, and he had better behave this time).
Now Titanic is a movie about the romance of a third class ruffian with a first class girl on the Atlantic Ocean. All the marriage and fighting stuff is between the high class girl and her son of captain of industry financé who is soon to be a Has Been in Engagements and Industry. There is more excitement on board the ship, because it sinks along with the Engagement. But the points to remember between the two films are True Love, Water, Swimming, and Boats.
This is the movie poster for L'Atalante.
This is the movie poster for Titanic.
Now Jack and Rose are not Bigger than the Titanic bow, or at least not physically. But you do see the symbolic joining of the True Lovers at the bow of the shop, just like L'Atalante.
Here is a better picture of that:
Perhaps Jean Vigo, who directed L'Atalante, had a prévoyant Vision of Titanic. No telling.
In L'Atalante, the bride tells her brand new husband (the Titanic was also brand new), that if a person goes swimming or submerges her face in the water (either way, one holds one's breath and waits for oxygen deprivation to begin its magic), that person will see her True Love. The newly minted husband, who is full of ethusiasm and sperm for his bride dunks his head in the Seine River and bunch of buckets. We assume that he saw her, it doesn't matter, they retire to their cabin to get even wetter.
The husband in L'Atalante later falls into the Seine after he fights and dumps his new wife after a fight. He doesn't drown himself, he swims
Jack in Titanic doesn't down himself, he dies of hypothermia, but he does sink gracefully like a huge diamond necklace, down to the bottom of the ocean.
While the L'Atalante husband swims his heart ache away and holds his breath, he sees his True Love. His Wife.
Jack does not see this following lovely lady in the water, but the audience does.
It is a rather extraneous, but dreamy and evocative shot in Titanic. Is it Rose the Illusion of True Love?
In L'Atalante, there is a sequence in the movie, where the wife visits one of the mates in his cabin to see all of his exotic souvenirs from his Sailor Around the World Travels. The husband comes in and in a jealous fit, orders her out of the cabin and begins to break all of the mate's crockery. After he leaves, the mate breaks the rest of it, yelling that the Barge skipper forgot to break it all.
After the Lady in the Water sequence, we see crockery breaking on board the Titanic.
I find it interesting that Mr. Cameron put these two shots together in his movie. Homage!
Mr. Vigo died at the age of 29 after the premiere of L'Atalante. He had other dream sequences (much like the dream atmosphere of the drowned Titanic in the movie) in his movie. Perhaps some of the dream sequences in L'Atalante were due to the fevers of his terminal tuberculosis and shortness of breath. I'll attribute the dream atmosphere of Titanic to Mr. Cameron's homage to L'Atalante.
And Atalante and Atlantic are very similar words, aren't they?