‘Titanic’
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Re “Get Me Rewrite: Class Warfare on Titanic,” Opinion, Jan. 4: As a documentary filmmaker who has researched three films related to the story of the luxury liner Titanic, I am astonished that Steven J. Ross takes offense because James Cameron’s “Titanic” does not suggest a solution to issues of class difference in America.
Cameron’s “Titanic” offers a rare aesthetic pleasure in a Hollywood film, that of being quite historically accurate. When the Titanic sank in 1912, it became a time capsule of a moment when the rich were very rich indeed, and the poor were locked in steerage to drown. That is an ugly truth, and one that Cameron does not shrink from telling. If Cameron had taken Ross’ suggestion and rewritten history so the poor survived and the rich died, he would have been misrepresenting undisputed historical fact, doing a shameful disservice to the memory of the victims--and he would have made a far poorer film.
What Ross misses is that sometimes entertainment is just entertainment. Art does not have to contain a political treatise to be worthwhile.
MILA MARVIZON
Culver City
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