An Iceberg at the Cinéma de la plage

Amongst the films which revisit the sinking of the legendary Titanic, A Night to Remember by Roy Ward Baker, marked history. Almost one century after the incident, this film which came out in 1958 is screened at the Cinéma de la plage.

On the 10 April 1912, the cruise liner Titanic left the port of Southampton with 953 passagers aboard. But this transatlantic liner which was deemed unsinkable came off worse in a collision with a massic iceberg. With its hull ripped open, the Titanic only lasted a few hours before sinking in open seas on the 15th April 1912. A Night to Remember has the reputation of being very close to the truth of this tragedy. The film is adapted from the book The Night of the Titanic by Walter Lord, based on the witness accounts of sixty or so survivors.

Despite being very faithful to the reality, A Night to Remember contains a few errors due to the ignorance of the circumstances of the accident at the time. The liner did not break into two parts as the film suggests, and wasn’t yet named the Titanic on departure, but the Queen Elizabeth. On the other hand, Roy Ward Baker marvellously captures the blind confidence of the passengers in this leviathon of the seas, and, during the sinking, shows the inability of the nearest ships to come to the Titanic’s rescue. The film won a Golden Globe for Roy Ward Baker in 1959.

T.K.

A Night to Remember in screened at 9.30pm, Plage Macé