Treading Water

Over the next week or so, there are several movies I plan on watching and then writing about. I'm not sure why, but there are couple that have been on my mind lately, and I feel like there is a lot that can be said about and learned from their stories.

So I'm going to start out tonight with Titanic.

I recently watched Titanic for the first time in a long while. I first saw it sometime in high school, I think in 10th grade. I was not allowed to see it when it came out, unlike nearly everyone else in my 3rd grade class, because my parents are from an extremist over-protective sect of parents who irrationally believe it is not okay for an 8 year old to see breasts and floating human popsicles on a giant screen. What's up with that? It doesn't matter, though, because I have seen it now. And you know what? It's a really good movie. It bugs me that it has such a bad reputation nowadays. Of course, I understand why it does. I mean, not many people remember much other than the drawing scene and Leo screaming "I'm king of the world!" But that's a shame. I was recently talking to a friend about this movie, so I'm gonna relay some of my comments from that, but first I need to explain something else.

I have always been drawn to depressing movies. I think this is partly because I have a high tolerance for depressing events in cinema. Death does not scare me or bother me, and it never has. Violence on screen doesn't make me cringe because half of my mind is thinking about the make-up involved. I just don't get as uncomfortable during sad things as other people, and I certainly never cry during movies, with one exception, which some of you already know is The Fox and the Hound (and I challenge anyone and everyone right here and now to try watching that old woman leave the fox in the woods, saying, "Goodbye may seem forever, farewell is like the end. But in my heart's a memory, and there you'll always be," without crying just a little bit).

But I digress.

That's why I dont' have a problem with depressing movies. But that's not why I'm drawn to them. I believe that learning by example works best when the example is of how not to behave. In a sad/traumatic/depressing movie, usually there is a string of events leading to some tragic conclusion, except we (the audience) see the ignorance of those events and the human choices behind them. We see just how avoidable those tragic consequences are. And then it drives us crazy that such horrible things can grow from such simple mistakes. I believe it is fair to say that the greatest sin is Pride, or, because technically no sin is greater than another, it is at least accurate to say that nearly every other sin is rooted in Pride. Pride says that we can do things better than God, and it makes us want to try things on our own just to prove that we can do it better than God. It spurs competition among brothers, wars between nations, arrogance, greed, and condescending hatred. Pride leads us to reject God and his ways. And when you take Jack and Rose out of the picture, Titanic is a tremendous example of human pride leading to a devastating end.

The little hints of Pride are dropped all throughout the film, from Rose's comment about the male preoccupation with size, to the importance of making headlines with the speed of the ship, to the assumption that an iceberg will be noticeable enough to avoid. We see the pride growing as we see the fall coming. And then the fall comes, and you say, "You fools, you could have stopped that crash." And then the movie continues, and only at the end of the sinking do we see that even we were premature because those bodies are out there floating, most of them half-frozen. And we say to ourselves,"We fools, we thought we learned the lesson already, that pride leads to the fall. But even we couldn't see past that. We couldn't see the consequences." But there they are, the consequences, all 1,600 of them. And the toll that pride took is clear.

There is, I think, an image from a single shot that sums up my point. It comes when about 1/3 of the ship has dipped into the water, and for just a couple seconds, the camera steps completely away from the action. We see a wide shot not of the people, or the ship, but of the Atlantic Ocean. We see the black sky at the top of the screen, just below it the wide horizon, and in the middle of the screen, rather small, there's this thing that looks kind of like a rowboat. It's just sitting there, a little crooked, and some of the lights are on. Then it looks like a spark flew out, like an ember popping from a fire, and you realize that it's a flare. And for a few brief moments all we see is this boat surrounded by a blackness that stretches out in all directions. We see now that however titanic that ship Titanic looked when it was docked, out there it's barely a canoe.

You see? We think we build unsinkable ships all by ourselves, but as soon as we try to take that out on the water, the darkness takes over, the ship starts rocking like a catamaran in a thunderstorm, we're tossed out, and that water is so cold. We could swim for a lifeboat, except in our pride, we forgot to build enough, and now we have to use all of our energy to tread water for hours on end. And so we are alone, cold and growing weak in the dark.

That's what Pride does. I think that's what the story of this event has to teach us, and I think that's what truly makes the movie so heart-wrenching. Sure the love story is romantic and tragic, but we've seen the Lady fall for the Tramp before. What breaks our hearts is seeing all those Ladies leaving all those Tramps out in the water to die because they're afraid of getting their own boats rocked a little.

If you haven't watched this movie in a while, try checking it out again sometime. Try keeping a few of these things in mind, not as any sort of authority on the film's analysis, but as a different outlook, a new perspective. And remember, depressing movies aren't made only to make us cry, they can make us learn, too, but only if we can see through the tears and find out what's really causing them.

I'm gonna leave you with some of Jesus' words about who should be building our ship:

"They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." (Matthew 23:5-12, ESV)

Happy sailing.