The Titanicand its tragic shipwreck in 1912, fascinates. The film James Cameron has devoted to drama is one of the greatest successes in the history of cinema. And there are no longer the exhibitions devoted to the famous ship. To the point where some wonder if it is not too much. Judith Lachapelle and Vincent Brousseau-Pouliot debate it.
Judith Lachapelle: Eh, Vincent! I have a little riddle for you. What rusty vehicle has been the subject of a fascination as morbid as it was touting for more than a century?
Vincent Brousseau-Pouliot: You take me short, Judith. I give my tongue to the cat …
JL: Come on … a little effort … It is huge and rests in the bottom of the ocean …
V.B-P. : The Titanic !
JL: Bingo! You see, I didn’t even need to hum the air of flute My Heart Will Go On So that you spontaneously think about this rafiot that we are talking about too much.
PHOTO ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
On April 10, 1912, the RMS Titanic Leaves Southampton, England, for his inaugural trip to New York.
V.B-P. : I guess that you will not see the two exhibitions on the Titanic Presented in Quebec this summer and this fall? One has been at the Museum of Civilization in Quebec since June, and it is a great success. You have to book your tickets, because you often display full the same day. The other exhibition started last week in Place Bonaventure, in Montreal. Why this fascination for the Titanic bother you?
JL: It bothers me precisely for the reasons you just gave. These are not only two (two!) Large exhibitions that stand on the Titanic This summer in Quebec. It is all the rest that goes with it. Just this year, we were also entitled to the musical Titanicwith Véronique Claveau in the role of a Céline Dion who tells the sinking in her own way, and a new documentary offered among others on Netflix and Tou.tv on the disappearance of Titan, This submarine of the Oceangate company which imploded by going down to see the wreck in June 2023.
And then there is also another big exhibition on the Titanic On the world tour that landed in Toronto this summer, with its artefacts and cardboard reconstructions. It is the same promoter, RMS Titanic Inc., which offers Las Vegas an identical replica of the interiors of the ship that you can rent for your wedding to take your photos in the grand staircase – with all the bizarre symbolism that it can mean on the future of your couple … a little serious, Vincent. Do we really need another exhibition on this liner?
Photo taken from the titaniclasvegas.com site
Newlyweds pose in a replica of the interior of Titanic, in Las Vegas.
V.B-P. : I admit that getting married on a replica of Titanicit’s a bit (not bad) too muchas the English say. But if there are so many exhibitions, it is because the sinking of Titanic is an event that has marked the spirits, even more than 100 years later. Many people are fascinated by the Titanic. It is the law of supply and demand!
JL: But let it diversify it, offer it! It is not the worthy maritime epics of interest!
Here, instead of Titanictell me about theEmpress of Irelandwhich sank in May 1914, in the St. Lawrence River, after a collision with a coalmier just opposite Rimouski. More than 1,000 victims out of 1477 passengers, a higher proportion than for the Titanic. Its wreck is difficult to explore, and almost a dozen divers have lost their lives over the years while trying to reach it.
Where to tell me about Lusitaniaa very chic liner too, sunk in 1915 by a torpedo launched by a German submarine, marking a turning point in the First World War. His sinking left some 1,200 dead on 2000 passengers, including a hundred children and some “high society” people, including a Montreal, Frances Stephen, wife of a liberal minister, who would have possessed at the time “the most beautiful collection of jewelry in Canada”, according to the testimony of his servant 1.
And what is this fascination for the luxury of the first classes? Tell me about these 18th century slave boatse century used for the trafficking of millions of blacks from Africa to America. The slaves were chained and piled up in the entrepreneur. When we did not perish in a shipwreck, you were likely to die from scurvy and typhus. Or massacred by the pirates.
And think of these migrant rafts on the Mediterranean, the Channel or the Gulf of Mexico. An immersive journey in one of these pierced canoes would perhaps inject us more humanity than the charms with a big blue pebble that we hurry to admire behind a window, who knows?
Too far from us? Too glued to the news? So tell me about these vessels of King Louis XIV who participated in the colonization of New France. In 1667, the 25 “girls of the king” who traveled aboard the Saint-Louis complained to the intendant Jean Talon of the lack of humanity of the officers of the vessel and the hunger from which they suffered. No, Vincent, they did not complain that they could not change dress before dinner or that the meal did not have six services.
V.B-P. : Very good point, Judith. I am short of arguments. At least, for the exhibition at the Museum of Civilization in Quebec, they added references to the sinking of the CGS Montmagnya steam cargo of the federal government which served, among other things, to recover the corpses of Titanic In 1912. Two years later, during a headlight replenishment mission, the CGS Montmagny collided with another boat and flows in less than five minutes. Fourteen of the forty-seven passengers lost their lives 2.
In any case, this discussion does not give me the taste to go on a cruise …
What I meant about supply and demand is that as everyone knows the Titanicit interests several exhibition promoters because it is less risky financially to develop an exhibition on a very popular subject. It’s like in the cinema. Films cost so much to produce and promote that Hollywood takes less and less risks. It is among other things for this reason that there are many superhero films like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, THE Avengers : They are already very well known, the studios know that there is an audience for that, and this type of entertainment is very well everywhere around the world. Besides, what is a hit at the box office this summer? Yet another adaptation of Superman and Four fantastic.
Judith : Are you telling me that Hollywood should make a remake of Titanic ?
V.B-P. : No. But the film Titanic by James Cameron arrives at 4e Rank of history at the box office with revenues of $ 2.26 billion. The film had cost 200 million to produce. In short, you should never say never.
JL: Misery.
1. Read the sinking story of the Lusitania
2. See the CGS wreckage page Montmagny On the Quebec Cultural Heritage Directory
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