The Titanic movie was on TV recently. The Titanic tells about possibilities that could have been, but, instead were destroyed — what could have flourished, but instead went to the bottom of the sea.
The Titanic makes us think of our end as individuals; it makes us think about our end as a civilization. Mankind seems headed for unnecessary disaster. Our attitudes and actions seem to destine us to end up like so much sunken and weathered wreckage.
Maybe it is the haunting music, but the ending of the Titanic movie never fails to move me. The scene is the sunken ship and the ghostly light from the exploring mini-submarine. And then, at first subtly, a rich and streaming sunlight begins to flood the scene and, before our eyes, the great ship is transformed. What is corrupted becomes renewed. As in a dream, the Titanic itself is restored and the people are restored and the love and life that was lost is restored and, somehow, there at the great clock in an eternal re-occurrence, to the applause of all, every love and everyone who has ever loved is redeemed. I love that ending.
The ending of the Titanic reassures us, it boosts us to believe what makes us happy to believe, that regardless of our arrogance, indifference and destructive ways — regardless of the apocalypse we bring into being — somehow, everything will be fine.
It is a great movie, it is only a great movie.
