Final Word from Tuesday, February 17, 2009
"Titanic" might be the worst film ever to win the best-picture Oscar, but as a crisis parable it's well worth the price of the DVD. One character in the film declares: "Incredible. There's [Captain] Smith, and he's standing there, and he's got the fucking iceberg warning in his hand, excuse me, in his hand, and he's ordering more speed." Another character adds: "Twenty-six years of experience working against him. He figures anything big enough to sink the ship they're gonna see coming in time to turn. The ship's too big with too small a rudder. It doesn't corner worth a damn. Everything he knows is wrong." In the 2009 remake, politicians on both sides of the captain's deck (whether Democrats or Republicans, Social Democrats or Civic Democrats) are reading from the same old logbooks and, despite all their years of experience, keep getting it wrong. The iceberg continues to bear down on them.[Czech Republic United States of America ODS ČSSD Democratic Party]
Glossary of difficult words
parable - a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson;
ordering more speed - ordering the ship to increase its speed;
rudder - a flat piece of material used to steer a boat or ship;
to corner - (of a vehicle or driver) to go around a bend in the road;
remake - (used here in a figurative sense) a movie that has been filmed again and rereleased;
logbook - an official record of events during the voyage of a ship or aircraft;
to bear down on - to move quickly toward someone.