Sunday, August 26, 2012

Titanic and Ozymandias


At the entrance to an exhibition:
Is it worth seeing?
It is. It is worth seeing.
(subvocalization through the exhibition):
My name is Titanic, Ship of Ships…
Three days into the Atlantic,
Squinting into the glinting night
The lookouts shout, “Ice Ice!”
The ship glides on
Ripping its skin on a massive ice knife.
Years later its hull is found,
Near it on the seabed sand
Lie scraps and shards;
Over time rusticles will devour the hulk.
Nothing will remain
Of that tiny wreck.
Among the artifacts are a headline:
Unsinkable Titanic.
_______________
Voice-over
Apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The syllable count in his sonnet was more accurate than this.
The irony in Shelley’s Ozymandias is in arrogant ego.
The irony in Titanic’s demise is in ferrous design flaw.
All rulers disappear into dust.
All ships eventually sink somewhere.
As did Shelley’s Ariel.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A beautiful love story movie is better in tragedy. It's significantly and unique for filming this movie. I have seen it for five times, hearted touch every them, it don't need any text for this movie, details are unforgettable, it's like a romantic song, keep singing over and over in our mind.

Barry Natusch said...

Leonardo di Caprio's gives his face to numerous events. Titanic, Pearl Harbor, Howard Hughes. Director's dilemma: whether to reduce the story by focusing on one or two people and their role in it, or assemble a cast of thousands and film an epic. Narrative reductionism by the director. Economic reductionism by the producer.

Anonymous said...

This accident was a tragedy. But this film, isn't tragedy. We can feel love and other feelings we can't say. Destiny is chosen by our easily acting.

Anonymous said...

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