TITANIC Explained: Hymn to the Sea

Under normal circumstances, Jack and Rose’s paths would never have crossed. It was not yet time for the mixing of classes; the 20th-century wars were yet to turn the world upside down. However, from the very beginning of Titanic, everyone, even a child, knows that these two, against all odds, will fall in love. When James Horner’s Rose, the calmest musical theme on the soundtrack, plays in the background, we know for sure. The spell has been cast, and even the icy waters of the Atlantic won’t be able to resist it.

But what is one survivor and one victim in the face of the deaths of nearly fifteen hundred people? If Jack had indeed climbed onto the door and awaited rescue by the crew of the RMS Carpathia, would that have really changed so much? For the viewer, certainly, for Rose, undoubtedly, but would it have affected the Titanic itself? What would have become of that story? Did Jack truly die? What really happened after the Titanic struck the iceberg? And finally, what did James Cameron achieve in 1997? These questions could be multiplied endlessly, yet they all converge at one common point: the human being. With all their dreams, hopes, and memories. That’s why this story has such an extraordinary power. It’s a tale about ourselves and how, in a way, storytelling is the meaning of our lives. Without stories, even the smallest iceberg could destroy us.

Take Her To Sea, Mr. Murdoch

Every time I hear Southampton, Leaving Port, and Take Her To Sea, old photographs come to mind, where the Titanic is still intact. People gazing at it with interest, its majesty compared to other ships, and all the magical aura surrounding its first voyage across the ocean. Somewhere, on the other shore, America awaits it, the ports of which it will never reach. Alongside the United States, on the horizon, loom the dreams of the people who filled its decks. When we think of the ship’s luxuries, we often automatically imagine ladies in elegant gowns and gentlemen in perfectly tailored tuxedos. This same world amazes us throughout much of the film, as Cameron portrays it.

But when we pause for a moment, we realize that for most passengers, the voyage on the legendary ocean liner was not just another trip, a social event to check off their list. Beneath the glitter of gowns, shoes, and silverware, crowds of people were hoping that April 11, 1912, marked the first day of their new lives, and that the fading land behind them was something to forget as soon as possible. A quick glance at the list of victims makes this clear: Vanderplancke Julius, aged 31, farmer. Vanderplancke Emelie, aged 31. Vanderplancke Augusta Maria, aged 18. Vanderplancke Leo Edmondus, aged 15. Third-class passengers.

Entire families perished with the Titanic, and with them, both the nightmares they fled from and the dreams they dared to reach for sank to the ocean floor. Amid all the grand words about the unsinkable ship, the pearl of the oceans, it is they who are the silent heroes of this story. As the ship neared its end, and the orchestra began to play the hauntingly sad Nearer, My God, to Thee, Cameron highlights that, in the face of an elderly couple who have accepted their fate and decided to die in each other’s arms, or a mother who chose to keep her children believing that everything was alright, all those tons of steel, no matter how noble, are worth nothing. In the same sequence, the clock hands are stopped.

On one hand, this symbolizes failure. Time is running out for the Titanic. On the other, the halt of time heralds immortality. Had the Titanic reached America, it might now be known to only a handful of people interested in the history of steamships. By sinking, it became part of the collective imagination, thanks to humanity’s inherent drive to remember and tell stories.

Ambiguity of Stopped Clocks

An end that is truly a beginning—this is the dynamic characteristic of the entire Titanic myth. As the supposedly unsinkable ship sinks, a story is born about humanity’s smallness in the face of nature. Tons of steel lose the battle to an iceberg that, at first glance, seems like something that must give way to the mighty vessel. But beneath the ocean’s surface lies a colossus, visible only when one is already descending toward the sunless ocean floor.

The RMS Carpathia arrived at the disaster site on April 15 at four in the morning. By then, the Titanic lay 3,802 meters beneath the ship that came to its rescue. When you compare photos documenting its maiden voyage from the shipyard to the image of a lifeboat filled with terrified, frozen people, you begin to understand Hymn to the Sea. Along with Southampton and Leaving Port, we dreamt of greatness; in the end, we were left only with a lament for our own smallness and the hundreds of lives lost in humanity’s dreams of power—not just the power of the ocean.

The story of the Titanic perfectly reflects our drive toward greatness, the insatiable desire to subdue nature in such a way that it becomes entirely submissive to us, convincing everyone around, but most of all ourselves, that we deserve more and more. Hence the bigger and faster ships, the progress with all its benefits and tragedies that pave the way to it. If not for human ambition and the desire to break barriers, the Titanic would likely have had a better chance of completing its maiden voyage. Yet nature reminded humanity, once again, that it is merely an insignificant cog in a great machine. From its perspective, the death of fifteen hundred lives and the burial of fifty-two thousand tons of metal on the ocean floor is just another minor incident. The bacteria feeding on the decaying wreck will soon finish off its complete destruction. All that remains to us is memory.

This is perhaps the most valuable lesson from both the story of the 20th-century giant’s sinking and James Cameron’s film. Without memory, the myth could not exist, and the collision with the iceberg would indeed mark the end. Yet, humanity has always desperately defended itself against oblivion. After death, we no longer have control, but during life, we can affirm that what happens around us truly matters. We remember stories, enrich them with our reflections, and pass them on. In this way, we exist. It gives us hope that even when we must say goodbye to the world, something of us will remain.

The tribute to memory is presented in the film about the Titanic on two main levels. The first is the storyline of Jack and Rose. If one had not died and the other survived the disaster, there would be no film. Jack lives on only in the memories of the woman who loved him. Through them, despite his body long gone somewhere on the ocean floor, he still exists among us. The second level is Cameron’s approach, demonstrating that cinema is the most powerful of the arts. When the images of the wreck, recorded by the director during his emotional expeditions to the disaster site, suddenly transform into the fresh interiors of the majestic Titanic, we witness a small cinematic miracle. Thanks to human memory and passion that once emerged in a young boy while hearing tales of the steel giant hitting an iceberg, the world and the people who perished over a century ago come to life before us. The story continues.

Both the way the ship itself is recreated—its appearance, atmosphere, interiors—and the storytelling method in Cameron’s film are simply impeccable. They show just how much he cared about telling this story in a way that would keep the Titanic myth alive in the collective imagination for years to come. This is not a complicated story, to be honest, but its execution perfectly reflects the film’s message. The somewhat naive love story is, in essence, an idealized memory of a lover who lost his life just after promising to stay by his beloved’s side until the very end. The promise was fulfilled, yet time did not allow Jack and Rose to face the test of time, to try living somewhere beyond the magical, fairy-tale space of the ship—a floating monument to human pride, magnified by the Industrial Revolution sweeping through the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

However, it should be noted that, along with Rose, Cameron also lets go of his own Heart of the Ocean. As the film draws to a close, the director bids farewell to the legendary ocean liner, knowing that he has fulfilled his duty by delivering a story that had captured his creative imagination for a long time. In the film’s epilogue, we once again witness the seamless transformation of the ruined wreck into the majestic vessel it once was. Passengers from all classes wave toward the camera, directly addressing the audience who chose to listen to their story. As we ascend the staircase, we finally see Jack waiting for Rose at the very spot that witnessed their first official meeting.

Before the couple is ultimately reunited in the depths of memory and joyfully embrace to the delight of all the characters, the man is turned toward the clock. We don’t see his face. We only know that he is looking at the hands of the clock. Their movement is no longer as important as it once was, when the character eagerly awaited his partner, because both Jack and the Titanic now exist beyond time. And this is all thanks to human memory and cinema, which can revive it in the most vivid way of all the arts.