Isn’t ‘Titanic’ More Like ‘GWTW’?
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I was amused and enlightened by Steve Stoliar’s insight into the points of similarity between “Titanic” and certain Marx Brothers movies (“Stumbling Upon a Marxist Interpretation of ‘Titanic,’ ” Counterpunch, March 2). I think, however, that a more significant parallel to “Titanic” is “Gone With the Wind.”
Both films are big, pretty, tragic and effective. They are sentimental melodramas, and they are both examples of relentless sledgehammer lyricism.
Perhaps most important, each film has found a rich visual metaphor for time. Tara, the mansion in “GWTW,” represents the destruction and decay of time. Water is the metaphor in “Titanic.”
Just as the Titanic is submerged in the sea, so is the past covered by time.
RICHARD CASEY
Santa Monica
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