Fasten your life preservers.
The RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the north Atlantic Ocean and sank on April 15, 1912, and the 100th anniversary of the famed maritime disaster will bring encores of a nationally touring exhibit to Atlanta, the 3D release of James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster film and the publishing of new books.
The big news for the metro area is that "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition," an encore of the exhibit that had a popular 2006 run at the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center, will dock at Atlantic Station starting April 6, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.
The show will include 212 artifacts recovered from eight research-and-recovery expeditions to the Titanic’s wreck site by Atlanta-based RMS Titanic Inc., including 100 recently conserved objects that have never been shown before. Prominent among the new pieces is the massive steel D-Deck door, originally mounted in the side of Titanic’s hull, that was considered the “front door” for first-class passengers.
Visitors will be welcomed with a replica boarding pass to what was then the largest passenger steamship in the world when it sank on its maiden voyage, taking 1,517 lives. The exhibit, whose run is open-ended, will traverse a chronological journey, from the ship's construction, to life onboard for its rich and famous voyagers and its crew, its tragic sinking and contemporary efforts to conserve the wreckage.
There are changes afoot involving the ship's conservation, as well. On April 11, RMS Titanic will auction off the complete collection of more than 5,500 objects recovered from the wreckage site. The artifacts will be sold at Guernsey's Auction House in New York City as a single collection, with the buyer required to agree to conditions including that the recovered bounty will be properly maintained and remain on public display.
The last appraisal of the collection, which ranges from hairpins to a 17-ton portion of the ship's hull, valued it at $189 million. Atlantans won't see all of it at once, as eight "Titanic" shows will be running in different cities around the centennial.
Here, "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition" will replace "Dialog in the Dark," which completes a three-plus-year run on March 11, at Atlantic Station's Premier Exhibition Center (where "Bodies ... the Exhibition" will remain on view).
Tickets ($24, $22 seniors, $16 ages 4-12) will go on sale March 5 at the exhibition box office, Ticketmaster or by calling 866-866-8265. More info: www.titanicatlanta.com.
Blockbuster film gains a dimension
Will "Titanic" in 3-D float your boat?
James Cameron's highly romantic retelling of the tragedy, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, is due for release in 3-D, 3-D Imax and conventional 2D on April 4 and many critics have been reserving judgment since Cameron also directed one of the most successful 3-D films, "Avatar."
One critic known to be disapproving of Hollywood's current fixation with 3D, especially in conversions of older films, which can suffer from dimmed resolution, is Roger Ebert. Ebert took in one of a handful of previews on Valentine's Day and was not persuaded.
"‘Titanic' was not shot for 3D and just as you cannot gild a pig, you cannot make 2D into 3D," he wrote. "What you can do, and [Cameron] tries to do it well, is find certain scenes that you can present as having planes of focus in foreground, middle and distance. ... [But] no matter how long Cameron took to do it, no matter how much he spent, this is retrofitted 2D. ...
"I know why the film is in 3D," Ebert concluded. "It's to justify the extra charge. That's a shabby way to treat a masterpiece."
But when Cameron screened eight scenes for critics late last year, Entertainment Weekly wrote that it looked "pretty darn good" and that some sequences seemed to benefit by the added depth.
And the director himself, who had gone on record before with his own reservations about conversions, said, after spending a reported $18 million on the process, that it was as close to perfection in the new format as possible.
“It’s 2.99-D,” he said with a wry smile.
Books float up to tell survival tales
Dozens of Titanic-related titles are already out and amazon.com lists at least another 75 books that will be published in time for the centennial, most available for pre-order.
Survival tales are particularly popular, including "A Rare Titanic Family: The Caldwells’ Story of Survival," from Montgomery-based NewSouth Books, written by the great-niece of passenger and Presbyterian missionary Albert Caldwell, Samford University journalism professor Julie Williams.
It would seem that every possible angle is being explored, with new titles including "Kaspar the Titanic Cat," "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Titanic Tragedy" and "Voyage of the Iceberg: The Story of the Iceberg that Sank the Titanic."
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