Filmmakers have long had an insatiable fascination with the shipwreck: the awesome, towering walls of water, the deafening roar of the wind, the high drama of that inevitable “we’re going under” moment.
The onscreen shipwreck promises both visual magnificence and emotional grandeur. It is, in a way, the perfect cinematic gambit. It is also an effective yet simple visual metaphor. “Here’s what happens,” the cinematic shipwreck seems to say, “when the power of nature rips away our carefully constructed world from beneath our feet.” After all, when you balance the artificial human world on a few planks of wood in a vast ocean, the whole thing suddenly becomes pretty fragile.
www.vulture.com
The onscreen shipwreck promises both visual magnificence and emotional grandeur. It is, in a way, the perfect cinematic gambit. It is also an effective yet simple visual metaphor. “Here’s what happens,” the cinematic shipwreck seems to say, “when the power of nature rips away our carefully constructed world from beneath our feet.” After all, when you balance the artificial human world on a few planks of wood in a vast ocean, the whole thing suddenly becomes pretty fragile.
A Chronology of Shipwrecks on Film
The shipwreck is an increasingly useful metaphor as we become unmoored from reality.
www.vulture.com
