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IMDb > National Geographic Video: Secrets of the Titanic (1986) (V)

National Geographic Video: Secrets of the Titanic (1986) (V) More at IMDbPro »

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National Geographic Video: Secrets of the Titanic (1986) -- The Blind Boys bring the house down with a soul stirring set of gospel music as you've never heard before. This isn't "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" - think a tent revival mixed with Otis Redding and a little James Brown.

Overview

User Rating:
7.1/10   117 votes
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Writer:
Nicolas Noxon (writer)
Contact:
View company contact information for National Geographic Video: Secrets of the Titanic on IMDbPro.
Genre:
Documentary
Tagline:
A legend surrenders her mysterious past.
User Comments:
Still THE best Titanic story on film more

Cast

  (Credited cast)
Bob Ballard ... Himself

Martin Sheen ... Narrator (voice)
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Additional Details

Runtime:
51 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Aspect Ratio:
1.33 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Stereo
Certification:
Spain:T

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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful:-
Still THE best Titanic story on film, 9 February 2003
10/10
Author: mlevans from Oklahoma

As I wrote in a review of the 1958 A Night to Remember, I am convinced that the ultimate Titanic story has yet to be told. While that version is about as good as the existing Hollywood versions get, Nicolas Noxon's National Geographic: Secrets of the Titanic (1986) is still the best Titanic story on celluloid, for MY money. It has as much drama and pathos as any of the movie versions and is even more riveting than the Hollywood accounts. I wish future studio directors would take time to absorb some of Noxon's class and savvy before filming.

If any real Titanic or shipwreck fan has NOT seen this 1986 documentary in its entirety-or has not seen it since it first came out, he/she needs to do so. While some additional evidence has been unearthed since it was made, it capsualizes the events very concisely and powerfully. I enjoyed the huge four-volume set someone produced a couple of years ago. Yet it lost in bulk and repetitiveness anything it might have held in advantage over Noxon's film.

The film consists of two parallel stories taking place at once. Bob Ballard and his crew are searching for the long-lost Titanic. Meanwhile, we see the `huge mound of steel taking shape' in the Irish shipyards. We learn about the building of this behemoth and the Gilded Age in which it was designed, as we see the underwater explorers trying to do the impossible. It is tempting today to forget that the Titanic was lost for three-quarters of a century. Noxon dramatizes this to its utmost. `The Titanic: no longer lost, no longer legend,' narrator Martin Sheen reminds us, as we see the ghostly underwater images.

Everything about this film is well-done. The historic montages are excellent and in only a couple of instances have Noxon's facts been challenged by later data. To me, the human disaster is actually brought home more poignantly than in any of the Hollywood films about the disaster. Of course, Ballard was and is a class act. His reverence and respect for the wreck site is admirable. The pirating of Titanic, Lusitania and others in recent years is, to me, deplorable. The fact that Ballard was unable to talk about the Titanic for months after its initial discovery speaks volumes about the man.

In just 51 minutes, Noxon makes us really feel the tragedy and irony of the most famous naval disaster in history and the also the exultation and saddened awe of the most famous undersea discovery of all time. It is a pity it is no longer available on video and not yet available on DVD in the United States. (Fortunately I have an aging tape, recorded from an early 1990s broadcast of it.) If the opportunity presents itself to view, copy, rent or buy this outstanding film in any format, I strongly urge one to do so. For my money, this is still the best telling of the Titanic story on film.

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