The narrative surrounding the
Titanic
's voyage, collision, and sinking in April 1912 seems tailor-made for film. With clear categories of gender, class, nationality, and religion, the dominating
myth offers a wealth of motifs ripe for the silver screen-heroism, melodrama, love, despair, pleasure, pain, failure, triumph, memory and eternal guilt. This volume provides a detailed overview of
films from 1912 to the present and analyzes the six major
films, including the 1943 Nazi propaganda production, the 1953 Hollywood film, the 1958 British docudrama
A Night to Remember
, the 1979 TV production
S.O.S. Titanic
, the 1996 mini-series
, and James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster. By showing how each film follows and builds on a pattern of fixed scenes, motifs and details defined as the "
code," this work yields telling insights into why this specific disaster has maintained such great relevance into the 21st century.