Brownstein: Montreal producer takes deep dive in documentary Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster

Montreal Gazette

a day ago

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The documentary begins intriguingly enough: 'Where do you want to go in the ocean? What is the most known site in the ocean? It's clearly the Titanic.'
The speaker is well-heeled, maverick American inventor Stockton Rush, whose mission it was to take paying passengers 3,800 metres into the Atlantic Ocean in his mini-sub to scope the ruins of the Titanic luxury liner that sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912 after striking an iceberg 600 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland.
More than 1,500 passengers died in that disaster. Five died, including Rush, when his submersible the Titan imploded on its way down to the Titanic wreck on June 18, 2023.
The documentary Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster takes a deep and disturbing plunge into the apparent arrogance of Titan mastermind Rush, the co-founder and CEO of the OceanGate undersea exploration company.
The doc, co-produced by Montreal GalaFilm boss Arnie Gelbart and directed and co-scripted by acclaimed British director Pamela Gordon, begins streaming Friday on CBC Gem. It will also be broadcast on CBC Television June 20.
The production team has done a thorough job in bringing this tragedy into fuller focus, aided and abetted by insightful interviews, rare footage of the Titan's final voyage and other failed dives plus access to the U.S. Coast Guard's investigation.
Experts interviewed had misgivings about the Titan's structure, particularly its carbon-fibre hull, even if Rush had pulled off some dives prior to its final descent. There were other ominous warning signs, like seeping water damage and cracking engine sounds.
Mutters one skeptic: 'Everyone stepping on board the Titan was risking their life.'
The feeling was that Rush was 'hell-bent' on taking the Titan to dangerous new lows under the ocean, someone seeking to 'democratize deep-sea exploration.'
Rush was an engineer who initially dreamed of becoming an astronaut. But when it became apparent he was never going to make it to 'Jupiter or Mars,' he turned his sights in the opposite direction. He concluded that would require a 'special sub.'
Rush had the money, vision and drive to do so. He was a patrician whose roots went way back, with two of his ancestors having signed the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
History, as is often the case, repeats itself here. How's this for cruel irony? Rush's wife's great-great-grandparents, owners of the fabled Macy's department-store chain, perished on the Titanic. They were rumoured to have been the richest passengers aboard.
Christine Dawood is understandably livid. Among the five who died aboard the imploded Titan were her billionaire British-Pakistani husband, Shahzada, 48, and son Suleman, 19. She blames 'ego and arrogance' for their deaths.
Gelbart has long been consumed by the Titanic and Titan. He brings to the documentary a wealth of factoids about both as well as Rush's participation.
'Rush had done some 88 dives prior to his last, but not all successful ones,' Gelbart says in a phone interview. 'It went down successfully only six times.'
Gelbart had been involved since 2017 when Rush had come up with a working model of the Titan, which he had initially tested in the Bahamas. Then ensued a lot of correspondence with Rush, who was to move to his company's home in Everett, Wash. before heading to his last base in St. John's.
'He was looking for publicity, and I first wanted to make an Imax film, The Return to Titanic. What he was building for us was a remote camera that would go inside the hold of the Titanic, full of cars and furniture and other stuff that no one had seen since 1912.'
Gelbart's project was initially to be a four-part series, retelling the Titanic story but using Rush's submersible to examine what was left of it, including its interior.
'We were looking for a Hollywood celebrity for the project,' Gelbart says. 'I would have liked to go down there myself, but because it was something like $250,000 a seat, it was not feasible. Instead, we included that price in our budget for a celebrity, someone to tell the Titanic story by being next to it.'
Amid all the experimenting, failed testing and rebuilding of the original Titan, Gelbart stayed in touch with Rush.
'He was a great salesman and really believed in the Titan. As an engineer, he could talk the talk. We trusted him. We didn't think he was creating something that was fatally flawed. He explained the technology, but what do I know about carbon fibre?
'He moved his operation to St. John's for a number of reasons, one of which was so he wouldn't need to certify it in Canada. But on the downside was the weather there. And with water freezing, then thawing on the Titan lining outside, this could have created damage. In the final report of the U.S. Coast Guard, we heard this could have been one of the mitigating factors in the disaster.'
That official report has yet to be released. Why?
'When (U.S. president Donald) Trump took over this year, he fired the head of the U.S. Coast Guard. So they're not allowed to release it until they get a new head.'
Gelbart was shocked like most everyone else upon learning of the implosion.
'But 24 hours later, we had the commission from the BBC, Discovery U.S.A. and the CBC to make this documentary. It was such a whirlwind turnaround for a story that much of the world had been watching and waiting for news about what happened to the Titan and its occupants, until the fate was learned.'
Gelbart's GalaFilm has more than 120 film and TV credits and has won dozens of awards, including multiple Gémeaux/Geminis and one Prime Time Emmy Award for the Cirque du Soleil series Fire Within.
'But this was the first time in my life I was involved with anything as well-known as this one.'