SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

THE DESIGN SCHOOL

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL AND BUILT ENVIRONMENTS

NAME: REBECCA MARIE TANDUBA

STUDENT I.D. NO.: 0322757

FILMS SELECTED: TITANIC AND THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

WORD COUNT: 1000

ENGLISH 2 (ELG 30605)

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE-CONTRAST ESSAY

LECTURER: GOPIGHANTAN MYLVAGANAM

SUBMISSION DATE: DECEMBER 4TH, 2015

When referring to the cinematic world, the movies Titanic and The Grand Budapest

Hotel—two of the greatest films to have been released in the United States—would be the

first few movies that would immediately come to mind. When the word “Titanic” is

mentioned, one would associate it to the disastrous event of the sinking of the ship, R.M.S.

Titanic. It is a common knowledge that everyone shares, which contributes it to becoming

a premonition of the disaster whenever “Titanic” is mentioned. On the other hand, The

Grand Budapest Hotel movie depicts the tale of the people behind the hotel's

management, the concierge M. Gustave and his lobby-boy, Zero Moustafa. The tale

revolves about Zero's experience in the establishment and how his role concurred to be

Gustave's right-hand-man, whereby his tale revolves about Gustave's misadventures. At

first glance, it is evident that both movies vary from one another as the former is to be of

the disaster genre and the latter is that of the adventure. Truth be told, as you delve

deeper into understanding the two movies of discrete genres, one would be able to identify

their similarities despite having varying genres—a major factor that initially separated the

movies into such categories—which ultimately means to have diverging story lines.

One of the similarities that these two movies share is the settings. Despite having

different locations—the Titanic was set in America while The Grand Budapest Hotel in

Central Europe, both movies were set back in the era of modernism. The storyline of the

movie Titanic is set in the year 1912 whereas The Grand Budapest Hotel is set in 1932.

Furthermore, both of these tales were set in posh, upper-class establishments. In the

movie Titanic, Jack was ecstatic when he won his ticket on the Titanic in a poker game—a

clear evidence that the lower-class group could only go on board should they be lucky

enough to afford tickets. In a way, this reflects that only the rich upper-class society could

go aboard easily. It was as well mentioned by a young Zero in the movie, The Grand

Budapest Hotel—when asked why does he want to be a lobby-boy, “Who wouldn't? At the

Grand Budapest, sir. It's an institution.” These only supplement the viewers that the ship

and the hotel were both luxurious establishments.

It was also portrayed that within the storylines of both films mentioned, there exists

common traits. Both movies began the same way, whereby the plots are a recollection of

experiences that revolved upon a token of remembrance of the main characters' loved

ones. In the film Titanic, Rose foretold her experiences aboard the the ship as a drawing of

her wearing the necklace with the rare diamond was found in a safe in the ship's

wreckage. Rose recounted her experiences aboard as well as recalling her lost love, Jack

who was the artist of the mentioned drawing. In the film The Grand Budapest Hotel, the

Author narrates his meeting with the elderly owner of the hotel, Mr. Moustafa to which he

told the Author, the tale of how he took ownership. He foretold his love for Agatha and their

son through this. He mentioned that the reason he kept the hotel was in remembrance of

her—“her” being Agatha. She was mentioned indirectly as Seitz (Duncan, 2015) pointed

out that it was as if Mr. Moustafa was telling the Author,“I'm going to tell you everything

about myself, but there's a couple of things I'm going to hold onto and you can't have

them.” In this context, Mr. Moustafa recalled his experiences starting from when he first

arrived at the hotel during its glory days, with his job as the hotel's lobby-boy, omitting

Agatha from the tale despite her being the reason why he kept the hotel as he desires to

keep it to himself.

Correspondingly, the movies' pre-endings shared a scene of sacrificial—where the

supporting characters sacrificed themselves for the main characters. In the movie Titanic,

this was depicted when Jack helps Rose onto a wooden panel—only buoyant enough for

one person—after riding the stern out into the Atlantic Ocean, just as the ship broke in half.

Jack dies due to hypothermia as he prioritised Rose's survival. Likewise, this was also

represented in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Towards the end of the film, Gustave and Zero

were on another journey by train and they were stopped as they were crossing the border.

Same as the previous time, Zero's paperwork was out of order and Gustave, once again,

fought the authority—except this time, it was the death squads and not the border police.

(Lester, 2014). Mr. Moustafa simply mentions that Gustave was shot soon after. Both

movies portrayed noble sacrifices made by their characters as they were depicted to

putting their lives on the line for the other.

In addition, the characters in both movies are seen to have an appreciation for art.

In Titanic, Jack was portrayed to be a lover for the arts. According to an analysis made by

Todd Kappelman (n.d.), Jack was described to be an amateur artist specialising in

portraiture and human figure. In The Grand Budapest Hotel, M. Gustave was shown to

have an appreciation for the written art of poetry. Early in the film, he classified his meager

possessions to “a set of ivory-backed hair brushes and my library of romantic poetry”.

Even throughout the whole film, he wistfully cites poetic quotes from some of his favourite

verses whenever he is reminded of them, especially after an occurrence of an event.

(Welch, 2014).

To come to the point, both movies have some parallel with each other even though

the plots of the stories flow towards differing genres. The Titanic and The Grand Budapest

Hotel evoked similar emotions which contributed to my perspective on how similar the

movies actually are. In spite of all the contrasting aspects that differ these movies into

separate genres, one would have to admit that at some point, they share a few or some

resemblances in one another.

REFERENCES

Duncan, J. (Ed.). (2015, February 22). 7 Deep Thoughts About 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'. Retrieved December 3, 2015 from http://www.zimbio.com/Beyond+the+Box+Office/articles/aJkOolL4DY6/7+Deep+Thoughts+Grand+Budapest+Hotel

Lester, Q. (2014, July 28). A Glimmer of Civilization. Retrieved December 3, 2015 from http://strangesubject.tumblr.com/post/93176345764/a-glimmer-of-civilization

Kappelman, T. (n.d.). Titanic: A Critical Appraisal. Retrieved December 3, 2015 from http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/titanic.html

Welch, M. (2014, April 16). What Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel Can Teach Us About Poetry. Retrieved December 3, 2015 from https://ricochetmag.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/wes-anderson-poetry/