Everybody remembers where they were on 9/11. I was in my middle school science class in West Virginia when our teacher first broke the news of the attacks to us. As a 13-year old I didn't fully grasp what was going on at the time, but even then it was clear just how historic and consequential the day would become. And obviously my story isn't unique: Everybody in the country who was old enough to remember the attacks can recall where they were on September 11, 2001. But did you know there were people eating lunch on the deck of the Titanic? Yes, the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean, the ship that sank in 1912. As it turns out, Titanic director James Cameron had taken a submarine to the wreckage on 9/11, and he and his crew were eating lunch in their vessel that was parked on the deck of the doomed ocean liner. When he returned to the surface, it was the late actor Bill Paxton, who starred in Cameron's 1997 film
Titanic, who
broke the news of the attacks to the director and his crew:
“I said, ‘Jim, the world changed from the time you went down till you came back.’ It was strange. We felt a little bit like survivors out there.” During an appearance on the
Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Rob Lowe discussed hearing the story from Paxton:
"They went down to the Titanic. They had lunch on the deck of the f*cking Titanic...and 9/11 had happened." And Cameron admits that after returning from his voyage and hearing the news, it made his expeditions to the 100-year old shipwreck seem inconsequential:
"For a while, I thought, ‘Why are we diving into history while new parts are made, while the very ground we are standing on is shaking?’
We were all very wrapped up in what we were doing and we all thought it was desperately important. And then this horrible event happened and slammed us into this perspective."
But he later came to believe that feelings surrounding Titanic could help to provide a blueprint in navigating the emotions of that horrible terrorist attack:
“Some days later, I realized that ‘Titanic’ gave us help in interpreting the new disaster, in exploring the feelings of loss and anger. Why do people watch ‘Titanic?’ It’s partly because they can cry. Loss is a part of our life; it’s about love and death and about death partly defining love.
And these are things we all have to cope with.”
I can't imagine leaving a world where everything was normal, diving miles below the sea to the most famous shipwreck in the world, and coming back up to a whole new world after the worst terrorist attack in history.
But he's got a hell of a "where were you on 9/11" story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Wx2QW-1L0
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