So I've been meaning to write this since April, but what with everything going on I haven't found the moment. It probably comes across as a bit morbid, but it's not meant to be. I just found the idea interesting, and I hope I manage to make sense!
They say you are more likely to see ghosts when you're younger, more susceptible to them. However I believe you become more aware of them as you grow older. I started to think about this at the BFI. The BFI back in April ran a season of films about the Titanic, to "celebrate" the centenuary of her sinking. Now I am absolutely and completely obsessed/fascinated by shipwrecks, particularly the Titanic. There's something that really captures the human emotions, the despair, man vs nature..... and of course it is an archaeological dream to have part of history frozen in time waiting to be discovered. Shipwrecks also have the promise of treasure, and what woman doesn't like the romantic idea that the men would gentlemanly step aside and help us into the life boats first..... hmmm yeah I'm not sure that would happen today either!
Anyway, whilst watching the many films of the Titanic sinking again and again, I started to get very familiar with the main real characters, Jacob Astor, Captain Smith, Thomas Andrews, Guggenheim, I was watching these people suffer their very real fates again and again- albeit by the ways the film makers had designed. It made me think that maybe these are our real ghosts, frozen in time on film. These people will live forever through the films, replaying over and over again, meeting their ends, and for our pleasure. Is it morbid to watch them? Yes. But they are also now remembered, good and bad, and that is something that mankind strives to achieve.
People who have claimed to see ghosts say that it is like watching a bit of stuck film, replaying their actions again and again. Well maybe the movies themselves can create them.
