Last night I went to see Titanic in 3D. It wasn't my idea, honestly, but I went along because the significant other wanted to see it. The reason why? Because Neil deGrasse Tyson convinced James Cameron to make the night sky more realistic. Someone is quite the astronomy nerd. After a discussion with a friend who has a degree in history and the mention of concern about whether the dime Rose gives to Jack is a period-correct Barber dime, it got me wondering about what other inaccuracies there might be. Of course, me knowing as much as I do about dogs now and having not seen the film since it was originally in theaters (when I was quite young), I was a bit startled to see how historically inaccurate the dogs in the movie were. Cameron is rather infamous for being a stickler for accuracy, but clearly he missed some things.
So, what's the issue? You see several different dogs in the film, which is appropriate as at least twelve dogs were known to be on the RMS Titanic when it disembarked. From what I remember, in the two scenes that include dogs I saw at least three breeds. An Afghan hound, Airedale terrier, and French bulldog come to mind, and I know that a couple of more dogs were also included, though their breeds escape me. Though the bulldog wasn't too inaccurate, the grooming on the terrier and the coat on the Afghan were very wrong for the time period. Watch the clip below to see what I mean.
CH Zardin, an Afghan hound from 1907
That Afghan is all wrong. At the time, the few Afghans that had been brought to the Western world looked extremely different from those you see today. They had far less coat, and the long hair they did have had a woolier appearance. In addition, they frequently had hair that fell over the forehead and breaks in the coat on the lower legs, making the feet appear exaggeratedly large. There was also a lot of variation in the coat on the dogs, with some having significantly less than the dog pictured to the right. The Afghan in the film clearly represents today's type: long, silky, flowing coat all over that takes a significant amount of grooming to keep up. It could have been possible for the dog used in the film to be groomed to a more period-accurate appearance. However, I doubt its owner, who had to put so much time into caring for the coat, would be willing to have large portions of it clipped short. The truth remains that no Afghan from the early 1900s looked like the dog in Titanic.
Afghan hounds from 1913, a year after the RMS Titanic sank
It seems that dogs sometimes go by the wayside in period films. However, if a filmmaker chooses to set a piece in a certain time period and wants to include dogs to "make the film seem more correct," they should take breed history into account. What you see today is very often not what once was common type in a breed. This is especially true of dogs with profuse coat like the Afghan hound. The more time that has passed since the period the film is being set in, the more likely that the breeds have changed significantly. My tip for filmmakers? If you're going to do it, at least do it right and don't fudge historical accuracy just because it may be easier to use an unmodified modern champion.
