I knew that I wanted to see Titanic from the first time I'd heard about the film. I've always been interested in the legend of the doomed luxury liner from the time I was very young and would play "patty cake" to the folk song "Titanic". Over the years, I read numerous books and saw all the movies and documentaries. I believe I viewed these previous works with a combination of morbid curiosity and emotional detachment, probably because my mind could not get past the scope of the tragedy.
Prior to screening this film version, I had been hearing people compare Titanic to Gone with the Wind and James Cameron to D.W. Griffith. Moreover, even moviegoers whom I know to have small fidget quotients seemed not to mind the more than 3-hour running time. By the time the Golden Globe nominations came out I too was in a Titanic frenzy.
Titanic lives up to the hype and then some!
James Cameron may not be the world's best screenwriter, but the story he tells transcends the enormity of the tragedy. The emotional impact of the greatest maritime disaster of all time was finally driven home to me by the simple love story set on the great "ship of dreams". By joining the story of the "star crossed lovers", (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) with historical details of the actual tragedy, Titanic lures viewers into the heartbreaking beauty of its lost world. Visually the film is stunning. Cameron has made sure that the audience can see where every penny of that 200 million was spent - on the ship. She is both a microcosm of the world, as well as one of the film's characters in her own right.
Sets match old photographs right down to the sculptures, woodwork and carpeting (made by the original carpet manufacturer for the White Star Line); costumes incorporate fragments of vintage clothing, even the ashtrays are exact replicas. The extras worked with an Edwardian etiquette coach throughout the filming, furthering the illusion that the privileged past had returned to life.
This is no quiet Merchant/Ivory-style art film, however. It's a movie with incredible momentum right from its deceptive start.
The story begins in the present day, with a team of oceanographer/treasure hunters (led by Bill Paxton) scavenging amid the Titanic wreckage (like SeaQuest DSV meets Indiana Jones) for the Heart of the Ocean, an egg-sized blue diamond that supposedly went down with the ship.
The window to the past begins to open when Rose (Gloria Stuart), a 101-year-old woman, claims to be the model wearing the diamond in a sketch found by the present-day salvage team. Rose begins telling her story, and we are swept into the waters of the past via a stunning shot that dissolves from the underwater ruins of the present to the 1912 Titanic in its shiny, arrogant maiden glory.
17 year old Rose (Kate Winslet) arrives at the first class gangway in the company of Cal Hockley (Billy Zane), the abusive snob whom her mother (Frances Fisher) is forcing her to marry. Meanwhile, in a nearby pub, bohemian artist Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) wins a steerage ticket in a poker game. It won't be long before Jack and Rose are brought together through a dramatic meeting (an event which foreshadows their ultimate fates). While they fall for each other, we get to see the upstairs-downstairs contrast between the lives of the first class wealthy and the lower-deck poor, most of whom will be kept behind locked gates and away from the lifeboats until it's too late. The relationship that builds between Rose and Jack gives the film its emotional hook. We connect to the world of the film through them, feel their pain, happiness, and ultimately their tragedy as well as triumph. There is incredible chemistry between the stars which keeps the romance afloat even after the iceberg gets in the way midway through the film.
Cameron allows the ensuing disaster to unfold in almost real time, with a terrifying precision which is no less suspenseful for all that we know exactly what will happen. (Thanks to a sequence in which the film's modern-day characters watch a computer-generated rendering of how the ship physically sank -- not to mention Rose's obvious survival). The sinking of the ship is sight to behold. Titanic is a technical marvel, but it also brings us right next to the face of death and lets us dangle there for a good, long look. Cameron doesn't pull any punches and goes for the gut. You can not help but feel the pain of the helpless souls stuck on board, facing inevitable death. An elderly couple lie in their bed, holding each other tight as the water fills their room; a mother tries to quiet her terrified children with the dubious comfort that "it will all be over soon." The look of dignified horror on the face of Benjamin Guggenheim, who is determined to "die like a gentleman" as he watches the water swirl towards him while seated, brandy in hand, in the first class lounge. The sinking of the ship is devastating, but the aftermath is even more so, with it's vision of the survivors watching the doomed bobbing like frozen corks set adrift in the icy sea on that last, moonless night. To watch Titanic is to come as close as humanly possible to knowing what it must have been like to live through -- or perish on -- that terrifying night, when a whole era's sense of invincibility went down to the bottom of the sea.
Ultimately a haunting tale of human nature, with numerous displays of callousness, gallantry, cowardice, faith and courage, Titanic offers a wrenching story of blind arrogance and its terrible consequences. Cameron has made some impressive films in the past, but by sinking Titanic to the bottom of the Atlantic, he has reached artistic depths that few would have expected. True, Titanic cost more than any film has a right to, but in this case, it was worth it. I, for one, can't wait to see it again.
A note to those of you prone to waiting for films to be released on video - don't! Because of the heavy use of CGI (computer generated imagery does not look quite as impressive on a TV), Titanic begs to be seen on the big screen. Treat yourself, it's only $10 (in NYC, that is) - you'll be glad you did� back
