TITANIC
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ****
TITANTIC, writer and director James Cameron's much anticipated and
sometimes ridiculed $200,000,000 epic, arrives shortly into the
theaters so the question naturally arises, whether the film is
worth
it? As a business proposition, it seems hard to see how it can
ever
break even, but as a movie it is nothing short of wonderful.
If you've already neatly categorized it as yet another
disaster
movie a la VOLCANO or THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, think again. The
movie
is both a great love story told with the disaster as a backdrop and a
portrayal of one of the world's most memorable disasters made real and
personal by seeing it through the eyes of two young lovers. In
either
case, it is filmmaking at its best.
When we entered the press screening, my wife asked the
publicity
rep if there would be an intermission since the film runs three
and a
quarter hours long. He said no but that the time would go by so
fast
she'd never notice the length. Amazingly, he was right. TITANIC is
one of the few long films that doesn't suffer because of it.
The lush picture, filmed by Russell Carpenter in 70mm,
opens in
the present with two diving subs exploring the wreck of the
Titanic on
the bottom of the ocean. Fortune hunter Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton)
leads the expedition looking for the world's most valuable diamond
necklace that went down with the ship, known back then as "the ship of
dreams." The necklace's hundred-year-old former owner, Rose DeWitt
Bukater (Gloria Stuart), finds Brock to tell him her story.
Although almost all of the movie happens in flashback, one of the
engineers shows the elderly Rose exactly how the ship was sunk. Using
a computer simulation, the movie takes the time to explain what will
happen later, which adds immensely to making a lucid story out of what
would have otherwise been hopelessly confusing.
After twenty minutes, the story makes its jump to the past as the
Titanic leaves on her maiden voyage. In a classic movie theme, the two
parts of the ship, first class and steerage (third-class) exist in
sharp contrast. The strength of the script is the way it paints the
differences between rich and poor without excessive moralizing.
Entering the ship on its day out is Rose along with her
millionaire fiance, Cal Hockley, played with perfect snobbishness by
Billy Zane. And thanks to a last minute winning poker hand, an
itinerant artist named Jack Dawson gets himself into a little shared
cabin in third class. Even with her own promenade deck, Rose feels
trapped on the ship, what with an upcoming marriage to a man she
loathes. In contrast, Jack can barely contain his euphoria at being on
board.
After Jack saves Rose from committing suicide, they start a brief
but impassioned love affair. Never tawdry and rarely explicit, their
romance has the power to sweep the audience into the story. Leonardo
DiCaprio in his best performance ever plays Jack with confidence and
charisma. In so many ways, small and large, he makes all the right
decisions in his approach to the part. When he confronts Cal, for
example, he remains composed and polite and yet subtly undermines every
one of Cal's supercilious put-downs.
Kate Winslet gives a wonderfully captivating performance as young
Rose. The chemistry between these two Academy Award nominees, him for
WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE and her for SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, is
nothing short of astonishing. From the scene where he embarrasses her
by repeatedly asking if she loves her finace to the beautiful one of
them hanging off the ship's bow to the one where she embarrasses him by
asking him to paint her nude, they dazzle the screen with a pair of
mesmerizing performances. If the film breaks after an hour and a half,
which is how long Cameron wisely waits to have the iceberg show up, you
will still get one of the best films of the year.
Peter Lamont's sets are more than authentic. One scene, for
example, starts with the planning-to-retire captain, played with
insouciance by Bernard Hill, having his tea on deck. It then shifts to
the ship's massive gears and then to the bright-hot boiler room filled
with sweating muscular men shoveling in the coals. The handsome
interior common rooms of the ship resemble a palace more than an ocean
liner.
Easily the most fascinating part of the story is what happens
after the iceberg hits and before the battle with the water begins in
earnest. At first, since the iceberg tears a series of little gashes
in the hull, not some big gaping hole, the passengers view the hit as
more of curiosity than anything else. What a lark. We've struck an
iceberg. Now let's get back to our brandy and cigars.
The ship's musicians play like troopers through it all, even after
the panic sets in. After all, they see it as their duty to calm the
passengers. When the musicians are about to die, they politely thank
each other for the pleasure of being able to play together, and they
mean it. Their civility borders on insanity, but it is touching
nevertheless.
The story is so rich that my description has merely touched the
surface. There are more than enough characters to love and to hate,
and all of the casting is dead-on.
Special effects work best when their presence becomes almost
undetectable. In TITANIC, for which he created a nine-tenths scale
model of the entire ship, Cameron strove for accuracy at all costs.
The most dramatic moment in the film happens when the ship breaks in
two, and the front section becomes vertical in the water. People are
flung like ants either into the water to be shortly frozen to death or
into other parts of the ship to be crushed immediately.
Besides being romantic and dramatic, the script includes liberal
doses of humor. From the many deliciously subtle verbal put-downs to
the physical comedy, as when Jack teaches Rose to spit like a man, the
show elicits laughter in addition to perhaps a few tears.
"It's good-bye for a little while," a less than confident father
tells his little girl since it was indeed women and children first.
"This boat's for mommies and children. There'll be a boat in a little
while for daddies." Basically there was a design decision to have
fewer than half of the necessary life boats -- it made the decks look
too crowded otherwise.
Perhaps the sinking is best summarized by one of the Guggenheim's
on-board the ship. In the dining room with the lifeboats gone and the
ship certain to sink, he is offered a life jacket by one of the crew.
"No thanks," the elegantly attired Guggenheim replies. "We're dressed
in our best and would prefer to go down like gentlemen. But we would
like a brandy."
TITANIC runs 3:14. It is rated PG-13 for tastefully and
delicately presented sex and nudity and would be fine for kids twelve
and up.
Have I Seen This Movie: Yes
And What Did I Think?: Titanic was overly hyped way too much and
whenever a film has a lot of hype, it produces tons of critics
who love to bash the movie. Some people loved Titanic, others
hated it. When I first saw it in the theater, I must say that I
did love it. Titanic actually does live up to the hype and has
a beautiful and compelling story. It's not just about a ship
sinking, we all knew the outcome before we went to see the movie.
It rather tells the story of Jack and Rose, 2 people from different
worlds who meet on board and develop an instant love affair. True,
the movie leading up to the iceberg hit could get a little slow
at times, and perhaps Titanic could be edited down a bit, but it
helps serve to learn about the two characters. My favorite part
was after the iceberg hit, where the action really picks up. The
effects were fantastic and pretty erie to see some of the people
die. And yes, it was sad at the end when we learn Jack's fate.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet give great performances and
are surrounded by some nice supporting cast memebers as well.
Titanic was a nice blend of love story and adventure and deserves
to be the biggest moneymaker of all time. I give Titanic 5 out of
5 stars.
Review written June 8, 1999
