Review of Titanic (83)

We did the unthinkable on Saturday. In the afternoon we watched Easy Rider and posted our reviews to our web site shortly after. As Titanic is part of our DVD library, we decided to continue on our marathon that night, thus watching two movies from the list in one day.

Plot
Jack and Rose, a pair of young lovers, find one another on the maiden voyage of the "unsinkable" R.M.S. Titanic. However, when the doomed luxury liner collides with an iceberg in the frigid North Atlantic, their passionate love affair becomes a thrilling race for survival.

Jason’s Thoughts
Upon watching Titanic from start to finish for a second time in my life, I can safely say that I still don’t like this movie, nor will I ever enjoy watching it. It did have a lot of potential, though, as the sets, the costumes and the ship itself looked truly amazing. However, the story that went along with the visuals is what made this movie sink faster than the ship ever did.

If you think about it, Titanic consists of two different movies in one. At the base there is the historical side of the film, one that is filled with true events, facts and real people. Then there is the gooey filling on top, a story of a girl stuck in an unsatisfying relationship when she suddenly finds the man of her dreams. Separate the two and one could have gone on to be a great movie while the other would have been swept under the rug and quickly forgotten.

Giving a Hollywood-style, big budget telling of the fateful voyage through the eyes of its passengers could have done great things for this film. Have the story develop from different viewpoints of the passengers of different class and backgrounds, even if they are fictionalized. Show what the people went through on the ship and what they did and how they found out and reacted to its forthcoming demise.

That would have made for a much better film in my mind, one that may even be considered to be on a list of greatest of all time. Instead, we are given a fictionalized love story that has its roots based on a human tragedy. What’s next – a fictionalized love story based on the attack of Pearl Harbor? Oh, wait, I guess that one has already been done as well.

Crystal’s Thoughts
I have absolutely no shame in saying it, I love this movie. I saw it when it first came out in theaters, strangely with my mom and dad. It was actually the first movie I ever went to with my parents in a theater. Mind you, I grew up 100’s of miles from anywhere. The small town I went to school in typically showed movies at least six months after they had come out in bigger cities. So, this being one of my fondest memories of growing up I know influences my love of the movie (if you know my dad, you understand why).

Setting that influence aside, to me, this movie is one of the best of all times. The script is phenomenal and the acting is exceptional as well as the production and directing of the movie. The costume design leaves one envious of what the upper class wore during that time, and the musical score is simply the icing on the cake for this movie. To me though, the amount of work that went into making this film is what will set it above the rest for all time. Sure, there were a lot of special effects used and computer technology, but a lot of the scenes needed to be created live as well. I remember reading how Kate Winslet (young Rose) had to spend many, many hours in extremely cold water to shoot some of the scenes as well as the numerous injuries that occurred while filming how the ship sank. To me, that’s true dedication to create a movie to make it feel so real in the end.

Sure, Titanic is another romantic movie, my husband himself saying they took a tragedy and turned it into a love story. It goes beyond that though, and once you understand that, I think you can appreciate this film more. The love affair between Jack and Rose does consume the movie, but it is their impossible love that adds to the theme of this movie. As James Cameron himself wrote in response to the film, “And above all the lesson: that life is uncertain, the future unknowable... the unthinkable possible.”

It is imperative too that we all remember and consider those who lost their lives as well in the real RMS Titanic sinking in 1914. I feel Cameron did true justice to those as well, showing how it was the poor that didn’t even get a chance, while the rich complained about the shallowest things, such as the rescue boats being too crowded. The images of seeing a baby’s skull preserved underwater and the elderly couple cuddling together to die together brings a sorrow to anyone’s heart. And like what the search was for, the Heart of the Ocean, it’s important to remember that it’s those that lost their lives that are the true hearts of the ocean. This film paid a wonderful tribute to exactly that.

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