Titanic Review

by Seth Bookey (sethbook AT panix DOT com)
January 27th, 1998

Titanic (1997)

[Longer review than usual.]

Seen on 25 December 1997 with Tony for $8.75 + 1.50 Teleticket at the Loews Astor in Times Square.

In ancient Rome, big spectacles kept people entertained. Sometimes, they even recreated great naval battles, like the one at Actium, sinking a ship if necessary. An artificial lake would be made, and a mock battle would ensue, ships sinking, etc., all to the delight of the crowd.

Boy, things haven't changed a bit.

*Titanic* is the most expensive movie made to date--more than $200 million. Director James Cameron has been captivated by the worst maritime disaster in history. He built a replica of the ship 90 percent to scale. He waived his own fees to get it made. It endured audience testing and re-editing after a stalled Summer 1997 release. I saw many previews and anxiously awaiting my chance to see it.

So why did James Cameron raise the most dramatic story of the sea, only to weight it down and sink its true potential with a teen romance, action/adventure moves, and misrepresentation of what happened?

But before I go into all that, here's what's great about the movie. As spectacles go, *Titanic* delivers one that is first class. The lush opulence of the Titanic is recreated in great detail. The special effects are absolutely stunning. Watching the great boat sink is something you won't soon forget. From the moment the boat hits the iceberg to the the time the lifeboats go back to find survivors and drift through the bobbing, lifejacketed, frozen corpses or the "Unsinkable's" passengers, you will be absolutely amazed at this recreation. Also, the scenes of the ship enjoying its maiden voyage on the open sea is a real treat also, because you get a good sense of how mammoth the Titanic was, and why it was called the "Ship of Dreams."

The movie, however, revolves around the fictional love story of first-class passenger Rose DeWitt Bukater and steerage vagabond Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), a world-traveler who has never shaved. Rose is engaged to wealthy American snob Cal Hockley (Billy Zane, in too much make-up) so she and her mother Ruth (Frances Fisher) can stay in the life to which they are accustomed.

The Titanic's real passengers, the collision with the iceberg, the sinking, and the aftermath are all much more compelling, and better covered in a wonderful three-hour documentary on A&E cable TV. Also, Titanic has several inaccuracies, like when the ship splits in half. Of course, who wants to spend $10.25 to *not* see the ship split in half above the waterline? In reality, it happened below the water's surface. No one knew the ship split in two until the 1980s, when the sunken vessel was finally found.

Because the audience testing clearly indicated that teenagers are the target audience, the love story becomes paramount, and none of us are spared the sort of action-adventure we are used to seeing from Cameron in movies like *Terminator 2*. It is very hard to believe that the two young class-crossed lovers would have as much energy as they do, what with running through flooded passageways, breaking down gates, fleeing the scorned fiance, etc., escaping *every* conceivable peril. In fact, it is unlikely that these two passengers, one first class the other steerage, would ever have met; class-conscious British boats like this kept people firmly in their place.

Also amusing and improbable is the framing device of the story being told in flashback by a 101-year-old Rose (Gloria Stuart) to Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) and his crew, who have located the submerged wreck and have found her through a sketch Jack had made of her and a gigantic diamond, a sketch retrieved via robotic arm in a safe her old stateroom from the ocean floor. Real footage of the ship on the ocean floor is used, and the computerized dissolves from the embarnacled ship's railing to the brand new ones on the maiden voyage are very well done.

Many opportunities are missed to capture the real dramas that unfolded. It also seems as if some key scenes wound up on the editing room floor. For example, we see an old couple on a bed together as their room fills with water, but we never really saw them before. Undoubtedly these are the famous Strauses (owners of Macy's); the wife refusing to get on a lifeboat when she had the chance, to stay with her husband of 40+ years of marriage. Also, there is no sort of epilogue, no text telling us how the disaster resulted in international laws ensuring lifeboat space for all aboard ocean vessels; nothing of the inquiry into the disaster, nothing of the press sensation and how the media pilloried the White Star Line's executive, Bruce Ismay in print. Ismay exhorted the captain to make headlines by pushing the engines to the limit; instead, the ship hit the iceberg with no chance of avoiding it. Apparently, it was going too fast, and the lookouts had no binoculars, and there was no time to turn the ship in time.

So, for all the money it cost to make this film, it ends up being a *Jerry Maguire* at sea, with romance for the ladies and action for the guys and little or nothing to do with the White Star Line's push to get noticed in the press or with the many preventable disasters that befell the ship.
As for the performances, the most spirited one, for as much as we get to see her is Kathy Bates as the down-to-earth American millionnaire--the "unsinkable" Molly Brown. The principal actors of the love triangle do what they are supposed to do, but I was not really moved by them. The best performance in Titanic is the ship itself, and it is so well done, you won't be disappointed.

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