Titanic

Titanic (1997) dir. James Cameron
Starring: Kate Winslet, Leonardo Di Caprio, Kathy Bates, Billy Zane, David Warner, Gloria Stuart, Bill Paxton

****

By Alan Bacchus

It’s been 15 years since the Titanic phenomenon. It shattered the domestic and worldwide box office records by such a margin, only recently trumped astonishingly by Cameron's next dramatic feature, Avatar. Like most successes, the bigger it got the more people wanted to tear it down. It’s been trounced on like a dirty old carpet ever since. Sure, the dialogue is ham-fisted and the romance is a little syrupy, but with a fresh set of eyes Titanic is still great entertainment and worthy of its records.

James Cameron wanted Titanic to be his Doctor Zhivago, and so, like David Lean, the film begins in present day and flashes back to retrace the memories of a tragic love story against the background of a large scale historical event. The opening introduces Rose (Gloria Stuart), who is brought aboard a ship of a treasure hunter looking for a lost diamond necklace from the wreckage of the Titanic. Rose recounts the story of her fateful trip in 1912 to the high-tech treasure hunters.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jack, a poor American looking for a ride back to his homeland. He wins his ticket during a game of poker, hops on the boat in the nick of time and sails off. When he rescues the lovely erudite Rose from a suicide attempt he becomes the local hero and finds himself hobnobbing with the upper class elite, namely Rose’s impudent fiancé, Cal Hockley (Billy Zane). Longing glances from across tables turn into gleeful flirting around the boat then passionate sweaty sex in the back of a car. Then, of course, the boat hits an iceberg and the crew and passengers have one hour to get off before it sinks. Despite numerous attempts by Cal to separate them, Rose and Jack stay together all the way into the freezing cold water where their fleeting romance will eventually go down with the ship.

Indeed, much of the film is clunky as hell and the sappy paperback romance is replete with some of the worst dialogue and two-dimensional characterizations, but James Cameron has a knack for good casting, and his lead actors are so likeable the dialogue is more than tolerable. In 1997, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were young, and though not household names, both were already Oscar-nominated actors. DiCaprio is just about the perfect everyman, and Kate Winslet, who was practically born in a corset, falls into her character like an old shoe. Together sparks are palpable, something only the big screen can create.

Looking back, Billy Zane as Cal Hockley is still grating and nearly unwatchable. His performance is so bad, despite being the biggest movie ever made, it was a career killer. Virtually every word out of his mouth is like bile.

With the star-crossed lover romance firmly in place and the antagonists identified, once the ships starts going down the tech-master Cameron takes over and delivers an awesome 90-minute disaster sequence. It’s an Irwin Allen extravaganza with every penny of its $200 million budget on the screen. Cameron had a gimballed full-scale replica of “Titanic” docked in a man-made tank in Mexico. Some of the CG effects during the first half of the film look cartoony now, but everything blends in well during the nighttime scenes. My favourite moment is that poor digital person who falls and gets hit by the propeller on his way into the water. The three editors, one of whom is Cameron himself, deserve much of the reward for cutting together the moments of disaster-related suspense with the emotional anguish of joining Rose and Jack together.

For intrepid cinephiles I highly recommend going back to Roy Ward Baker’s take on the Titanic story, 1958’s A Night to Remember, now on Criterion Blu-ray and reviewed just a few days ago. Imagine Titanic without the love story. You will find many similarities between the two films, including several blatantly stolen shots from the 1958 version. The production value is surprisingly high. Check it out.

Okay, so take out Leo’s “I’m king of the world” line, Billy Zane and maybe Danny Nucci, and you have a perfectly enjoyable film. Leave them both in there and chew some potato chips over those moments and you still have a fine film.