Titanic is of course James Cameron's 1997 critically and commercially-acclaimed blockbuster. The film launched the careers of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio into the A-list, from which they have never come down. At the time of production it was the most expensive film ever made, and remains in the (inflation-adjusted) top three 20 years later. Adjusted for inflation, Titanic is the 4th highest grossing film of all time. It won 11 Oscars, and has been watched repeatedly by my girlfriend, my mother, my sister and I imagine by most of the rest of the world multiple times before I finally got around to it last weekend. In short - I am going to assume you know what Titanic is.
You will know the plot too of course. Kind of like Towering Inferno meets Romeo and Juliet, Titanic tells the story of high society's Rose (Winslet) and free spirited ne'er-do-well Jack (DiCaprio) meeting and falling in love aboard the doomed passenger liner. Her family don't like it, but they don't care. Then the story almost comes to a head with Rose' evil betrothed trying to kill Jack, then a massive iceberg tries to kill them all. For 3 hours.
It's a strange film to watch. Mostly because you know what's going to happen, and the fact that this knowledge renders large portions of the second act's plot irrelevant. The film's third act is when the ship actually sinks. This starts after 105 minutes - still over 100 to go. The tone here is very strange. On the one hand the film feels like Towering Inferno on a boat, with crashing waves, exploding windows, plates hurtling down from shelves and people falling to presumed far away deaths. However on the other hand the film tries to remember that this was a real disaster, and upon its release survivors were still alive. The cutting back and forth between genuine heartfelt tragedy and tragicomic disaster schlock is off-putting.
20 years on and the special effects still look amazing - the huge budget was not wasted and the strange tone does nothing to detract from one's ability to marvel at the technical achievement on screen. Aside from a few moments of CGI early on when the ship is in harbour, the fact that real sets were used is a lesson to film makers of the current and future eras. Cameron famously pushed the envelope with the creation of his movable replica of the ship, hundreds of extras, gallon upon gallon of water and his furious temper asserting that everything should be exactly the way he wanted. The result is a technical marvel that in the current era of cheap CGI will rarely be attempted again.
The plot's main driver is Jack's fate. We know that Rose survives the disaster as the whole story is told from the point of view of old Rose in the modern era. Does Jack survive and live happily ever after with her? Nope - but then you and everyone else in the world already knew that. I'm not going to be a cynic here. The love story is genuinely touching and well put-together. Add in two incredibly charismatic actors, one insanely popular song layered over the soundscape, a huge great 'heart of the ocean' necklace metaphor, end on marriage in death, fade to white - bank $2 billion. Easy right? Well no, no it isn't. Whatever you might of James Cameron, he is one of the most technically innovative film-makers of the last 30 years, and with Titanic he deserved his successes.
Well that's that gap in the film knowledge patched up. Next?
