TITANIC
(1997)
USA,
194 Mins
DIR:
J.Cameron
So, I’ve been a bit slack on the movie front so far in 2014,
though I did have a good reason for the first few weeks – being on a cruise
ship & all! So keeping in the spirit of that until I get back into movie
viewing patterns, let’s review a very famous film about a passenger liner! J
OK, we’ve all heard of this one, being one of the highest grossing
films ever made. It was almost exactly 16 years ago when I wandered along to
see this at the cinema. I was always fascinated by the story of the Titanic
& what happened to her on its maiden voyage, so I had been looking forward
to seeing this film.
Just in case you are one of those few who haven’t seen the film at
some point, we’ll do a quick run-through: In the current Day of the films
setting, treasure hunter Brock Lovett & his team, hunting the remains of
the famous shipwreck, undercover a picture of a young woman wearing the very necklace
they’ve been searching for. This prompts elderly Rose Dawson Calvert to contact
Lovett claiming the picture is of her. And so begins a famous story, as Rose
tells of her experiences aboard Titanic.
Jack Dawson is a penniless
artist, who won a lucky hand of poker to get his passage on Titanic in steerage,
while Rose DeWitt Bukater is a 17 year old engaged girl, travelling in first
class with her mother Ruth & fiancé Cal Hockley. Through circumstances,
they are brought together & form an unlikely friendship at first, which
blossoms into love as Rose sees a way out of an unhappy future marriage to Cal
& freedom for the first time in her life.
But their love is doomed as the Titanic hits an iceberg, & putting
their very survival at risk, as well as earning the wrath of Hockley & his
bodyguard upon discovering the affair between Rose & Jack.
We learn through elderly Rose telling her story in the current day
that Jack didn’t survive the tragedy, while urging Rose to go on & make her
life count. Rose does survive, and assumes Jack’s surname as an honour to his
memory & goes forward with her life. Finally, back in the current day, we
discover she still had possession of “The Heart Of The Ocean” necklace all
along, & having finally told her story for the 1st time of how
Jack saved her from her meandering life, alone on deck of Lovett’s ship, she
tosses the necklace into the water over the wreck site.
It’s not like the film needs a recommendation from me – Titanic
swept up in every film awards show, including a record-equally 14 Academy Award
nominations, going on to win eleven. It also boasted a very successful song in
Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”, which cleaned up in the Grammy Awards. But
here goes anyway!
I can only remember two occasions when I’ve walked out of a cinema
having been absolutely blown away, lost for words. Titanic is one of those
times. Was just simply amazed at the film - & coming from a bloke, too -at
every aspect of the film. Everything was near-perfect in this film, the design,
effects, direction, the background of the impending disaster, & the
characters themselves. No more so that Leonardo DiCaprio & Kate Winslet.
They MAKE this film, with flawless acting & amazing chemistry with their
characters. We desperately want them to both survive this tragedy & go on,
but know right from early on in the film that this is very unlikely. A good
measure of Titanic’s quality can be measured by when released back into
selected cinemas in 3D a couple of years ago & it still stands up incredibly
well. It still has the rare magical quality that draws you in, even 14 years
later.
So yeah, fair to say Titanic still stands as one of my favourite
films of all time. Maybe you could argue the film takes its time to get going,
with Lovett & his treasure hunting crew, along with current-day Rose,
(Gloria Stuart) dominating our screens for the first half hour. But once we are
taken back to Titanic’s initial sailing day in April 1912 as Rose starts her
story, it’s all A grade stuff, & by the end you would completely forget
that you've been sitting engrossed for over 3 hours. How on earth DiCaprio
wasn't even NOMINATED for an Oscar for Titanic, & how Winslet lost out to
Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets, is unfathomable. The film did manage to win just about every
other award though, so that’s consolation enough I guess.
In summation, if you for some reason have never seen Titanic, put
it straight on top of your to-do list. An amazing & triumphant film on just
about every level, every credit goes to director James Cameron here for
following through with his vision for an epic film. I gotta go the full monty
here – Titanic gets *****
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