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Titanic (1997) - A Tale of Two Movies, One Painful and One Great

 



The first time I saw Titanic I was just a little kid, and I bawled my eyes out and then once I dried up I begged to see it again so we sat through that extremely long movie twice in two days. Our VHS copy was well worn by the time we upgraded to DVD, we watched it regularly as a family in the late 90s and early 00s. It is probably a quite vital piece of media when it comes to my love and respect and awe of grandiose filmmaking even though these days I maybe only watch it every 5 years or so. So since my parents got Paramount+ through their cable and it was the only film on there that spoke to me when I was first glancing through their library, I figured why not see how it holds up?

Honestly, every time I do revisit the film I spend like the first two hours being painfully reminded why it is so rare that I do. I grew up with a mom and older sister, a very female oriented household, so trust me when I say I’ve heard my fair share of really painfully written and delivered romantic dialogue but few outside of like Hallmark movies is as awkward, clumsy and often just downright embarrassing as between Jack and Rose here and what a young Ben thought was a grand romance for the ages is about as shallow a fling as you can get. Somebody on social media pointed out when I commented on this fact that of its many Oscar nominations, not one of them was for screenplay, and yeah that makes a lot of sense. However, it isn’t just the romantic dialogue and “character development” that makes this admitted asexual crank cringe, but every single supporting character is completely one dimensional, especially most of the monied classes in the film. They have one defining personalty mode and they stick to it until the end, nuance is not to be found anywhere except maybe the less-thankless role played by Kathy Bates. Of course they also insert a lot of groanworthy jokes about pop culture like one about the future worth of a Picasso that I literally “booed” my TV after.

So much of the little bit of enjoyment I have of the first couple hours of the movie just comes from design. The ship sets and “miniatures” are impressively detailed, the costumes and dining rooms and every little area we see are dazzling and really put you into a sense of wonderment of what the ship must have been like. The film also has a good cast even if they aren’t given much to work with, and pure charisma can sometimes carry them through the clunkiness and it is easy to see why the two leads went on to long, interesting careers where they got quite a number of really good roles.

Once they hit the iceberg though, everything goes into overdrive for the better. While I’m the first to call him overrated generally, nobody would argue that James Cameron doesn’t know how to direct a damn good horror-tinged action film, and that’s exactly what it becomes. A disaster film full kinetic, innovative, and just wild filmmaking, extremely eerie lighting and scenarios and framing, and creeping claustrophobia and of course a crushing impending doom for so many. I cannot express to you how pitch perfectly directed with absolutely brilliant mixed practical and early CGI effects utilized to make you feel every creak and glub and even the frostiness of the night that this film is after around the 2 hour mark. If they had reduced the film by about an hour mostly from the first half of the film, I would have a largely positive view of it because the second half does such an effective job of filling you with the terrors and hopelessness of the situation. Alas…

Will it be another 5 years for me? Yeah, probably, or maybe the next time I’m in the mood I will simply skip forward until where the good stuff really gets going cause it isn’t like any of the stuff I’d be missing makes me care about these puddle shallow characters any more, I might even like them more without it. However, will I probably always continue coming back not out of nostalgia but purely the strength of its climax? That is quite likely, and I will always recommend it more than I don’t on that basis.

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