1997: "Titanic" dir. James Cameron
A rather boring piece of art with an undeniable legacy.
Metacritic Score: 75/100
IMDB User Rating: 7.9/10
My Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
I know you weren’t expecting it in a Titanic (1997) film review, but here’s a look into my life: I typically watch these films on Monday or Tuesday, let it sit/do some research and maybe rewatch them with my boyfriend on Wednesday and Thursday, write the review Friday, let it ruminate Saturday, and post it Sunday at noon. Wash, rinse, repeat.
But here I am on Saturday night writing this week’s Oscar Werethy? review, because Titanic is my first honest-to-God challenge in this project. As a critic, I am of course inclined to give my opinion—funny how that works, isn’t it?—but as a historian within the confines of my goal (to settle the film’s legacy as a classic in the 21st century), I am also inclined to give a fair and analytical reading of the films I review.
That clash of interest is exactly what has me pouring over my laptop past my personally assigned due date this Saturday evening: subjectively, I find Titanic a one-watch-only sort of film, yet objectively, it is undeniably a classic of all time if even for its achievements alone. Let’s start with the good news first.
Cinematographically, Titanic is a legend of its own. With a whopping production budget of $200 million, it was the most expensive film to ever be made at the time, and used that to its fullest advantage. The sweeping, elegant fancy-dress costumes are nothing if not supremely memorable for their beauty and grandiosity, as is the entire set and every single part of the film’s mise-en-scene. True to the real-life ship, Titanic makes you feel every inch of its expense and elegance in your viewing experience of that boat. The boat itself is far and away the most advanced usage of CGI to date, with a combination of dozens of models in different shapes and sizes and computer animation to render the sweeping, massive vessel in such a seamless way that, if this were 1997, you could tell me they just rebuilt the damned thing and I’d believe you. Director James Cameron’s undying dedication to seeing his passion project come to fruition seeps through the film’s frames; not only do you feel the lustful romance between Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) in the blush of your face and the tug of your heartstrings, but you feel the weight of tragedy watching the ship and all its guests sink into nothingness in the many minutes of panic at the ship’s sinking.
The sepia, documentary-style filming of the first few scenes gives you all you need to grasp the movie’s historical grandeur. When we meet an older Rose (Gloria Stuart) for the first time, she’s the subject of interview, proving she is the woman from a drawing uncovered in the wreckage by Lovett (Bill Paxton), invoking a sort of When Harry Met Sally (1989)-esque aesthetic that cues the viewer in on its shared romantic plotline. When they find the picture of the Heart of the Ocean necklace and the nude drawing of Rose in the ruins of the vessel, it is reminiscent of the cymbal monkey and the broken chandelier at the auction in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic musical The Phantom of the Opera, tying the two genres together in tandem.
In and of itself, the usage of the historical romance genre is one that obviously inspired the popularity of Shakespeare in Love (1998) the following year, but propelled Titanic into its own new level of hot commodification as it was something unique and refreshing. Leonardo DiCaprio’s role in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet (1996) the year prior already made him a center of focus to the teenage girl eye, but the carefree, artistic, everyman role of Jack Dawson skyrocketed his status of teen heartthrob, something the film remains notorious for to this day. Not only this, but it was nominated for 14 Academy Awards in 1997, of which it won 11. For you non-mathers out there, that is a win rate of 79%, an absolutely phenomenal feat only met once before by Ben Hur nearly 40 years earlier in 1959. In fact, Jack’s shout on the deck of Titanic where he says, “I’m the king of the world!” is used as a saying or adage in every day American vernacular still to this day, almost 30 years after its initial utterance.
Many predicted Titanic to be boring because of its grandiosity. As Roger Ebert put it best in his review, “you don’t choose the most expensive film ever made as your opportunity to reinvent the wheel”. This much is true—it follows a set of predictable patterns, with the poor young man charming the snobby, elegant, upper-class teenage girl and bringing her down to Earth, but it certainly gets the job done, even being revered as one of the films that “always makes men cry”. Titanic was an incredible achievement, both commercially and in legacy. It was the highest grossing movie of all time until James Cameron topped that chart yet again with his Avatar in 2009, and had the highest grossing album sales for its soundtrack the following year in 1998. Everyone I know has seen it, and if by some miracle they haven’t, they still know to ramble “I’ll never let go, Jack!” and sing “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion when they reference it. It no doubt deserves its position as a classic and its win for Best Picture was undeniable.
With all of that praise out of the way, I do feel the need to air my own personal transgressions. I think that it most definitely does not need to be three hours long, and would function just fine as a historical romance without all of the wasted time in the beginning uncovering the wreckage. It would have stood fantastically alone as a period piece without the modern context, which I do understand was half a plot device and half a technical feat, but I find the need to contextualize period pieces in modern times a defect of most period pieces to begin with. I certainly admired it when I was young, but Ebert was right when he said it definitely doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and thus I do not feel like I’ll ever feel the need to revisit it. In this 1997 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cameron says, “Film-making is war…A battle between business and aesthetics”. That, I feel, is one of the most astute quotes a director has ever said (besides pretty much anything David Lynch ever said about film). People may not believe in you, but you have to stick to your aesthetic to make the film feel complete, and at the very least I must accredit him for that real passion.
P.S.: if you’d like, I do short-form reviews on all films I watch on my Letterboxd profile. Sometimes they’re silly, but other times I am so captivated by films that are not on this list that I have to review them on the spot! Please feel free to message me with any films you’d like me to give my insight on :).