25 years ago, a ship sank on the big screen, and it sent waves rippling for generations of movie goers, to the point where it still has pop culture references today that people still understand, and that movie is Titanic. It is one of the top five highest grossing movies, of all time, and it was in the top three, until James Cameron beat himself out with Avatar: The Way of Water. Oddly enough, this rerelease of Titanic gives it a chance to hop back into number three, but either way, James Cameron knows how to make money, and he knows how to make movies that have cultural staying power. This was my first time seeing the movie, but apparently when I was less than one years old, I was in the theater watching it with my family, but I started to cry, so I had to be taken out. I could not take the dramatics at such a young age!
Titanic starts out in an odd way. There are submarines, and they are at the wreckage of the Titanic, and they are looking for some long lost treasure that has sunken to the depths of the ocean. They find a safe, and they think that might have struck it rich, but instead it just had wet money and some drawings, but Rose sees these drawings, and she calls the expedition, because the drawing was of her, and she might have some information on the location of the treasure. So Rose is helicoptered out to the ship at the ripe age of 100, and she regales the crew with her story of the Titanic.
Rose was marrying into a rich family, she was engaged to Cal, but he was verbally and physically abusive and a little weird, so it was not the happiest of engagements. Jack on the other hand was a starving artist, who got a ticket onto the Titanic at literally the last moment, and he was staying in the lower deck. His life was being guided by wherever the wind took him. One night on the ship, he saw Rose running to the back of the ship, and so he followed her, only to see her climb over the rails, and she was facing into the abyss ready to jump. She could not stand to be in her fruitless relationship any longer, and there was only one way out, but Jack coaxes her back to safety, but she slips, and it becomes a big public scene, and after that moment, their worlds slowly start melt into each other. Rose starts to come down to the parties below deck, and Jack attends a fancy dinner, and in just a couple of days, they are wildly in love with each other.
This obviously causes problems with Cal, but those troubles get put on hold when the Titanic strikes an iceberg, and the slow decent into the heart stopping water begins. Rose and Jack try to warn Rose’s family, but they are too preoccupied with framing Jack for a crime he did not commit. Jack gets handcuffed to a pole, and Rose has to come and save him as the waters rise, and they must find a way out, before they are submerged.
This story covers two themes, one is the idea of star-crossed lovers. Rose comes from a high-class family. Not only that, but Rose was also in a relationship, and not just any relationship, but she was engaged, and that engagement was too a very wealthy man. A man wealthy enough to have the heart of the sea, which clearly had to of cost some serious cash, or at least some serious connections in high places. Another important aspect is that Rose’s family had lost their fortune when her dad died, so for her mother’s sake at least, Rose needed to marry the rich guy, so that the mother could live out the rest of her years in the same level of comfort as she was used to having, but this did not matter to Rose. She was miserable. Also Jack was poor traveler, he did not have any money, and he did not even initially have a ticket on to the Titanic, but fate would have it that they should meet and fall in love, and despite everything being against them, they still fought to be together until the end, or well Jack’s end…
The other theme is similar to the idea of star crossed lovers, and that was the emphasis on class division. Clearly there was the class division in the love story, but it was so much deeper than that. The lower decks, where all of the lower class people were traveling from were literally locked in to their sections when the ships started to sink, even as the water started to flow into their level, they were still locked down there. This allowed the wealthier class to get first dibs on the life boats, of which there was not nearly enough. This did kind of give me original White Lotus vibes, a bunch of rich people going on a nice vacation, and something bad is going to happen, and a big part of the problem is related to money issues, except unlike in the White Lotus, where only a few people die, in this movie, a thousand people die.
The scenes after the ship hit the ice berg are epic pieces of cinema, but at the same time, it feels wrong to describe it as such, because the Titanic actually did sink, and lots of people did die as a result of the negligence taken by many people, but man it was cool to see the reenactment. The ship slowly sinking, and then as it starts to dip, and rip apart. Watching all of the people who did not get life boats flee up to the to tail end of the ships as the head start to breach, and then it turns into a sheer cliff, and people are jumping off and falling from the railing after their grasps fail them to their deaths. It was stunning. Then to see the rescue boats finally go back, and the water is just filled with frozen corpses, and the boat is trying to navigate through and hoping somebody, anybody is alive.
It is hard to know what truly happened, when the Titanic sank, but there are quite a few theories out there about gross amounts of negligence, and it is not just in one area, but one of the biggest things that was clearly wrong, was the amount of life boats, they knowingly only had enough life boats for about half of the passengers, and then when they were filling the boats, they were not filling them to capacity, thus lessening the effectiveness of the limited boats even more. Also the switching on of all the engines to full speed, when the captain did not think that the ship needed it seemed questionable. On top of that, many of the people responsible for the creation and driving of the ship decided to go down with the ship. I know this is a common prideful thing for ship captains to go down with the ship, but the others going down with it too, and not trying to escape, makes it seem like something else was going on as well.
Ultimately it is clear to see that this is truly a classic film. Even the debate over whether Jack could have fit on the door with Rose still goes on to this day, to the point where James Cameron literally remade the scene recently just to see if it would have been possible, and the finding were that it would have been possible, but it is easy to see how after being in freezing water, that one’s brain would be useless, once you get that cold, decision making goes out the window. So even if he fit, after trying once, his body might have been so shut down that he did not have the strength or the will power to get out. The visuals in this movie were stunning, from the interiors, to the clothing, to the sinking of the ship. The CGI is not perfect, but it is from 25 years ago, so it can easily be excused. Leo is excellent, and the others perform nicely as well. Including Rose’s fiancé, who is easily hate able. Seeing this movie on the big screen was the way to go, but even if you do not get the chance to do that, I suggest checking it out anyway you can. It gets 4 stars!
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