WARNING!!!
These previews contain vital
plot information and other potentially movie-spoiling stuff!
If you don't want to know, read no further!
(Like there's anyone left on the planet who hasn't seen the thing already...)
TITANIC
Written and directed by James Cameron. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, Bill Paxton, David Warner, Suzy Amis, Victor Garber.
If it's James Cameron, it's gotta be big. Just ask anyone driving down the coast of Mexico these past few months. It's a jarring experience after a dozen beers, three shots of tequila, four margaritas and a platter full of tacos to look out on the ocean and see the TITANIC floating there. Why, it's enough to make one swear off tacos.
Because James Cameron is known for making big-time, big-budget action films many people don't think of him as an excellent writer. But let's look at some of his credits: In 'The Terminator' he created a time-travel film which ACTUALLY DOESN'T COMPLETELY UNRAVEL AT THE END! With 'The Abyss' Cameron created a script that was gripping, dramatic and emotional, as well as visually spectacular. Lindsay's death in that film, drowning while her estranged husband has to helplessly watch, is so powerful that I'm afraid all the 'underwater alien' stuff that comes afterward just can't compete. Believe it or not, that's a compliment. Both 'Aliens' and 'Terminator 2' proved that Cameron knows better than anyone in Hollywood the secret to making a good sequel - make the same film, completely different. He managed to supply audiences with what they wanted, while also giving them more than they expected. Those are four terrific films, each with a strong script.
Jeez, don't the
Mexicans know that the first one sank?
*burp* Mas cerveza, por favor...
So it was with great anticipation that I read Cameron's script to 'Titanic'. There have been so many stories that have taken place on the doomed luxury liner that I wanted to see what he would do with it. Would he supply what I wanted, but give me more than I expected?
Yes and no.
The 'Titanic' script offers no story surprises - it's a tale of doomed love which you know from the start is doomed because... it takes place on the 'Titanic'! Rose DeWitt Bukater is booked on the maiden voyage of the great ship with her widowed mother Ruth and fiancé Caledon Hockley. Left in debt by her late husband, Ruth has engineered Rose's marriage to the prosperous Cal in an attempt to retain their social standing and cash flow. But Rose feels trapped by her mother's machinations and Cal's cruel pomposity, and longs for something better. That something comes her way in the form of Jack Dawson, who wins a ticket aboard the ship in a card game. An artist, Jack is a free-spirit, returning to America after traveling Europe. Saving Rose from a clumsy suicide attempt, Jack charms her with his kindness and easygoing attitude toward life. What follows is pretty formulaic: The lovers are separated by their class differences as well as the cruelty of Rose's mother and fiancé. They struggle with their desires and oppressors until finally committing to one another... just about the time the ship rams an iceberg.
Hey, look! Someone
smiled on the set of TITANIC!
He must've had the chowder.
Like I said, pretty formulaic. But I liked this script - not for its plotline so much as for its special moments. When telling a story like this, especially one which takes place during an historical event which we are all so familiar with, it's the details that will set it apart. And the details do set it apart. Cameron has an eye for grand visuals, and the 'Titanic' script is full of them - grand visuals not of the sinking ship, but with the young lovers. One scene has them standing at the bow, arms outstretched. Unable to see anything but the water it's as though they're flying over the ocean as the sun goes down. This moment is made more poignant by the revelation that this was the last time 'Titanic' would see daylight. It's a small thing, but the script is filled with enough of these moments that the love story affected me.
I also liked Cameron's framing device - his way of making the story more contemporary, as well as providing a pointed (yet subtle) comment on the ethics of those now trying to salvage 'Titanic'. The story is told by Rose, now 100 years old, to a salvage crew trying to find a specific treasure within the sunken ship. As her story unfolds the salvage crew become more fascinated, and ultimately more respectful toward those that died in the disaster. Cameron gives the needle to anyone who would try and desecrate what is in effect a graveyard for their personal gain. It's a point of view I happen to agree with, and was happy to see included. This framing device also provides the film with its last, very touching, very satisfying image.
This one's for all those delusional girls out there who call him 'Leo'.
Strangely enough, I found that the weakest part of the script was the mayhem surrounding the sinking of the ship. But I also realize that, in the hands of a master action director like Cameron - and his colleagues at Digital Domain - it should be spectacular. You can only read so much "So-and-so slogs through the now hip-deep water" description before your eyes glaze over. I feel confident that my eyes will be wide open when watching the film.
MY PROGNOSIS? I honestly don't know. It could go either way - either the footage of the sinking ship will be so spectacular that people will just HAVE to see it, or the gentle love story will prove too wimpy for those unwilling to wait an hour before the iceberg arrives. I hope they wait.
AND THE CRITICS SAY...
VARIETY: "This TITANIC arrives at its destination. A spectacular demonstration of what modern technology can contribute to dramatic storytelling, James Cameron's romantic epic, which represents the biggest roll of the dice in film history, will send viewers in search of synonyms for the title to describe the film's size and scope... The dynamic of the central love story, between a brash lad from steerage and an upper-class young lady bursting to escape her gilded cage, is as effective as it is corny, and will definitely help put the picture over with the largest possible public... (Cameron), best known for his effects-laden sci-fi thrillers, has pushed a human drama, and an intense love story at that, to the forefront in a way he never has before. Result works as old-fashioned melodrama, even if one can't quite say romance is now his forte...Technically, there is no question that the film is a wonder... DiCaprio and Winslet deliver all and more of what might have been expected of them, Kathy Bates tosses off some jolly jests as the "unsinkable" Molly Brown, and Gloria Stuart, a beautiful leading lady of the early sound era, is quite moving as the elderly woman who tells her intimate memories of the Titanic for the first time... All others, however, are stuck with stock characterizations, and one wonders if Cameron could not have brought more depth and resonance to a few more of his characters... Quite a bit of the dialog is peppered by vulgarities and colloquialisms that seem inappropriate to the period and place, but again seem aimed directly to the sensibilities of young American viewers... The Titanic hits the iceberg 100 minutes into the film, and the next 80 minutes represent uninterrupted excitement and spectacle."
NY TIMES: "Cameron's magnificent TITANIC is the first spectacle in decades that honestly invites comparison to GONE WITH THE WIND. What a rarity that makes it in today's world of meaningless gimmicks and short attention spans: a huge, thrilling three-and-a-quarter-hour experience that unerringly lures viewers into the beauty and heartbreak of its lost world... Though the tender moments in Cameron's earlier films have mostly involved Arnold Schwarzenegger, graceful storytelling from this one-man army of a filmmaker (a director, a producer, a writer and an editor) is the biggest of many surprises here. Swept away by the romance of his subject matter, Cameron rises to the occasion with a simple, captivating narrative style, one that cares little for subtlety but overflows with wonderful, well-chosen Hollywood hokum... Among the many miracles of TITANIC is its way of creating a sweet, life-changing courtship between Jack and Rose in the course of only a few days. At the risk of turning into a women's picture, TITANIC brings these two together through a dramatic meeting, an invitation for Jack at a formal first-class dinner, a dancing romp among steerage passengers and even enough intimate moments to give the love story heat."
LA TIMES: "To the question of the day - what does $200 million buy? - the 3-hour-and-14-minute TITANIC unhesitatingly answers: not enough... For seeing TITANIC almost makes you weep in frustration. Not because of the excessive budget, not even because it recalls the unnecessary loss of life in the real 1912 catastrophe, which saw more than 1,500 of the 2,200-plus passengers dying when an iceberg sliced the ship open like a can opener. What really brings on the tears is Cameron's insistence that writing this kind of movie is within his abilities. Not only isn't it, it isn't even close... Cameron has regularly come up with his own scripts in the past, but in a better world someone would have had the nerve to tell him or he would have realized himself that creating a moving and credible love story is a different order of business from coming up with wisecracks for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Instead, what audiences end up with word-wise is a hackneyed, derivative copy of old Hollywood romances, a movie that reeks of phoniness and lacks even minimal originality. Worse than that, many of the characters, especially the feckless tycoon Cal Hockley (played by Billy Zane) and Kathy Bates' impersonation of the Unsinkable Molly Brown, are cliches of such purity they ought to be exhibited in film schools as examples of how not to write for the screen... (A)s Cameron sails his lonely craft toward greatness, he should realize he needs to bring a passenger with him. Preferably someone who can write." (Just a note after reading this review: whether you agree with it or not - when did Kenneth Turan turn into Rex Reed?)
ROGER EBERT: "James Cameron's 194-minute, $200 million film of the tragic voyage is in the tradition of the great Hollywood epics. It is flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted and spellbinding. If its story stays well within the traditional formulas of such pictures, well, you don't choose the most expensive film ever made as your opportunity to reinvent the wheel... Movies like this are not merely difficult to make at all, but almost impossible to make well. The technical difficulties are so daunting that it's a wonder when the filmmakers are also able to bring the drama and history into proportion. I found myself convinced by both the story and the saga. The setup of the love story is fairly routine, but the payoff - how everyone behaves as the ship is sinking - is wonderfully written, as passengers are forced to make impossible choices."
WHILE THE PUBLIC SAYS...
TITANIC bested TOMORROW NEVER DIES with a gross of $27.6 million - impressive considering TITANIC clocks in at 3 hours and 15 minutes, allowing for fewer showings per theatre than the Bond film.
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