TITANIC

I would normally begin reviews with a small introduction of the film, the year it was released and who directed it, but i don't really need to do that for this film do i? Everyone knows this film, everyone's seen this film and nearly everyone loves this film. I did have a small quibble with my Dad about this movie the other night after dinner, with my Dad feeling that it was a soppy, overly romantic melodrama. Ironically enough despite the argument i agree with him, and despite the melodrama, i absolutely love this movie.

Titanic sets a budding romance between a rich, attractive socialite named rose and a young, rugged worker traveling in third class named Jack. By setting a love story on board the ship, director James Cameron makes the sinking of the ship not only a physical and historical event, but an emotional occurrence as well. As Rose and Jack fall in love, so do we, we fall in love with their romance, with them as a couple and with the way in which they make each other better. As we fall in love with them, the sinking of the ship becomes heartbreaking to the audience, as we realize that if the ship sinks, they will not be together, and it's a heartbreaking, visceral experience.

Titanic also uses a highly interesting narrative structure, Rose, now aged 109 meets up with a group of scientists and discoverers attempting to find The Heart Of The Ocean, a large diamond her fiance once gave to her that might have ended up at the bottom of the atlantic. In what is essentially the 'present', Rose tells the story of her time on the titanic, how she met Jack and how the ship eventually sunk. Titanic is already a story of which everyone knows the outcome, and so James Cameron makes the smart decision to show us the sinking of the ship, via computer simulation, at the start of the film. This is intelligent as it takes any suspense out of the story, and by explaining the sinking of the ship in a dry forensic manner, the sinking of the Titanic as it is shown later in the movie becomes an almost purely emotional event, and we are also able to understand what is happening during the sinking of the ship.

The film is perfectly cast, and was once described as the ultimate date movie of the 90's. As a child of that decade i must concur, Kate Winslet is fantastic as the strong yet fragile, ballsy yet delicate Rose, a woman trapped into a future from which she can't escape, a woman engaged to a man she doesn't even know and treated like a porcelain doll by everyone around her. Leonardo DiCaprio is also fantastic, and we fall in love with him just as deeply as Rose does. Together the couple make one of the best and most iconic film pairings of all time. The chemistry between the two is palpable and visceral, and the couple have an erotic sexual chemistry apparent in 1940's romances.

The film was also a significant technological breakthrough, the film uses a large amount of underwater footage shot at the actual site of the wreck of the titanic, this was a first and is of significant interest.The Titanic is a real character in this film, and shooting at the sight of the actual wreck was a breakthrough in engineering and cinematography. The film was also a breakthrough in the fields of CGI and motion capture, many of the extras were filmed using motion capture techniques, and their actions replicated for ease and continuity purposes. The vision of the ship was also an entirely digital creation, again a first for cinema, as previously CGI had often been crude and cartoonish.

Despite all the nay say from my father, i absolutely love this movie. I love the fact that it is overtly romantic, slightly meladromatic and overtly erotic, the sexual tension between the leads is palpable and the chemistry is visceral and real. James Cameron has created a tangible world out of the myth of the Titanic, giving us a reason to care about the sinking of the ship, by tying the fate of the ship to the destiny of our leads, we have a real emotional connection to this ship, and a real reason to want the ship to survive. Titanic is a powerful heart wrenching romance, and i love every single minute of it. Rating: A+

Jack: I'm the king of the world!