James Cameron's Titanic

James Cameron's block-buster movie Titanic' is an awesome piece of cinematography, and for anyone with more than a passing interest in Titanic , it is a fantastic visual treat. From the first authentically recreated jerky monochrome glimpses of the ship leaving Southampton that day in April 1912 during the opening credits, laden with her precious cargo of passengers, you know that something special is being witnessed, a movie with a purpose - to bring the Titanic to life, introducing her to a generation who previously had no interest in it before, which can only be a good thing.

The first thing that surprised me about Titanic was the beginning of the film; I completely expected to be in 1912 from the start of the movie, but instead, we see two state-of-the-art Russian submersibles, Mir I & Mir 2, dropping deeper and deeper down into the depths of the Atlantic, the shot lingering on the fading lights of the craft to create that feeling of great depth, more like a scene from 'The Abyss'.

As the film progresses, for a Titanic fan like myself, you are bombarded with images you know you have seen before, the little boy spinning his top near the cargo cranes as photographed by Francis M. Browne before he disembarked at Queenstown was incredible, as was the recreation of coming across Robert Ballard's 'doll's head'. The engine-room scenes, especially if your video is wired up to your stereo are awesome, and as those huge engines are speeded up after the Queenstown stop, you can almost smell the steam and hot oil wrapping your nostrils in a thick blanket of ocean-going nostalgia.

Another fantastic scene for me is the one where the camera 'flies' around the ship as if on a helicopter, and ends up just above the smokestacks, getting covered in smoke from the Number 3 funnel, with steam wisping from a relief pipe - brilliant!

But for many people, the Titanic is not the star of the show - Leonardo and Kate, alias Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater, provide the love story that serves a brilliant purpose not realised by so many - to promote Titanic , to make people want to know more about the ship. How many people would have visited this site if the movie hadn't of planted Titanic firmly in the hearts of so many people, young and old?

Admittedly, there are a couple of points I don't like, the main one being the fact that the lookouts were distracted from their duties by the characters of Jack and Rose, causing the ship to hit the iceberg and subsequently sink. Also, there are times when the ship seems to be lacking passengers, hence nobody on the stern when they meet, no-one in the gymnasium, nobody else wanting to fly on the bow, etc. But these are small points, although I think the exclusion of the Californian was a major mistake.

Irony doesn't go unnoticed either, and the fact that Jack and Rose consummate their relationship in the back seat of a car, 600 miles away from dry land was not lost on this viewer!!

Some sceptical people say to me, 'I know the ship sinks, so what's the point of going to see the film?' I fear that these people are missing a great opportunity to have one of Hollywood's greatest love stories thrown at them, with a history lesson thrown in to boot. Watch and learn!

 

Related Reading: Titanic Movie Characters | James Cameron's Titanic Screenplay |

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