Titanic (1997) (1 Viewer)

[Tino]

Btw, on the Titanic DVD commentary, Cameron basically apologized to Billy Zane for making Cal such a stock villain.

 

[TravisR]

You guys are crazy! Billy Zane is America's greatest overactor. Seriously though, if you look at Zane in this movie (and a number of his other performances), he does as much as anyone could do with the material he's given and he seems to enjoy the hell out of playing a character that should be twirling his moustache while wearing a cape and top hat. I get the criticism aimed at the Cal character but Zane is so much fun and wonderfully over the top that I don't mind.
Also, if you think it's bad that he shoots at Jack and Rose, be glad that Cameron reworked another part of the script. Fabrizio (Jack's Italian buddy) was originally supposed to be killed by Cal rather than the falling funnel. As Cal is in the lifeboat, he was clubbing anyone trying to get onto the boat with an oar. Meanwhile, Fabrizio has fought a number of obstacles to get away from the sinking ship, he barely manages to swim up to the lifeboat and says how he has to get to America and Cal replies "It's that way!" and clubs him to death. Now that's evil!

 

[Mark Collins]

I just placed my pre order in at Amazon for Titanic in Blu-ray which has a street date on 9/14/12. I still have the movie in VHS only and it does not look bad.
Night to Remember though hands down is the best of the lot. I watched the 1953 Titanic VHS which I have ordered from Amazon in bluray with street date 4/24/12. I ordered the Mini Series which is also out that day and the Smithsonian blu-ray Titanic. The 24th will be a busy Titanic day.

 

[Greg.K]

Put me down for the BD as well, I still have the original non-anamorphic DVD. At least it's not VHS.

 

[Tino]

Titanic boxoffice update from www.boxofficeguru.com:
While it didn't have the legs of its original release in 1997, the 3D update on Titanic did enjoy one of the best holds of any wide release dipping only 33% to an estimated $11.6M putting it in fourth place. After 12 days, the Paramount title has collected $44.4M lifting the lifetime domestic tally to $645.2M. Back when it was first released, Titanic actually surged 24% in its second weekend going from $28.6M to $35.5M.
But the real fireworks for the iceberg romance this weekend came from overseas markets where Titanic claimed the number one spot with a scorching $88.2M from 69 markets boosting the international gross for the 3D version to $146.4M including an eye-popping $58M launch in China fueled by 3,500 screens including 66 IMAX venues. In fact, Titanic 3D could very well be the first Hollywood movie to open bigger in China than in the U.S. and the gap between the two powerful markets is vast. This weekend, which marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the actual ship, the James Cameron hit ranked either first or second in 24 international territories allowing Titanic to smash the $2 billion global lifetime gross mark. A whopping 77% of the $190.8M tallied worldwide by the 3D upgrade has come from outside of North America where Fox, as with the original release, distributes.

 

[Malcolm R]

Great overseas numbers. The foreign markets have expanded greatly in the past 15 years. I read somewhere that Titanic is essentially a "new release" in some of them (such as China and Russia).
But I did expect an easy domestic gross of $100 million, so it seems to be playing out a little low here at home.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Had THE HUNGER GAMES not been out then I think TITANIC would have done better. That film got a lot of the people who would see TITANIC and I think the repeat business is just going with THG. I doubt Cameron figured it would be sharing money with that film.

 

[Paul.S]

Saw the pic in IMAX 3D at a 15 perf/70mm house (Universal CityWalk; Universal City, CA). My fave 15/70 IMAX house--the Rave Motion Pictures 18+IMAX f/k/a The Bridge--didn't get Titanic. Supposedly it was film but it was so rock solid I'm questioning that. Plus if it was DMR, why would they render that back out to film? Loved the score blasting during the intermission.
Going to see it in RealD 3D to compare the 2.35 OAR experience to the ~1.77 (?) IMAX 3D experience.
Seconding an earlier query as to whether anyone has seen the pic at the Cinerama Dome. I typically don't like to see non-Cinemascope pics there. But I'm thinking this might be an occasion to make an exception, not to mention an excuse to see the re-release three times in different presentation formats. Also wondering about the AR for that presentation. Anyone?

 

[WillG]

Now, the biggest flaw for me is the same one I had in 1997 and that's the fact Cameron made Zane a bigger villain than the iceberg. Leo being locked up, having to be rescued and then the two have to run away from a maniac with a gun only to save themselves again was just too corny. I don't think it adds nearly as much drama as if they had kept the focus on the boat and its sinking. I think the Zane character helps build up the romance between the two but to then have him turn into a maniac was just a little too much.

Yep, if this film had taken place on land, Zane would have Winslet tied to Railroad tracks.
I went to catch the movie today as I had the day off from work. I went to an 11:30am show and was the only person in the theater (makes more sense now that movie theaters lose money, If I was the owner, I would have just cancelled the show and refunded the admission for "myself")
Glad to have seen it in 3-D I guess, but for me, Titanic is far from a perfect film (other than the technical aspects which are admittedly still first rate). And there are other reasons besides the character of Cal. I'll just rattle off some of my criticisms.
In general, some of the dialogue and scenes are still pretty cheesy. Stuff like Old Rose's "Wasn't I a Dish!?" "They called it the Ship of Dreams, and it was" Leo's "I'm King of the World" (I know Titanic is impressive, and you're and adventure embracing type, but it's still a boat, and you're in Steerage. Is that really "King of the World" exciting?) Likewise the "I'm flying" from Rose.
Rose comes off pretty obnoxious in her early scenes. I know she's a bird in a gilded cage and all that, but she's dismissive and rude on a few occasions when she really has no reason to be, for example, when she uses Freud to insult Ismay. (In fairness, Leo calls her out on being a "Brat" later on in the movie, and it's fair enough if she starts out a certain way but changes later on, but right off the bat, she's being portrayed as someone who hates the trap she's in, but still acts not much better than those around her.)
The movie has a few "Hindsight is 20/20" jokes which nowadays annoys me in movies as I feel it's cheap humor. Examples are when Cal exclaims that Picasso will never amount to anything, and Ismay wondering if Freud was a passenger on the ship.
Pretty much all the Rich people that we get to know fall into the Hollywood notion of Capitalism = Evil and on the flip side Poor = Noble (and this notion only got worse in "Avatar"). Cameron does give us a couple of "good" rich people. There's Andrews (who I'm not sure is "Rich" in the same sense as the regular passengers but as the designer of the ship get the first class privilege). And there's Molly Brown, who's even given a special introduction, which I find offensive because the special introduction's sole purpose is to ensure the audience is clear that she's not "old money" like the rest of first class people. She's wasn't born with a silver spoon, so she's "Good" (And I know that the movie supposedly accurately reflects the real Molly Brown, but we're still meant to know right off the bat that she's "Good". It actually might have been more effective to not let the audience in on this and find out that she's noble through the course of the film instead of the film just telling this in so many words) But we need to be told this instead of being allowed to figure it out on our own (and it's really easy to just by watching the performance) that she's not like the others. I know it must seem like I'm making too much over it, but it's something irks me because, as an audience member, I find it insulting to my intelligence.
I realize there needs to be some exposition that the lifeboat capacity is only half of the number of passengers on the ship, but to me, it's delivered kind of clumsy. Rose is the one who seems to have figured the ratio. I never really bought this. I find it hard to believe that a person like her would be the type to have put as much thought into this equation. Probably most people wouldn't have. I can't recall ever having gone on a large boat and have been overly concerned about lifeboat capacity, myself. That exposition could have been solved in the beginning when Bill Paxton and crew are demonstrating how the Titanic sunk and could have mentioned that the lifeboat capacity only supported half of the passengers.
There's some elements to the romance between Leo and Kate that I always had trouble buying. Mainly, I never really could see why Leo would fall for Rose in the manner he does. Sure, she's attractive (maybe in an unconventional way by modern standards) and I guess the movie showed she can chug some brew, enjoy a smoke, do some Irish dancing etc. But Jack is portrayed to be pretty Worldly and has likely seen a lot during his travels. So I wonder what is it about Rose that is so extraordinary to Jack considering he's only known her for a day or two. (In one dialogue exchange, Jack says she's strong, but wasn't she the same person who damn near committed suicide a night or two before?)
Jack just seems a bit too perfect, doesn't he? To me, he's the Male equivalent of Supermodels and Porn Starlets. They fulfill a certain fantasy ideal, but don't really exist in the "Real World". We hear criticisms all the time from women about Supermodels and Porn Starlets about how they set unrealistic expectations and objectify Women. Fair enough, but the Female audience sure ate up Leo like a juicy cut of Prime Rib.
And dammit, I still get annoyed that she throws that diamond into the sea at the end. I mean I know it's a symbol of the misery of her life while on the Titanic, but then why did she hold onto it for so long. If she wanted nothing to do with it, why not just hock the damn thing and give the money to charity. But come to think of it, she's not really the rightful owner of the diamond anyway. I know the last thing anyone would have wanted was to see the diamond go back to Cal. But the movie states he got married and lost his fortune in the Great Depression and subsequently killed himself. But, it's reasonable to assume he had children who could have benefited from getting the diamond back instead of having to live in implied poverty.
I don't mean to sound too harsh on the movie. It is mostly a very good film (and as I indicated earlier, was technically marvelous). But I certainly don't think it's an infallible piece of work either.

And for the life of me I still don't see how this got a PG-13 rating.

You know, I got to agree with this. It's something else I couldn't help thinking about when I saw this today. While no one single element of the movie was really offensive enough for a clear "R" rating, on a whole, the movie really did seem to dance with it. Obviously, there's the nude scene with Winslet. You could argue that the nudity was "artistic" rather than "sexual" (although Old Rose did describe it at the "most erotic moment of her life") But it wasn't exactly brief nudity either. There's the sex scene as well, even though you don't see anything, but it's stated in the movie that Rose was only 17 when the Titanic sunk. So, the depiction of uninhibited sex involving a 17 year old seems pretty risque as well. There's at least one "Fuck" I thought I might have heard another but couldn't be sure. And, although the movie is never gory, there are plenty of horrific depictions/scenes of death.
Put it this way, If I had to choose between letting my 13 year old child watch "Titanic" or "The Godfather" I might actually lean toward "The Godfather". The Godfather is definitely more violent in the conventional sense, but there is stuff in Titanic that is more disturbing/horrific than anything in "The Godfather" could ever be.

 

[TravisR]

Yep, if this film had taken place on land, Zane would have Winslet tied to Railroad tracks.

That seems like the type of thing that Billy Zane could pull off too.

The movie has a few "Hindsight is 20/20" jokes which nowadays annoys me in movies as I feel it's cheap humor. Examples are when Cal exclaims that Picasso will never amount to anything, and Ismay wondering if Freud was a passenger on the ship.

I agree that those are kind of easy jokes but I've seen this movie in the theater alot and those lines always get a laugh. Also, my understanding is that since it's 1912, very few people outside of the field of psychology would even know who Freud is so Ismay wouldn't be as dumb as he appears for saying that (and Rose is, apparently, a self-taught student of psychoanalysis). Although Freud or no, the "male preoccupation with size" line would still make sense to everyone at the table.

Pretty much all the Rich people that we get to know fall into the Hollywood notion of Capitalism = Evil...

I think that's only true for the fictional 1st class characters. While the movie doesn't highlight it (and shouldn't since it's Rose and Jack's story), the historical 1st class passengers are shown in a heroic light as the ship sinks. Rather than trying to bribe people to get on a lifeboat or worrying about 1st class seating like Cal and Ruth, the historical 1st class passengers are shown as brave and meet their ends with dignity. John Jacob Astor is on the grand staircase when it's destroyed, Benjamin Guggenheim has dressed like a gentleman, the Strausses are together in bed and Archibald Gracie (Cal's pal who suggests giving Jack something for saving Rose when she 'almost fell overboard') is shown taking women to lifeboats during the sinking and in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, even for Titanic buffs, his character helps cut the lifeboat free when the ship really begins to founder. Granted, you have to know history fairly well or have seen the movie alot to catch all that but they highlight the real 1st class passengers' bravery as much as they can without slowing down the movie for a history lesson.

 

[Nelson Au]

It made me think more about the rich like Astor of that era are simply of a different attitude. I kept hearing about the arrogance of the times when they built Titanic that it was unsinkable. The term Hubris was used a lot as well. So if one tries to put ones head into that kind of thinking, then I can better see how the rich men of the era were fine to stay and go down with the ship. They were going to defy death, or look it in the face. I can imagine that Cameron and the actors had to guess what Astor must have been thinking as that water was rushing at him on the grand staircase.

 

[WillG]

I agree that those are kind of easy jokes but I've seen this movie in the theater alot and those lines always get a laugh. Also, my understanding is that since it's 1912, very few people outside of the field of psychology would even know who Freud is so Ismay wouldn't be as dumb as he appears for saying that (and Rose is, apparently, a self-taught student of psychoanalysis). Although Freud or no, the "male preoccupation with size" line would still make sense to everyone at the table.

True, most people not in psychology were likely unaware of Freud in that era, but my point is the we know. So we're meant to get a laugh at Ismay's expense not because he's dumb, but because we know he's wrong. Just like we know Cal is wrong in his appraisal of Picasso, not because he's dumb (and really, when it comes to art, who really knows what will become famous) but because we know what will end up happening. Nowadays I find these types of jokes to be somewhat hacky.

I think that's only true for the fictional 1st class characters. While the movie doesn't highlight it (and shouldn't since it's Rose and Jack's story), the historical 1st class passengers are shown in a heroic light as the ship sinks. Rather than trying to bribe people to get on a lifeboat or worrying about 1st class seating like Cal and Ruth, the historical 1st class passengers are shown as brave and meet their ends with dignity. John Jacob Astor is on the grand staircase when it's destroyed, Benjamin Guggenheim has dressed like a gentleman, the Strausses are together in bed and Archibald Gracie (Cal's pal who suggests giving Jack something for saving Rose when she 'almost fell overboard') is shown taking women to lifeboats during the sinking and in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, even for Titanic buffs, his character helps cut the lifeboat free when the ship really begins to founder.

Yes, you're right. The movie does have a few instances of dignity and heroism among the first class passengers. I guess it's just somewhat overshadowed by making the rich, fictional characters pretty one-note. Like Cal and Rose's Mother who show barely any trace of humanity. I usually find the best villains display characteristics that win you over to some degree while repulsing you at the same time. Good example of this kind of villain would be Hans from "Die Hard" He's obviously a quite ruthless Thief/Killer but he dresses nice, seems somewhat cultured, shows admiration for things he finds impressive and on many occasions is actually polite. Mayor Vaughn from Jaws is another good example. He's an impediment for Brody to do what needs to be done regarding the shark and the beaches, but at the same time is occasionally respectful of Brody (as when he attempts to reassure Brody after his encounter with Mrs. Kintner). Also we see him eventually come to terms with the realities and the mistakes he has made. It's pretty easy to write a vile villain, but if you can make the villain three dimensional as well, it's so much more rewarding.
In a way, I can't help but feel if Cameron's Titanic would have been more effective for me if the movie didn't focus on just a few central characters, and gave us more of a wider document of the passengers. I feel that would have been more interesting to me than Jack and Rose's story. Although, I haven't seen it, I have read that "A Night To Remember" is more in that vein.

 

[Greg.K]

I realize there needs to be some exposition that the lifeboat capacity is only half of the number of passengers on the ship, but to me, it's delivered kind of clumsy. Rose is the one who seems to have figured the ratio. I never really bought this. I find it hard to believe that a person like her would be the type to have put as much thought into this equation. Probably most people wouldn't have. I can't recall ever having gone on a large boat and have been overly concerned about lifeboat capacity, myself. That exposition could have been solved in the beginning when Bill Paxton and crew are demonstrating how the Titanic sunk and could have mentioned that the lifeboat capacity only supported half of the passengers.

I don't think it's enough that the audience is aware that there aren't enough lifeboats. That's pretty common knowledge anyway. It adds to the drama that not only is it a race to beat the ship sinking, it's a race to get to the lifeboats. And it makes Rose's jumping out of the boat to be with Jack more important in that not only do we know the stakes, she does as well.

 

[WillG]

I don't think it's enough that the audience is aware that there aren't enough lifeboats. That's pretty common knowledge anyway. It adds to the drama that not only is it a race to beat the ship sinking, it's a race to get to the lifeboats. And it makes Rose's jumping out of the boat to be with Jack more important in that not only do we know the stakes, she does as well.

I see what you're getting at, but I still stand by my opinion that Rose being the one observing and inquiring about the lifeboat capacity to be odd. Again, it's my opinion but to me it stinks of shoehorning in exposition. I see what you are saying that for dramatic purpose, Rose needs to be aware of the lifeboat situation, but I wish it had been done a different way. For example, Rose and Jack encounter Andrews soon after the the ship hits the iceberg who clearly informs her to get to a lifeboat right away. He could have informed Rose at this point that there was only capacity for half the passengers. Again, the lifeboat issue could have been mentioned earlier in the film (perhaps by Paxton's team as they recap how the ship went down) just to be sure that the audience that might not have been familiar knows.

 

[TravisR]

The movie does have a few instances of dignity and heroism among the first class passengers. I guess it's just somewhat overshadowed by making the rich, fictional characters pretty one-note.

Yeah. Since it's such a common criticism of the movie that "rich = evil & poor = good", the actions of the fictional 1st class characters did overshadow the behavior of the historical figures for most viewers.

In a way, I can't help but feel if Cameron's Titanic would have been more effective for me if the movie didn't focus on just a few central characters, and gave us more of a wider document of the passengers. I feel that would have been more interesting to me than Jack and Rose's story.

It's interesting to think of Cameron making the movie as non-fiction but without Rose and Jack, I think the movie loses its heart. The story of young and beautiful lovers is what made audiences connect to the the tragedy of the Titanic's sinking moreso than if they just had depicted people in 1912 garb and gave statistics about who lived and who died.

 

[WillG]

It's interesting to think of Cameron making the movie as non-fiction but without Rose and Jack, I think the movie loses its heart.

I don't disagree with what you are saying, and quite obviously, the Jack and Rose story did a hell of a job selling the movie. But, I'm not really in the demographic of the Love Story part of the show. So, personally, I wonder if I would find more of a non-fiction account to be more interesting.

The story of young and beautiful lovers is what made audiences connect to the the tragedy of the Titanic's sinking moreso than if they just had depicted people in 1912 garb and gave statistics about who lived and who died

See, I think I go the opposite way. To me, I know Jack and Rose are fiction, so I don't get too emotionally involved with their story in this case. To me, it's more the fates of the "Real" people that affect me more. For example, I find the shot of the elderly couple in the bed with the water rising below, or Vasquez trying to settle her two children before the inevitable by telling them a story, or just the shots of the frozen bodies, including infants and children to be much more heart-wrenching then the somewhat saccharine tale of Jack and Rose.

 

[WinstonCely]

See, I think I go the opposite way. To me, I know Jack and Rose are fiction, so I don't get too emotionally involved with their story in this case. To me, it's more the fates of the "Real" people that affect me more.

I agree. I'm not a fan of fictional characters in historical accounts.

 

[Tino]

WillG
I think you should see A Night To Remember ASAP as its probably exactly what you are looking for in a Titanic film. It is tremendous. It was just released as an excellent Criterion bluray edition.
And it just so happens that I just got an email from the Loews Jersey, an old time movie palace in Jersey City NJ, that they will be showing A Night To Remember ( which started my Titanic obsession) on April 28, along with The Poseidon Adventure (the first film I ever saw in a theater ), for a great sea disaster double feature on their giant screen! I can't wait.

 

[WillG]

Thanks Tino. It will likely go into my Netflix queue in the near future.

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

...or Vasquez trying to settle her two children before the inevitable by telling them a story...

That was actually too funny
Sorry to take this interesting discussion slightly OT, but I just had to comment, poor Jenette Goldstein, doomed to be Vasquez forever...