Fabulous!

Rating: 10/10 (20 January 2007)

I can't understand why this film has come high in polls for the worst ever film. It is very well made and won 11 Oscars. It is far better than the old films about the disaster. The acting is excellent and the effects take your breath away. It wouldn't have been any more realistic if James Cameron had commissioned a shipyard to build a full-scale working replica of the ship. The film is very authentic with just one minor lapse, namely the American locomotive and rolling stock on the dockside railway seen in front of the Titanic in the view from the pub. Unlike previous films about the Titanic there is no sense of impending doom throughout the film. There is a good feeling in the first half of the film, with scenes like Jack and Fabrizio at the bow watching the dolphins while Captain Smith looks on paternalistically and the ceilidh in steerage that Jack takes Rose to. James Cameron conveys the sheer size and stability of the ship very well and the audience is drawn into the very deep security that the passengers felt. Everybody on board is very friendly apart from certain individuals in First Class. Cal Hockley is a violent overgrown spoiled brat monster child. In a lot of scenes, particularly where he shoots at Jack with a handgun, he is reminiscent of the caddish upper class villain in a silent film. Jack has been criticised for being too 1990s but the rest of the cast look and act right for the period. The crew talk authentic sounding Edwardian English. James Cameron has caught the feel of the period very well and he has said that the people in the film are in many ways not that different from us today. It's fair to say that Jack and Fabrizio are like a couple of gap year students hitch-hiking round the world. Kate Winslet, with her full curvy figure which has got her a lot of period roles and the nickname "Corset Kate" is spot on as Rose. The scene where Jack sketches her nude is very touching and the piano music that accompanies it is lovely. When they run past the stokers one can feel the scorching heat of the furnaces. After the ship strikes the iceberg the audience has much the same incredulity as the passengers and most of the crew that there is a possibility of the ship sinking. The sinking, as it was in real life, starts very gradually and becomes progressively more terrifying. Although there is no blood or gore shown it still is horrifying. The only blood during the sinking are the scenes where the stewards get punched. There are some really sad scenes during the sinking such as the drowned woman floating in the water and the Irish mother telling her children the old Celtic story of Ossian and Niamh. It is sad when Fabrizio is killed by the collapsing funnel and when Tommy Ryan is shot by First Officer Murdoch in the heat of the moment. Incidentally, 20th Century Fox sent one of their executives over to Scotland to apologise to the people of Dalbeattie, Murdoch's home town, about the way he was portrayed in the film. One really feels the freezing cold when Jack and Rose are in the water and I felt sad when I saw the dead baby in its mother's arms. When I saw the film in the cinema I can remember hearing a couple of girls crying during and after the sinking. James Cameron says he deliberately made the ending ambiguous and his answer to the question of whether Rose dies or is dreaming at the end is "You decide". I think she died and went to Heaven and was reunited with all these people she'd known on the ship. It is a beautiful scene where she's reunited in Jack and she's all in white like a bride. Hey! I'm going against my own principles. I'm one of the most unromantic guys in the world! I'm not supposed to like these scenes!