Despite all the hype, this is still a good movie

Rating: 7/10 (21 December 2013)

James Cameron is an amazing filmmaker. He made Terminator II, Abyss, and Aliens, and he has made this movie; one that is going to require some absolute brilliance to beat (what was I thinking when I wrote this?). At the end I just sat in my chair and did not say anything, there is nothing that can describe this movie. This is how a love story should be made.
Titanic is a tragedy pure and simple. Right from the beginning you know that the ship is going to sink. We, the audience, knows what is going to happen, but we watch the crew and the wealthy wonder around fully convinced that the ship is invincible. All the problems with the ship are not known until after the ship has begun to sunk. The important part is the iceberg; they could not see it until it was too late to do anything about.
This movie really brings out the contrast between the rich and the poor and brings out the idea that they seem to be two different people who live in two different worlds. On the Carpathia, the ship that picked up the survivors of the Titanic, when the wealthy fiancé is looking for his beloved, he comes onto the deck full of the survivors from third class. The sailor says to him, "there is nobody of your kind down here." The distinction is purely artificial though. When Jack is invited up to dinner in first class, he is dressed up and the comments are that he is like one of them. The only difference between the two is the money, one has it while the other does not. But is having money all that good? The movie seems to say that it is not. We see Rose attempting to commit suicide, yet she has everything she could hope for as she is to marry a wealthy steel magnate.
Yet Rose finds more interest in the young bohemian artist named Jack Dawson. She is willing to throw everything away just for this one young man. Of course this makes her fiancé extremely jealous, but deep down she doesn't want him. Her continual snide remarks at the lifestyle of the rich shows that she doesn't want any part of it. Neither does Jack, for he refuses the caviar, traditionally the food of the rich, and is in quite a hurry to get out of the first class dinning room and back to steerage where the lower classes are.
The distinction is really brought out when the ship is sinking. The third class passengers are locked below while the first class passengers are piling onto the lifeboats. Their belief that they are above the others goes to the point where they take off in lifeboats without the full capacity. The utter despicableness of this is fully realised when one sees all the dead floating in the Atlantic afterwards. The rich are only concerned for their own lives and the others just die for all they care. Only those who have money are important.
The true evil of this comes out with the idea of women and children first. Even though they say that, there are men climbing onto the boats and looking for a way off the ship. These rich people are not interested in sacrifice, but in preserving their own lives. Cal, Rose's fiancé, comes out even more wicked as he takes a lost girl only to use her to get onto a lifeboat, and when it looks as if the lifeboat will sink, he throws her away. He even beats people back into the ocean so as not to swamp his boat.
Sacrifice in love is one that comes in through this movie, not greatly, but it is there. True love is when one is willing to sacrifice their lives to save others. We see that Jack constantly orders Rose onto the lifeboats, but Rose, more so, will not let him die alone and keeps on coming back to him. There seems the idea that love comes out of wanting to die together, but even so, we see an act of love, or sacrifice, at the end. The real idea of love as serving the one you love does not really come out, but that is an Americanism. Love is a special feeling, so they say, that happens between two people. Still, there is a lot of putting one's life on the line for the other in this movie, which is what love really is about.
My only real gripe is the final scene in the movie, but that I ignored. It was just a stupid Americanism to give the movie a happy ending. If I were to rewrite the ending, then I would finish it with the Heart of the Sea sinking into the water.