A real event

Rating: 1/10 (22 July 2005)

In many ways Titanic is a great movie. The effects are realistic enough to let you get right into it and the performances are generally very good; especially the gorgeous Kate who convinces with, or without, her kit on. It is a story of an ill fated but grand love affair. An unhappy heiress falls for a lovely poor guy over the rich, handsome, total bastard she's engaged to and trouble inevitably follows. This epic story is played out against the backdrop of a ship sinking which adds to the emotion, poignancy, hysteria and general tearfulness of it all and therein lies my problem with this flick.
Before Titanic was a film it was a ship. Many real people died. Their families still remember. (yes even a century later), This movie is not a tribute or an insult. It is a disregarding of their memory. Jack and Rose could have had their moment in any one of a thousand scenarios. Why sully this tragic event?
The sinking of the Titanic is a great historical tragedy. Not only death, but needless death, plus the loss of a magnificent machine, which was a tribute to human endeavour and ingenuity. The folly of her reckless handling in dangerous waters ( That's the ship, not Kate). The stupidity of man's "unsinkable" challenge to nature. The struggle of the crew to save as many people (especially rich ones) as possible. What a great film that could be (they tried to make it in 1958). A story that respected every gasp for air, every self sacrifice, every bloody engineer. Why did we need Jack and Rose? Is this the price we pay for Hollywood.