The movie that made my face list to the right

Rating: 6/10 (9 May 2003)

Surely millions of people worldwide, a billion dollars and 11 Oscars can't be wrong can they? Well yes, actually.
The problem with Titanic is that Cameron treats the whole enterprise like one of his action pictures, replete with the kind of staging you'd expect from that genre, but not alas, from a dramatisation of a genuine tragedy. Cameron has no faith in the emotional weight of the historical facts, and if we were being cynical we could also say no interest. This is an exercise in ego and directorial hubris from the outset, namely the idea that the writers fictional teenage romance - a story that never succeeds in rising above its clichéd origins, is required to connect a contemporary audience to the events of 1912. You can see the logic because clearly the world's worst peacetime maritime tragedy, 1,500 dead and the planets most luxurious ocean liner sinking on its maiden voyage isn't an interesting enough story in itself. Subsequently the titular ship becomes merely a backdrop for a populist voyage into tedium. Just as you'd feel uneasy at the prospect of Michael Bay doing Jane Austen, Cameron doing period romance seems a little far fetched. Jack and Rose allow us to spend some time on the ship prior to its sinking and an impressive recreation it is but you'd quite like them to go away so we could see what the real passengers were up to. That he sustains momentum throughout this picture is despite his script, rather than because of it. His talent for pacing and moving a story forward serves him well in this respect but with fictional characters as one note as these, and with the ships real passengers reduced to supporting parts to bolster Cameron's mills and boon narrative, we, unlike the real passengers are quite grateful to see the Iceberg emerging from the watery depths.
Once the ship hits the film moves up a gear and suddenly there is enough to sustain interest until the stilted syrup drenched epilogue. However, Cameron still stages the sinking like one giant set piece which saps the film of any emotional impact. A real tribute to the ship, rather than a cynical exercise in emotional manipulation would have taken an objective position and allowed the real events to unfold, giving us a chance to take in the full force of real events. This film concerns itself with fiction and doing so attempts to tell you what to feel and when to feel it. For me, this has the opposite effect and the scenes toward the end featuring Winslet and Decaprio are virtually unwatchable.
The production design is superb and its all very epic and grandiose but ultimately Titanic is a disappointment because it takes a real tragedy and turns it into populist entertainment. History for people not interested in History. If you think thats a harsh assessment then imagine a similar scenario applied to a retelling of the September 11th attacks and think how inappropriate that would seem. These people may be 90 odd years dead but they deserve more respectful treatment than this. Watch "A night to remember" (1958) for a far better depiction of events which was informed by accounts of the sinking not by one man who thought he had something to 'add' to this terrible event. Avoid.