Film-Making on the Grand Scale

Rating: 8/10 (29 July 2005)

It was brave of James Cameron to attempt an undertaking on this scale. Making the world's most expensive movie ever is always to tempt fate; the film which had previously held that distinction, the Kevin Costner vanity project "Waterworld", had been a disaster in both financial and artistic terms. Even before "Titanic" was finished, rumours were circulating that it would be equally disastrous; the critics began preparing their "sinking ship" metaphors in anticipation of its failure.
In the event, of course, the critics were confounded; the film was a great success, both at the box office and with the Academy, who awarded it eleven Oscars including best picture and best director. It became the most talked-about film of 1997. Eight years on there have been other films on a similar epic scale and some of the excitement it provoked has died away. Nevertheless, even today it stands out as a fine achievement.
"Titanic" combines two quite different genres, the disaster movie and the "heritage" costume drama. The late nineties saw a modest revival of the disaster picture, that quintessentially seventies genre, with "Twister" in 1996 and "Dante's Peak" and "Volcano" the following year. Cameron took the basic formula for such films and applied it to a real historical event, making a film on a grand scale with lavish attention to period detail. The real Titanic sinking had a number of features which fitted the genre; it is something of a convention of disaster movies that the disaster should be caused, or at least exacerbated, by the incompetence or complacency of those in authority, an element emphasised here. Bruce Ismay, the Chairman of the White Star Line, proudly proclaims the ship unsinkable, then causes the disaster by urging the captain to steam at top speed through an ice-field. To make matters worse, the company have neglected to provide sufficient lifeboats for all on board.
Cameron also imported into the film some of the conventions of "heritage cinema". That genre has often been used to examine the British class system, often in films which feature romances between individuals from different social backgrounds, such as Losey's "The Go-Between" or Merchant-Ivory productions like "Howard's End". Cameron takes the same concept and uses the film to examine the historical roots of the American class system, of which the ship, with its first, second and third class passengers, is a microcosm. Intertwined with the story of the tragedy is the story of the romance between Rose Dewitt Bukater, daughter of an aristocratic Philadelphia family, and Jack Dawson, a struggling artist from a working-class background.
The America that we see is not, as is sometimes said, a classless society, nor even one where class is solely determined by wealth. The Dewitt Bukaters, for all their old-money pretensions, are in financial difficulties, and Rose's late father died heavily in debt. Rose's mother Ruth sees that the only way to maintain the family's social status will be if Rose makes a "good" marriage to a wealthy man, and a seemingly ideal candidate has presented himself in the shape of Cal Hockley, the son of a nouveau-riche industrialist. Unfortunately, Cal is an arrogant, selfish snob, and Rose cannot bear the thought of marriage to him. She considers suicide by throwing herself off the ship, but is dissuaded from doing so by Jack, and the two fall in love.
Some have criticised the film for concentrating on the romance of Jack and Rose, arguing that this focus is somehow demeaning to a real-life tragedy in which over a thousand people died. This is not a criticism with which I would agree. It would clearly have been impossible to tell the personal stories of all those who died; Cameron's aim was to put the disaster into context and heighten its impact by giving us two characters we can care about and to make their story representative of the stories of all those caught up in the drama, thus heightening the film's emotional impact.
The film has a number of weaknesses. The liberties taken with historical accuracy, such as the denigration of the character of William Murdoch (who in real life died bravely), can sometimes seem offensive. The opening scenes and closing, which deal with the attempts of a modern salvage team to recover from the wreck a valuable jewel given by Cal to Rose, were possibly unnecessary and certainly overlong, and could easily have been pruned. The acting is not always very good; I was less than impressed by Leonardo Di Caprio as Jack. (In fairness it must be said that he has greatly improved as an actor since 1997, having given a good performance in "Catch Me If You Can" and an excellent one in "The Aviator"). Kate Winslet as Rose was better, although even she fell short of the brilliance she had shown in "Heavenly Creatures".
The weaknesses are, however, greatly outweighed by the film's strengths. A special mention must go to James Horner's evocative score and Celine Dion's song "My Heart Will Go On". There are a number of good performances in minor roles, from Kathy Bates as Molly Brown, shunned as vulgar by her fellow first-class passengers but more good-hearted than any of them, Bernard Hill as Captain Smith, a decent man but without the strength of character to stand up to Ismay's bullying, and Frances Fisher as Ruth, a woman who puts her social status ahead of her daughter's happiness. In the end, however, this is not a film one watches for the acting. I would agree with the reviewer who said that the real star is neither Kate nor Leo but rather the great ship itself, particularly during the spectacular scenes after it hits the iceberg. The success of "Titanic" gave Hollywood back the self-confidence to make pictures on a grand scale with daring, energy and imagination, leading to recent epics such as "Gladiator" and "Troy". 8/10