Not even God himself needed to sink the 'Titanic'

Rating: 7/10 (2 March 2006)

In 1912, humanity cried that "Not even God himself could sink the Titanic", the 'ship of dreams'; the indestructible symbol of mankind's modern achievements in maritime and industrialization. In 1998, celebrity cried that "Not even God himself could sink the Academy awards and hyperbole of fame and recognition that was the film about the events 80 years earlier".
Well, look at it this way: Not even the divine and mighty God himself needed to sink the ship nor the film. Both the ship and its eponymous film representation sank after strong initial hype due to their paying comeuppance for pride and folly and getting found out of their own excesses in the long run. To begin with, the true story remains tragic because of the very fact that mankind overlooked, arrogantly so, the realities- failing to prepare (lifeboats a waste of deck space, class struggles, racism, rich & poor divides). In the end, mankind (regardless of whether the rich or poor caused the problems) paid the price of collective folly.
The film, likewise, pays the price regardless of whether the executives who force-sold the distribution and caused the film to gain such unprecedented hype and reviews at first seemed so successful, really cared about more the bottom line. The film may have succeeded financially, but to me it still sank in the longer run. It made for a great emotional journey at first, but really, as we have to critique it at the level given its accolades, is nothing spectacular compared to something Capra-corn -'It's a Wonderful Life', which is emotionally powerful yet never gets cheesy.
And, just like the real ship on her maiden voyage, it started off to controversy, followed by fanfare, and then tragedy. The reel version, nearly collapsed in budget controversy and then was bolstered by the biggest PR campaign complete with critics-wooing parties in the hopes of buying it around, thrusting the film as the most overpriced and embellished multi-million Hollywood machine- which turned off many and caused many more around the world to realize it for what it was- commercialism. Granted, that it's also a movie that because of its fame pervasive invasion on pop culture caused and still causes many to have an opinion about it (i.e. herd mentality discrediting/accrediting of the film along the lines of majority sentiment), I'll suggest that these ramifications of the film do not determine the film's genuine buoyancy. By buoyancy, I'm talking about the film's long term standing in the realms of other all time accredited films- the test if it really is a masterpiece.
Of course, my entire dialogue here is based on the premise that because it swept awards, it has been rated a 'great film', of which I disagree with. I think the movie is found out upon repeat viewing, and I think even the majority of its fans (again remember to strip away the hype and the Leo Mania) don't really rate it as a great film per se. Plus, even here in the IMDb, why is the movie not recognized as a great film years after the initial awards fever? Because it has been found out over time for what it is- a decent film that stood out for its historical recreation (not facts in its entirety), and weaved alongside a trite love story on board the ship of fools, albeit being panoramic-ally beautiful. There are strong positives of course- special effects as well as sound and editing. But as you can see, they are all technical aspects, not in terms of classical film art.
The film is a meticulous recreation and that is why I gave it 7/10, but it is not a GREAT film as say an intellectually challenging Fellini satirical commentary like 'And the Ship sails On'. It was panoramic-ally beautiful and had great costume design but it did not have, say, brilliant mise en scene that gives it nuance. In that sense, it is certainly not deserving of all of its accolades and accreditation.
Nonetheless, I do not dispute its garnering gargantuan box office revenue worldwide as that was FOX's ultimate goal (even if Cameron had a personal crusade of sub-marine discovery). Essentially, when you wash away the DiCaprio mania (not to be discounted because it tied in substantial box office receipts), the hullabaloo of Oscar accreditation & aggressive marketing/advertising campaigns (successful from Bangkok to Rio DeJaneiro or HongKong might I add), you're left with a film that got found out as a victim of its own showy hype.
Thus, film critics could never call it anymore than it was: popcorn fodder, and once teenagers outgrew their crushes, and people had witnessed the beautiful recreation of the ill-fated voyage that declared its pomp 80 years earlier, there was nothing left of this ship. It lies at the bottom of the sea save for nostalgic divers who yearn to return to their old sentiments, have issues to deal with or are disillusioned by the hype of past tragedy.
Not even God himself needed to sink the ship or the film, there wasn't anything in it, unless people take the real message of what we can learn from Titanic: Respect God, be prepared, love and treat your fellow humans as equals, fight oppression, class segregation, battle the rich poor divide, celebrate freedom, and above all, to not get caught up in the excesses and hype of initial success. What we can learn from Titanic is that as pirated copies of the film are sold in Afghanistan or Cambodia by child slaves, the real tragedy in the world today is that we should focus not on the 1700 people who died, but turn our attention to the millions dying annually of inequalities. Marx or Kafka could probably tell us that you don't need God himself to remind us of that by sinking ships, and or, mass marketed popcorn billion dollar films.
By Stephen Thanabalan