It's About People

Rating: 9/10 (28 March 2006)

It's hard to believe that nearly nine years have passed since this movie came out. It's a masterpiece of special effects and storytelling, even if the romance schmaltzes it up a bit. I'm not too critical about films that stretch the truth. If that were not the case, we would only watch documentaries, and, of course, many of those are suspect. In addition to the incredible recreation of the Titanic and the people who sailed her, there is an air of mystery maintained throughout, accentuated by the incredible music score. The fact that we all know the story and the result makes us voyeurs to history. I enjoyed this movie, and yet it made me sad. I sat next to a couple of twenty something types with their baseball caps on backwards, yelling "all right" when a falling body would smack against an obstruction as it plummeted down the length of the capsizing ship. I sat in awe of the power of nature and imagined those poor people dying from the stupidity of an overconfident shipbuilder and captain. I know it's just a movie, but it had a really connection to my heart. The business with Leonardo de Caprio and Kate Winslet didn't really grab me. What did was that there was a hopelessness beyond anything we can fathom. If you read my review of "A Night to Remember," also a fine film from much earlier, you will see that it's about people saying goodbye to their wives and children and to another day that makes this event so horrible. It's quite a marvelous movie. We may have forgotten that in the wake of all the attention it received, including parodies and spoofs.