A colossal filmmaking achievement

Rating: 9/10 (31 August 2000)

At over $1.8 Billion worldwide (excluding rentals), `Titanic' is the most commercially successful film of all time. That is double the next highest grossing film (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace). Nominated for 14 Academy Awards, it won 11 including best picture in 1998. Everything about this film was big. It ran over 3 hours and had a budget of $200 million which is larger than the U.S. box office for all but 30 movies in the history of filmmaking. This was a TITANIC film in every sense of the word. But, was it any good? Well, actually it was!
The film was written and directed by James Cameron, who before this was most renowned for writing and directing `Terminator' films. The story was a combination love story, period piece and disaster movie. As a love story was good. As a period piece, it was wonderfully precise in its myriad details, both generally and as to specifics about the Titanic and her passengers. As an epic disaster movie, it was utterly colossal.
From a directorial perspective, this film is unparalleled; a feat of gargantuan proportions. In addition to the normal directorial duties, Cameron had to coordinate mammoth model-building projects, deep sea filming of the original ship, thousands of hours of painstaking research, elaborate visual effects, and hundreds of special sets. To be able to pull all those elements together at all is a superhuman task. The result was truly remarkable entertainment.
Cameron took a chance on Leonardo DiCaprio. The studios wanted Matthew McConaughey but Cameron insisted on DiCaprio. It was a gamble that paid off. DiCaprio gave a career performance and his enthusiasm and charm lit up the screen. Kate Winslet was also a fresh talent with only five minor films to her credit before Titanic'. Her performance was sparkling and her chemistry with DiCaprio made the love story urgent and magical. Oddly, she hasn't worked much since, and is fast slipping back into the obscurity from whence she came.
This was not as much a film as it was a fluctuation in the space-time continuum. Forces and emotions from the original event were transported to 1997, and they clutched us with a power that left us spellbound. It was neither the best story ever told, nor the best film ever made, but it was certainly the greatest filmmaking achievement to date in its sheer size and scope. As a motion picture, I rated it a 9/10. As an epic, there is no scale large enough to rate it. The box office speaks for itself.