Titanic (1997)
I want you to draw me like one of your French girls.
THE SUMMARY: A poor drifter wins a ticket to America on a poker hand, falls in love with a wealthy damsel in distress, and holds her to a promise to survive to old age as the unsinkable ship sinks. I saw Titanic in theaters when it was released in 1997, but have not watched it in full since. Young me just wanted to watch the ship sink. Old me appreciates this movie for similar, but more philosophically-focused reasons. The romance is perfectly well-performed, but it’s the themes of confronting death that capture my thoughts well after watching.
Fitting for this long-ass movie, I have a long-ass review, so thanks for your patience with this text wall of Titanic proportions. If your time is short, consider the ‘Titanic in Five Seconds’ summary. One of the greatest uses of that bit ever.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER WILLIAM: Attempting to do cinematic justice to the story of the great ocean liner's ill-fated maiden voyage was a likely catastrophe in itself, but James Cameron turned out to be just the director for the job. The ship's recreation on screen is so rich, so historically faithful, and so lively that you feel as much for it as it sinks as you do for its passengers. Jack, Rose and their romance may be fictional, but they have such charm and free-spiritedness you can't help but wish they weren't. The musical score is among the very best ever composed. One comes away from Titanic feeling as though words like ‘epic,’ ‘masterpiece,’ ‘classic', and ‘tour-de-force’ came into being for the very purpose of describing it.
THE BEST:
An absolutely hideous way to die: The scene where the band initially departs but then resumes playing into the montage of all the families confronting their deaths is one of the most absolutely tragic and philosophically profound scenes ever. Combine the horror of two absolutely torturous ways to die - drowning and freezing - with the agony of watching it happen to your children, your parents, your brothers, your sisters, and everyone closest to you. To maintain peace and dignity as the chilling water slowly takes you must have been one of the most painful human experiences possible, and this scene captures it with a haunting beauty.
And beyond that beautifully tragic presentation, it’s a lesson to learn too - death comes for all of us one day. Some of us get it mercifully brief, and some of us get it torturously slow, but when the day comes, it’s incumbent on all of us to accept our fate with grace, confidence, and faith, no matter how challenging that may be.
Fiddling all the way down: Technically it’s a violin, but fiddling just sounds better. The music for the scene just described sets the perfect tone of tragic beauty, but the way that music originates is perfect as well: the band atop the sinking ship, initially quitting, but then resuming as they accept their fate to keep the peace and provide comfort as they all confront their deaths. When I occasionally reference ‘fiddling as the Titanic sinks’ as my philosophy for how to handle what seems like our country’s similar downward trajectory, this is what I mean: maintaining faith and a positive attitude no matter the challenge coming, and no matter the certainty of the troubles ahead. It means continuing to do your job and fulfill your duties to your family, to yourself, and to your community. Keep fiddling until the ice water actually takes you. Never surrender until it does.
Everyone knows what’s coming, but it’s still thrilling: There’s tremendous credit due in telling a story in which everyone knows how it ends, but still making it thrilling and tense. Titanic’s script doesn’t ever assume you’ll be surprised to learn that the ship sinks, because of course you won’t. Instead, it crafts its tension through character conflict, and the more subtle situations within the sinking ship that you might not necessarily think about in detail: the sinister strategizing to get on one of the limited lifeboats, the decision about whether to jump in the water or stay on the ship as it sinks, the various locked doors and gates encountered while trying to navigate the ship, and all the rest. The movie is a masterpiece in making a story that everybody knows somehow still fresh and engaging.
The tension when Jack is trapped: After not watching this movie since its release, this portion was all but forgotten to me, but it is perhaps Titanic’s most underrated: Rose’s rescue of Jack as he’s handcuffed to the pipe in the ship’s lower levels. It’s not just the obvious tension of whether she’ll be able to save him or herself before the water takes them - it’s the incredible detail of the entire production. The bravery she shows in charging through the oncoming water (which was assuredly difficult to film and perform), the subtle bounciness of the camerawork that really feels like a moving, rocking, tipping ship, the ship’s creaking sounds as it bends and twists, the sparks and light flickers as the electrical lines get flooded - all of it. I can’t give enough credit to how well this scene was acted and produced. It’s like a horror movie classic in the middle of a romance drama.
All of the action, but particularly the propeller-hit guy: Everything about the ship sinking is well-produced and believable - the gradual tipping of the sets, the water rushing through as walls and windows break, the ship’s final massive split as it goes down entirely - nothing looks fake or cheaply done. You can read a fuller description of how all of these effects were achieved here.
The movie deserves massive credit for all of the effects and stunts achieved, but the one that always stuck in my young mind is only a brief moment: the guy who jumps and clips the propeller, spinning several flips before hitting the water. I’m sure this was actually one of the easier stunts to achieve - chuck a dummy and watch it bounce - but the effect was hilarious to me as a kid, and still makes me laugh today. I know it’s not supposed to be ‘funny,’ but it’s just a great effect. As one of the top YouTube comments says, ‘that guy spins more than the propeller when it worked.’ The ‘ping’ sound is also absolute perfection too.
Want
I make my own luck: Luck and fate are big themes in this movie, and even the betrayal or deceptiveness of luck. Of course it’s Jack’s ‘luck’ that brings him to Rose, but it’s also Jack’s ‘luck’ that kills him. I wonder what the guys who lost that poker hand were thinking when they heard the news. The probably looked something like that monkey puppet meme.
But it’s actually the villain’s philosophy on luck that I appreciate most. Several times in the movie, Cal says some variation of ‘I make my own luck.’ Of course I think Cal means this more deceptively and maliciously than I do, but I appreciate the point: those who fail to take chances fail to gain the rewards. It’s not advocacy of recklessness, of course, but a life lived overcautiously is a life not lived to its full potential. When debating a major life decision, take a chance and make your own luck from time to time. My life has improved dramatically ever since I started.
Sick 1911: To much disapproval of many Glock fanboys in my life, I have always loved the aesthetics of the 1911 pistol. I don’t hate Glocks, of course. There’s just something about the John Browning classic. The 1911 in this movie is gorgeous. Nickel-plated, ornately engraved, pearl grips - beautiful. Even if it is slightly era-inappropriate, and even if Cal is the world’s worst shot with it.
The actual gun from the movie went up for auction in 2016, with an asking price of $20,000. Apparently it did not sell. Maybe if I move a few more bars of soap, I can get this stunner one day.
Gut-wrenching every single time
Incredible tension
My childhood most memorable moment
It’s very important that she sleeps beside an entire collage of photos of herself
THE WORST:
Pretty much the entire ‘Old Rose’ character and story: I’m supposed to have sympathy and admiration for this character, but I hate everything about her. She’s selfish, she’s dishonest, and worst of all, she’s cringe. I was really hoping she would complete her story arc by jumping off the ship deck, but she couldn’t even do that. Disappointing old hag.
She throws away a fortune for her family: This move was worse than Mav throwing Goose’s dog tags in the ocean. She throws away a fortune for her family just because ‘a woman’s heart is an ocean of secrets?!’ Get real, grandma. Your 24-hour romance and refusal to kiss and tell are not more important than the future of your family. Absolutely indefensible.
She travels with photos of herself: Who the hell does this? It’s bizarre enough to travel with framed photos to stage a room for a temporary stay in general, but it’s far more bizarre when these photos are only of you over the decades. Oh look - it’s me on an airplane. Oh look - it’s me on a horse. Oh look - it’s hotter, younger me, done up all sexy. I get this was supposed to depict a life well-lived inspired by Jack, but in practice it’s completely strange.
The ‘did we do it’ joke: By far the worst, most cringey part of the movie. Please get back to telling the story. I don’t need a hundred-year-old woman making sex jokes with ‘young people lingo.’ It adds nothing - this isn’t a comedy, and it’s not funny anyway.
She never told the story to anybody: I don’t believe you, lady. And if you had an entire family after Jack, and never told them of probably the most formative moment in your life, you weren’t a good family member. Keeping secrets like that from family isn’t healthy.
Set aside half the day: It’s the upper limit of what a movie length can be, so Titanic isn’t a leisurely sit-down. It’s something in which you invest half the day. That said, my common complaint with movie length isn’t strictly about length at all - more precisely, it’s about wasted time. Every scene and every minute should mean and accomplish something. While I do generally dislike the grandma time, the rest of Titanic is time well spent. It’s tense, it’s thought-provoking, and in several scenes, truly unforgettable.
There is no way Jack’s artwork was preserved: It’s charcoal/graphite on paper. Yes, it was supposedly locked in a safe, but it wasn’t sealed. With the entire thing flooded, there’s no chance the paper is even intact after all that time, let alone the image actually still visible. I hate to be all AckShUaLLy about it, but c’mon - it’s a central premise in the movie, and it’s preposterous.
Dolphin nonsense: I didn’t remember this part of the famous ‘I’m the king of the world’ scene until this re-watch. At first I thought ‘are there actually dolphins off the coast of Ireland? Aren’t they more warm water animals?’ My initial reaction was wrong - there are indeed dolphins near Ireland - but this depiction is wrong too. The dolphins shown in Titanic are actually Pacific animals, not Atlantic.
Worse than when Mav threw Goose’s dog tags in the ocean
Jack’s drawing is still in pristine condition somehow
Fake and ghey, didn’t happen
A NOTE ON THE TINFOIL: It’s not directly related to the movie, so this is neither praise nor criticism - just my favorite Titanic ‘conspiracy theory,’ of which there are many. But there’s speculation that Titanic was sunk deliberately to eliminate opponents of the creation of the Federal Reserve central banking system. That’s right - the Fed did it. Or at least interests in favor of what would become the Fed. According to this theory, J.P. Morgan and the Rothschilds.
Many of those aboard the Titanic were of course wealthy, high-society people, but many of them also opposed the creation of the Fed, which ultimately happened in 1913, the year after these Fed opponents died in the Titanic disaster. Of course I have no direct evidence for this claim, but I will note that if PolitiFact, the Washington Post, Snopes, and more of the usual liars all say the claim is definitively false, that’s evidence in favor if you ask me.
THE RATING: 4/5 Wickies. Delete grandma’s nonsense and Titanic is much closer to a coveted Five-Wicky™. The core story and action are among the best ever, and hold up very convincingly even after 25 years.
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NEXT WEEK: Fargo (1996). Blonde’s one-week movie nominations were decisively rejected in last week’s vote, so Fargo is a random, IMDb top-rated selection.
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