I’m not usually a fan of Directors’ Cuts, but I have to say that I am most impressed with the recently-released special edition "Titanic" DVD and - for once - wish that the deleted scenes included on a bonus disc had actually been incorporated by the filmmaker into some sort of "personal ideal" version of the film. As it stands now, I will have to switch back and forth between discs whenever I happen to watch this epic movie.
Granted, I’m not a big fan of the sappy lovestory fiction Cameron pasted on top of the fabled event, but I am a major Titantic buff - - and this movie is, in many ways, a fascinating version of the doomed voyage.
Though Cameron told the Titantic story in a threadbare way (
for instance, see my musings on Titantic here), his version is visually stunning and exciting. In fact, I can almost forgive the overlaying of sappy fictional characters because (1) Kate Winslet is uber-hot and wonderful, and (2) the fiction allows Cameron to get his characters down below decks while the ship is flooding - not once, but twice! Since only fictional characters would be anywhere
near these drownable disaster zones, I can almost forgive Jim Cameron for using fictional characters to tell this tale of real events.
And it’s one of those forays below decks that is so vastly improved by the most elaborate of the deleted scenes. It takes place after Jack and Rose are chased down to the flooding First Class Dining Room by Billy Zane firing at them with a pistol all the way down the grand staircase. In the deleted section, Zane sends his manservant (played malevolently by David Warner) after Winslet and DiCaprio with the promise that Warner can keep the film’s McGuffin diamond if he can recover it. What follows is a stunning suspense scene as Warner hunts for the trapped lovers as the dining room slowly sinks under water.
The huge set was slowly lowered into a tank of water for the scene, over and over again for take and after take, shot after shot. Everything being dried out and redressed on a constant basis. The scene cost millions of dollars to produce, and cutting it out of the film eviscerated the adventure where Jack and Rose are stuck below flooding decks a second time. The scene ends with a fight between DiCaprio and Warner - - which explains the continuity error later in the release version where we briefly see Warner’s character all bloodied as the ship breaks in two.
In the commentary, Cameron explains that he hated cutting the scene - - but that two preview audiences thought that it stretched credibility a bit too far. Ha! - as if Billy Zane giving gun chase wasn’t already over the top! In any event, the irony is that the film went on to become the highest grossing motion picture in history -- and the director certainly could have had
his cut of the film released without significant ill effects financially.
In my opinion, this single scene adds an amazing amount to the film. This important segment makes the movie comes alive in a new way, and is such an improvement to this part of the movie that I’d say it makes ‘Titanic’ virtually a
different film. I will never again watch the movie without including it. I also think about 20 of the other 28 deleted scenes are great, and would make the movie so much better with their inclusion. I wish the film had been released on DVD as a Director’s Cut, instead of with a separate segment of deleted scenes. Bah! Where’s my DVD editing studio?!?!
Anyways, anyone who’s a fan of the film or of the Titanic story should check out this DVD. It makes for a better movie than the one released in theaters.
