Titanic: Love it or hate it ?

[lashbear]

I'm a fan. And I love the whole story of the real thing (tragically sad as it was). Every April we cook Titanic Pie to comemmorate the sinking.

...and I liked the theme song.

[innerSpaceman]

If I'm not mistaken, EH1812 is also a Titanic afficianado. Can we form a sub-clique, and have our own private threads like on micechat??

[alphabassettgrrl]

Saw it once. Rather had a thing for Rose but then I didn't like the character and lost interest. Didn't it have Cameron's footage of the real ship in it? That would have been interesting.

Hated the theme song. Hated the frenzy that accompanied the movie.

The real thing? Love that. Sad, but interesting. Saw the artifact display when that was in town; that was interesting. Amazing that anybody got rescued from it. Impressive rescue of those few.

[Snowflake]

I love you Lashie, but I thought the movie was pure Hollywood crap with big production values.

The reduction of a great true and compelling story to the fictional love story of a a couple of yahoos smelled of rotting fish.

There's cheese, then there is good cheese, fine cheese and smelly cheese. This was just overpriced cheese. Fun in spots, but ultimately unsatisfying.

That said, I'd be willing to watch it with ya!

what the hell is Titanic pie?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Abhorred the movie. Might have only hated it instead of abhorring it if the hype wasn't so absurdly overblown, but that put it over the top. Some pretty shots of a sinking boat don't make up for 3 bloody hours of the most trite, uninteresting, 2 dimensional so called story on screen.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Abhorred the movie. Might have only hated it instead of abhorring it if the hype wasn't so absurdly overblown, but that put it over the top. Some pretty shots of a sinking boat don't make up for 3 bloody hours of the most trite, uninteresting, 2 dimensional so called story on screen.

I feel the same way. AND Billy Zane's eyebrows were weird.

[Betty]

I liked it the first time I saw it. Ever since though, it's been on many times and I sit down and think - oh I'll watch *this* - and never make it through more then a few minutes before I tire of it.

I can't stand the song anymore though - not that ever really really liked it. But so overplayed now.

Leonardo though - cute as ever.

[innerSpaceman]

I'm glad I saw it before the hype machine kicked into High Gear. It was supposed to be a big, fat, flop by the way ... up until the day it was released.

Being the Titanic buff I am, I saw it opening day. And I probably saw it four more times in theaters. It's not a great film. Leo DiCaprio sucks in it ... and I happen to know he can act. Imagine how much money it would have made from the teen girl crowd if he were actually not loathesome on screen.

To get through the vapid story, I have to imagine it being told purposefully in the melodrama style of the historical period being featured. In a great bit of thread hijack cross-referencing, this is not unlike giving The Dark Knight the benefit of the story doubt by viewing it as purposefully chaotic.


But that's how I deal with it. Billy Zane's crazy eyebrows in for twirling moustache. Silly class-clash love story where, in the white's-only world of the period, the lad from steering isn't an actual Irishman, but a more acceptable American boy down on his luck) And the plucky gal (Kate Winslet far more appealing than her co-star) exhibiting signs of wink-wink anachronisms to tell the audience she's so ahead of her time, she's gabba-gabba one of us. Yes, I have to do a lot of mental acrobatics to enjoy the film.


But I want to enjoy it. It's a visually luscious retelling of one of my favorite true-life stories. I can also pretend the fictional love story is one of the thousands of unknown tales that went down with the ship. And I forgive the fictionalization for the sake of having protagonists who will go down to the flooded decks, then up above, then down again, up again, and down again. No real persons did that. And so I accept it as a dramatic license to show what was going on below decks at various stages of the sinking. That's where the excitement is ... but no real person who experienced that excitement lived to tell about it.


Oddly, one thing about the movie that bugged me was the last time they went below the water line and were up on deck again a moment later. That seemed a wasted trip ... until the re-release DVD came out with deleted scenes ... among then a fantastic bit of the lovers being chased by David Warner through the main dining room as it sinks underwater. It's a fantastic scene ... and I think it plugs a leaky hole (to use an appropos pun) in the movie.



Visually, the film presents the Titantic in as authentic a mode as we will ever see. Historically, I'd say the accuracy is an acceptable 85%, with dramatic license used liberally to include unconfirmed items of "legend" that likely didn't happen.


The below decks and actual sinking excitement are done really well. But the love story and bookends story ultimately leave me cold, and I feel little human tragedy when the ship sinks and people die. I think I actually cheer when DiCaprio dies.



Conversely, though it's played a little cornball, the sinking in A Night to Remember invariably leaves me in tears. Of the thousands of stories that might be told, I think this film is wise to focus on the most compelling ones ... the story of the ship's crew under unbelievably dramatic duty-calls situations.


Um, in Star Trek, the stories are not about the passengers. Aboard ship, the crew are the prime characters ... especially when disaster strikes.


Like I said elsewhere, the two films make for a great double feature ... each filling in the deficits of the other.

[flippyshark]

I haven't really revisited TITANIC since I first saw it at Universal CityWalk in CA, in a packed house and not sufficient air conditioning. I have the laserdisc, but I think I only watched the first side and then deferred the rest, apparently forever. BUT there is a much better (much better!) movie on this topic. I refer to A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, a British film from 1958. One reason I love it is that it restricts its story to actual people and events, with no invented lovebirds from different sides of the tracks. (For that matter, I suppose Rose and Jack are a bit like Lady and the Tramp.) Anyway, this older film had more impact on me personally.

A few years later, I was in the musical TITANIC, in the role of Bruce Ismay, who is something of a designated villain, or scapegoat if you prefer. The musical was fun and interesting to participate in, but audiences left a little bemused. "Gosh, it was so sad!" "I knew it had to end with the boat sinking, but it's still depressing," and of course, "Why didn't you guys sing that song, you know the famous one from Titanic?"

[innerSpaceman]

I love the Titanic musical! Forget why the famous song is not in it, I want to know why the number that opens Act 2 is not on the cast recording!