Titanic

I avoided this movie for the longest time. The hype. The people who would see it almost daily in the theater (I dated a girl who saw it 12 times within a month of release). The inescapable soundtrack. I was an angsty 20 year old when it came out. But I'm older now. I can appreciate a lot more than what I didn't as a young man. I can appreciate James Cameron's attempt to touch on themes of class struggle and the struggles of women at a time when their value in society, especially "high society", was as trophies or bargaining chips. Rose's disillusion with her position in life -- set to marry an abusive, possessive jerk because he's got money so she can rescue her mom out of debt and maintain their standing -- is a good theme to explore. I can appreciate Cameron's attempt at a youthful, whirlwind romance that sweeps Rose off her feet and makes her question everything about her life and her values. I can appreciate seeing all the signs missed and mistakes made by the crew of the Titanic that doomed its only voyage. I can appreciate the spectacle of the crash and the inexorable plunge under the waterline. The magnitude of it all, the panicked passengers, the actions taken by both crew and passenger alike, is a sight to behold. Even almost 30 years later, it looks fantastic (there's some CGI that doesn't exactly blend, but I won't hold it against the movie). I can appreciate that the scope of what Cameron accomplished outshone the other movies nominated that year, no matter what qualities the other movies possessed. But I can also recognize that this is not the greatest movie of all time, or even the best movie of 1997 (which is Perfect Blue, and I will brook no sass-back on this). Leonardo DiCaprio's character isn't a character. He's a Manic Pixie Dream Guy. He is far and away too perfect, too everything Rose needs at that point in her life, to be anything more than a sketch of a concept of a character. DiCaprio does all he can with the role, and he's got undeniable charisma and charm, but he can't change the fact that Jack is little more than an emotional pivot on which Rose turns the course of her life around. Rose is far more interesting of a character, but ... and I feel so ashamed for saying this ... Kate Winslet's performance doesn't do it justice. I'm sorry, believe me, I love Kate Winslet. She is as dependable as the northern star. But I don't know if its the American accent that's throwing her off, the script, or the way she was directed, but something about her performance is just off for me. It's not all the time -- the despondence that leads to her suicide attempt, her fiery determination to get to Jack when he's handcuffed while the ship is sinking, and her boldness and confidence in the build-up to the drawing scene. But more often than not, I found her awkward. And she isn't the only one; Billy Zane is community theater understudy levels of bad. As fantastic as Cameron's direction is in the second half of the movie, it is dreadful in the first. Cameron absolutely excels in capturing spectacle and massive set pieces and action and tension on huge scales. But he has always sucked at capturing smaller, more intimate, emotional moments, the human moments that need to exist in between the grand spectacle moments so that we give a shit about the people in those bigger moments. I mentioned I appreciated the ATTEMPTS at the themes and romance, because he is trying ... but he doesn't succeed. The theme of class struggle is given the most basic boilerplate overview, and the romance between Jack and Rose is a cliched "one is in love, the other is antagonistic until they're worn down" story that is ran through at lightspeed. The change in Rose's attitude literally happens in the middle of a conversation; she's all set to walk away and never speak to him again, sees he has a sketchbook, rips it out of his arms, and is suddenly interested. It feels as much like a natural human interaction as the electric chair feels therapeutic. Cameron has never been able to write three-dimensional people, just archetypes moving about on a board. When he plays to his strengths, he can work with that (the Terminator movies), but when he needs to actually build characters and drama, the cracks that could be hidden split wide open. Especially with dialogue as flimsy as Cameron's can be. Jack and Rose say each other's name so often, I have to wonder if it's because Cameron didn't have anything for them to say, but couldn't stand the silence. Never mind that I wanna know how Rose can tell a story with so many moments where she wasn't there to witness what happened. But I guess I can only expect so much from the guy who called the MacGuffin in Avatar "unobtainium". I dreaded this movie, and for years, not seeing it was a badge of honor for me. Now that I've seen it, I can say it isn't as bad as I feared. It isn't bad at all. It's fine. It is watchable. The second half is remarkable, in fact. Cameron knows how to film action, especially on a grand scale. I don't regret seeing it, it was fine, but I can't say I see why this movie blew up so big. I may have been convinced the movie is enjoyable, but I will never understand its disproportionate success.