Bet you didn't see this one comming. Titanic is a movie that I label into the category "missed opportunities", a good movie that could have been awesome.
First the things I liked about this film. James Cameron does an excellent job at depicting the Titanic. The set is magnificent from the dark and hot hellish conditions of the boiler rooms with the shirtless masses of men showling tons of coal hour upon hour to keep the iron behemot moving to spledour of the first class areas filled with chrystal chandeliers, silverware and waiting staff that keeps the wine glasses of the rich full. James also does a good job of depicting the social background of the film, where women are expected to behave in a certian way, the teeming masses of immigrants leaving the old world to the promised land in America and the obvious classism in action.
Another thing I like is the portrail of the real life people abroad, we get to meet Mister Andrews, the desginer of the ship, Bruce Ismay the owner of the Titanic, Molly Brown a true hero of the Titanic(After the sinking she lead the relief effort of the survivors in the water and took care of other survivors until finally collapsing from exhaustion), Captain Smith and his command crew. All of these wonderful we meet, albeit briefly.
Now for the parts that suck, namely the plot and the main characters. The plot, what can I say, its your average teenage high school relationship drama with the one of the worst human tragedies at sea used as setting. You could take the plot of the Titanic and dump it with minor alterations on to the following platforms, a Baltic sea booze cruise, a high school or a camping trip and it would work just as well. For fucks sake the story of Titanic was already monumental enough without having to add one of the most overused plot in the world on top of it. Why couldn't the movie have been about the tragic disaster in itself?
The main characters reflect the plot, Jack is the sensitive poor artsy guy, who has a lust for life, Rosie is the good girl who is pushed to marry the rich asshole, but who would like to live a little, Caledon is the stereotypical rich dickhead, Mr Lovejoy is his equally assholeish lieutenant and Rosie's mom is the typical stern mother figure. Again all characters could be easily tranplanted into other settings. Why couldn't we get to see Captain Smith, Mr Andrews and Bruce Ismay play the lead? Molly Brown would have made an awesome lead character. As nouveau riche with a working class background she could have been used to explore the burning social issues of the era. Why they didn't do this is beyond me.
But overall I see the movie as an allegory of the era. Titanic sank in 1912, two years before the First World War began and changed the world forever. Titanic, as the western world in that era, is steaming ahead at full speed, full of confidence in the ability of technology to overcome any problems, only to realize too late that they hit an iceberg and there are not enough life boats. Most nations going into the first world war believed it was going to be over in few months, when the reality was a bloody 4 year war with unimaginable human suffering. The story of Titanic is a story human hubris in front of nature and not a love story.
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