You know, that scene with Jack at the end didn’t really bother me, but I almost started bawling when I saw the old couple on the bed. By the time they showed the mother and her children I was wiping away the tears. For some reason those two scenes had a much stronger impact on me than the final one between Jack and Rose.
I liked Titanica lot, enough that I saw it twice in the theaters–I can count the number of movies I’ve done that with on one hand. I also very much like Celine Dion and My Heart Will Go On.
(And I’m large, armed, and mean, so there! :p)
Fags.
Again, Whammo, you’re just jealous. 
Start paying attention to what chicks like, and you might find yourself with one.
BTW, Anniz says hi. 
:d&r:
I thought of that too, just not at the time I saw it. You have to admit that the old couple was sad though.
The old couple and the mother and her children got me too.
BTW, I think the couple was supposed to be the Strausses, the owners of Macy’s…Ida Strauss refused to leave her husband on one of the lifeboats, and said that, “Where you go, I go.” Even when they tried to let Isidor Strauss on a boat, as he was older, he refused, and so they died together.
I agree with those who’ve pointed out the mom with her kids and the old couple, waiting to die in their rooms, as two of the movie’s more emotional, dramatic scenes.
I was also moved by the part where the orchestra players finally complete their playing to keep everyone calm, and disband to go try to find lifeboats (realizing there aren’t enough of them). One guy stays to play, then another, then all the rest.
Those were the scenes that really got me, in terms of drama and emotion, not the special effects.
Ditto the ship’s captain returning to the helm; the ship’s engineer fixing the clock on the mantle as he awaits his fate.
Anyone noticing a pattern here? None of this stuff has anything to do with the smarmy Jack-and-Rose subplot.
I’m with ya on the injustice of Kim Basinger getting an Oscar for “L.A. Confidential,” but Russell Crowe not.
When I first realized that Crowe isn’t American, in an interview after I saw that movie, I was dumbstruck. His “American accent” is dead-on.
Damnit, I was going to bring up the part about the kids and the old people… you guys beat me to it.
Those parts made me cry. Yes, I admit it. Fuck you!
I did not give a shit about Jack dying. The part where it showed Rose’s pictures at the end-when she was on a horse like a man, and the rollercoaster, and the beach- showed she never stopped thinking of him. And it showed she got to do all the things she wanted. That was pretty nice too.
see sig
Ya’ll a bunch of freaks!
Bout the only thing I liked in Titanic is the scene where all the doors are exploding into the hall. AS anyone with half a brain knows, the doors would be exploding outward, into the rooms. Of course, that wouldn’t be neerly cool enough for James Cameron, so he spent, what’s probably $10,000 per door, to have them explode inward. Get’s me everytime. Other than that? Shit.
Nope. I’m another one. Never seen it, never WANT to see it. And I’m a chick.
Another guy checking in who liked Titanic. I saw it twice; once in a theatre, once on video. It certainly wasn’t a masterpiece but it was a well made film. The plot and characters were certainly cliched but not over-cliched. Cameron apparently realized he was making a formula film and didn’t try to oversell it (which is what ruined Saving Private Ryan). He also realized that even the best special effects still need a story to frame them (which is more than the makers of Twister or Men in Black knew).
While I can’t say that Titanic was a great film, I did walk out of the theater strangely pleased. The acting and dialogue was wretched but some of the scenes mentioned earlier created a richer backdrop for the movie. The Rose/Jack storyline could have been dropped in a heartbeat or at least shorter and written better. But for whatever reason, it touched that heart of mine beating sympathetically in my chest.
But that said I liked Titanic, but don’t love it.
Haven’t watched it since.
Yeah… you’re right… maybe I could find me one in this country even.
runs away arms flailing 
People keep mentioning Kate Winslet’s breasts. I saw this movie with my mom (both of us were curious) and we agreed that the reason it was a PG-13 instead of an R must have been that they only showed one of her breasts.
I liked the latest Titanic documentary better.
I’m a chick too, Falc, & I only went because I was dragged by my other half. It was vaguely ok, but I wouldn’t watch it again & I wouldn’t have gone if he hadn’t dragged me. Mind you, he didn’t understand that spoiler alert
[sub]she died at the end[/sub].
I mean, I thought that was so obvious, but apparently a lot of people were confused. How? Maybe they had fallen asleep?
Okay, why not my .02?
I was deeply interested (not obesessed, just fascinated) by the Titanic as a child in the '70’s, long before the wreckage had been discovered and before anyone who wasn’t “crazy aunt/uncle so-and-so” knew more than her name and the fact that she sunk on her maiden voyage, etc.
When the wreckage was found, I was intrigued by such fascinating images/information/etc. being suddenly knowable, no longer just legend and speculation. I read half a dozen books, watched the famous National Geographic video several times, enjoyed the rich flood of unexpected information and glimpses immensely.
Fast forward to the year/s the movie was being made. I was violently opposed. When I first heard of it, I absolutely recoiled. The idea that someone was going to make a “Hollywood movie” out of something that was so intense and, if you will, solemn, for crying out loud, offended me beyond belief. Here was an event that deserved to be spared the desecration of some cheap commercial capitalization.
I don’t remember now how I was actually cajoled into seeing the movie at the theater (although I will always remember with great pleasure how we avoided buying a ticket and thus paying $8/per), but there I was. We had to wait fifteen minutes before the movie started (the price of sneaking in), and during that time I got up at least four times saying, “Forget it, I DON’T want to see this, let’s leave, free or not.”
Once the movie got started I found that, no matter how stoic my resistance, it was impossible not to respond to the images coming to life on the screen. Undoubtedly it was colored by my vested interest - if I had no prior interest in Titanic I don’t doubt that I would have felt very differently, one way or another. To see something coming to life in a realistic way on the screen that had only existed in my imagination since childhood, or as images of wreckage in more recent years, was simply impossible to conceive of. And there is no denying that great pains were taken in the execution of the movie to be true to the actual events – ASIDE from the added subplots. How incredible to see the ship docked and setting sail, the body of the ship beginning to dip into the water, etc etc - all things that one with an interest in Titanic had imagined many times, but how can any (even powerful) imagination compare to having it come to life in huge, vivid images before your eyes?
I walked in the theater utterly prepared to hate this movie. I wanted to hate it. I expected to hate it. I wanted to leave. Yet I found it incredibly moving and powerful. Was the romance story contrived, sappy, etc? Sure it was. I was ready to hate the movie extra much based on the fact that it had grafted something so cheap and false on something so solemn and real. And yet, I respected the movie completely at the end. If you go to a movie, you’re buying into an unspoken contract to suspend reality to some extent. (Name the last non-documentary movie you saw in a theater that didn’t have some elements in it that did not stretch realism - that’s why we go to the movies instead of going out to the sidewalk to watch reality for free.) I did not imagine that I could do so, but I was able to see the Jack/Rose story line as a fanciful element done with reasonable taste (geez, someone besides Titanic buffs had to go see the movie, didn’t they?) while appreciating the real aspects of the story being brought to life in such a way that a person would normally never have the chance to visualize a segment of history.
Was there contrived romance, characters, etc? – Of course! I look at that as the price that had to be paid to ever get such a monumental and expensive project of re-creation beyond PBS. Face it, Titanic buffs would have been glued to the screen for a such a re-enactment of the events as a documentary, but who would have footed that bill? And I have to say that, for all its melodramatic elements (see above about agreeing to suspend your rules about reality while viewing a movie, whether it’s “Titanic” or “Terminator”), the movie treated the overall event with a level of respect and true-to-reality execution that floored me.
I could not hold back tears at the brief image of the old couple (absolutely it was Ida and Isador Strauss, whose refusal to be separated was not only factual but incredibly powerful in any age or circumstance) as they embraced and turned together on the bed, looking faintly fearful yet serene in their togetherness as the water rushed in - how could anyone who knew the story not be moved by such a vivid communication of the general event? I accidentally saw this image in a [gag] Celene Dion video while passing through the living room at someone’s house before I saw or even knew of the movie, and, being familiar with the actual history of the event, could not possibly mistake whom they were meant to represent, and was instantly moved to tears by the understated power of the image.
Way too wordy as usual, but my final comment is - I expected to hate this movie and never wanted to see it. I acknowledge the melodramatic elements that were by nature demanded by Hollywood, and their limitations/license. Nevertheless, I thought the movie was powerful and masterfully executed. Take Jack and Rose out of it altogether, and you still have an amazing mostly-factual re-creation of a powerful real event. Limitations, sure. But taken in its context, I think incredibly well done.
And BTW, in response to the OP, both male and female halves of the cygnus partnership shed a few tears at those powerful moments, and the male half of the pair is most manly and strong indeed.
[cygnus, who is stonily realistic but not actually made of stone]
I disappear for one weekend, and my little thread runs away on me.
I couldn’t post on Friday (I was too busy re-watching Titanic - my video tape wide screen version) and after that I was just too emotional to turn on the computer.
To all of you who think this movie sucks - you’re all a bunch of emotionally bereft lifeless automatons who live empty pathetic lives. Hell, everybody knows that in order to fulfill a useful existence, one must get choked up at Hollywood schlock.
Actually I’m glad to see that I can still get along with people who have differing tastes than I. I’ve decided (this thread being my creation) that that is the theme of the thread - celebrating diversity. “I have a dream!”
Excuse me, I’m getting a little verklempt.
I enjoyed it also. I’ve seen it a few times.
I’m not going to criticize the actors too much, because I think DiCaprio and Winslet are both good actors (anyone who has seen Heavenly Creatures shouldn’t even imagine that Winslet can’t act.). So are Frances Fisher, David Warner, Kathy Bates, and the rest of the cast. Maybe not Billy Zane.
Anyhoo, the actors can only work with the script they are given, and with the direction they are given. James Cameron has a lot (some say too much) confidence in his own ability to write dialogue and convey human drama. He can get away with it in movies like The Abyss, or True Lies, because they are original stories and more action than plot. His dialogue and plot beats are fully adequate. In this case, Cameron misestimated; people already know how the story of the Titanic ends, so the framing story you create had better be really well written. Add to that the fact that he is a notorious control freak, so his script supervisor and production staff are probably pushovers, and that doesn’t leave a lot of room for the actors to do much more than what they are told.
Falcon, FCM and I (see above) are not going to see it together. Wanna join us?
(sorry I missed the DF Sunday, I was thinking of y’all while I sat in Bowie, under the Spritle-let.)
I’ve been interested in the Titanic since the second grade. I’ve read many books about it, and was excited when they found the remains. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the movie, although I was a little excited to hear that it was supposed to really look like the Titanic.
I got a little choked up with the scene of the mom putting her kids to bed. There was so much happening on the ship when it really sank, I didn’t see the need for inventing the Rose/Jack storyline at all. I didn’t like them. If someone could edit me a copy with them pretty much removed, I’d like the movie better.
In the end, I think that I came out a little indifferent towards it. I loved the scenes of the actual ship and recreation of events that happened, felt repulsed by the Rose/Jack thing. I own a copy of the movie, yet never watch it. The only really good thing that came out was that several books about the Titanic that I could only previously get from the library were reprinted, so I increased my Titanic library.