'Titanic' is a good film

Cafe Society
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In this thread, regarding classic American movies of the last 20 years, I was guilty of a highjack when I attempted to discuss the alleged suckiness of Titanic, the James Cameron film. Frankly, I enjoyed it, thought it was an awesome achievement and completely missed the embarrassingly bad movie many claim to have seen.

I reproduce my post from the other thread here, with RealityChuck’s kind indulgence. I forget who originally said it sucked, but he is the first to refute it and my thoughts follow. Anyone?

Thank you, RealityChuck.

I would like to see the alleged crappiness of Titanic addressed by its detractors. The movie gets mentioned and any supporters of it are drowned out in a barrage of “it sucked! It sucked!”

Not that he is the supreme artibrator of such things, but I tend to agree with most of his analysis, and so I quote Roger Ebert’s review at the time the picture was released:

It is a great, big picture about a great, big event that has haunted us since 1912. It led me to seek out a factual account of the tragedy, investigation and subsequent reforms in maritime safety. Personally, I think Leonardo DiCaprio is a good actor (see “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?”); it’s merely popular to run him down because he makes the young girls squeal.

Ebert:

Everyone is of course entitled to his or her opinion. Along with Rog, I found Titantic an astounding achievement in moviemaking and I do believe it will be watched and enjoyed for many years. The whole review, for anyone interested.

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While I agree that Titanic was a decent movie movie…

It was hardly flawless.

Mistakes in Titanic

The list is huge.

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Funny you should mention it; I just posted my opinion of “Titanic” (and “Shrek”) in this thread.
My take on Titanic is that it was a victim of its own hype, like a lot of popular films. I saw Titanic the week it was released, and I sat in stunned silence at the end of it. I didn’t even want to talk about it with the people I saw it with, because I didn’t want to break the spell. I saw it with one girl who has seen every movie ever made, and she just didn’t like it much (course, she’s the kind of person who doesn’t like ANYTHING much). I felt sorry for her, because she didn’t have the same emotional experience that I had seeing it. Sometimes it’s better to just enjoy something, without deconstructing it, picking holes in it, and looking for the wires holding the spaceships up (just my opinion, of course).

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I figured I should post here.

Most of the “Titanic sucks” is, indeed, backlash. The film was expensive (one strike) and popular (strike two). It also was unabashedly romantic in a time when romanticism is derided (strike three).

But it’s still a first-class film. I agree there are problems (though the list at IMDB that Reeder linked to is more a sad reflection of the limits of the modern moviegoer, who condemn the film because the buttons on a jacket are anachronisms), but nothing major. It’s an entertainment, old-fashioned, but still good.

And since the original issue was “classic” films, “Titanic” qualifies, much like another flawed film – “Gone With the Wind” – is considered a classic primarily due to its popularity. People will continue to want to see it, and the story is always going to strike a chord (God help us if it doesn’t).

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I think Titanic is neither a classic nor a crapfest. It’s an entertaining movie with some great special effects, and an interesting historical backdrop (obviously.

OTOH, I would’ve liked it more if the characters weren’t such cardboard cutouts. Like the bad guy who was supposed to marry Kate Winslet’s character – I’m surprised they didn’t show him twirling his mustache.

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I agree that Titanic is a good movie.

Set aside the love story for a moment. James Cameron did an amazing job recreating the basic story of the Titanic. Most of the mistakes listed on the page that Reeder linked to were of the technical sort that ALL movies have. i.e. film crews visible, continuity errors, etc. For the size and scope of this movie, these mistakes are remarkably few and far between.

As for the factual errors, almost none of them should minimize the average viewer’s enjoyment of the film. I mean, incorrect buttons? Out-of-date screws? Who cares? Cameron got all the big facts correct, and most of the little ones, too. A remarkable feat, when you consider the sheer load of information, some of it contradictory, that is out there.

As for the love story, I guess that’s subjective. I, personally, enjoyed it. Cameron gave me two very likable characters to identify with, so I could suffer along with them and perhaps better understand what the people who actually lived this incredible tragedy went through. Having two fictional characters also gave Cameron a better mechanism for showing the whole ship from stem to stern, and letting us stay on the ship until the last possible second. Sure, he took some artistic license here, but not so much that he detracted from the “truth” of what happened.

I don’t think that many, if any, movies would stand up under the close nit-picking thatTitanic was subjected to. An example? Okay–take Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Many consider this the best movie of the original trilogy, and an excellent film on it’s own merit. Yet it has a major logic goof, much bigger than any seen in Titanic:

Luke receives all of his Jedi training in the same span of time that Leia, Han & Co. are stuck on the asteroid? I don’t think so. Unless it’s supposed to be some weird space/time continum sort of thing that they never explain.

Sorry to ramble on, it’s a favorite topic of mine. I was a Titanic trivia buff long before the movie came out, and I enjoyed it greatly. I hate to see it run down by people who think it’s not “cool” to like a movie that has wide popularity. (Disclaimer: I’m not saying this is true of everybody who dislikes Titanic.)

It was a movie, after all, not a documentary.

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The contacts that the Captain was wearing-as far as a goof-would you want the poor actor to be blind?

I loved Titanic. I agree DiCaprio is a good actor, although this was an EXTREMELY bland role. Jack should’ve been more of the handsome rogue type-say, Ewan McGregor, and Cal should have been an older, boring, stuffy business man-maybe old enough to have been Rose’s father?

About Rose looking different when she tries to jump off the ship-a scene was cut from the film showing her in her stateroom tearing her hair down, and pulling off her necklace.

But the costumes…oooohhhh…the costumes! I WILL have the sinking dress and the flying dress-someday. And the pink coat, and the tea gown…drooling

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i hate Titanic. i find it extremely boring and full of “up their own arse” actors/actresses. i really cant stand the damned thing.

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My thoughts? It was an OK film. It wasn’t bad, but it sure wasn’t the best movie of the century, either. After about four months, I was sort of asking “They’re still showing that? Why?”. I’ve seen other sappy love stories set on historical backdrops… Titanic was about typical of the genre, I thought.

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I would never say a film, or anything else, ‘sucks’. The word has no meaning.

Titanic was certainly a competent film, but a great one? Hardly, IMO. It seems to me a great film would a) show us things we have never seen before, or at least the familiar in a new way b) contain impressive acting performances c) follow the story wherever it goes, without necessarily pandering to audience expectations.

On each of these points, Titanic falls down. The much-vaunted GCGI effects unfortunately end up being little more realistic than a matte painting. The actors, with the possible exception of Ms. Winslett, turn in pedestrian performances. Billy Zane is particularly annoying; his scenery-chewing would be over the top in a music-hall pantomime. The script uses the oldest wheeze in the book, presenting a historical event in terms of a tragic affair between two star-crossed lovers, yadda yadda yadda. The background of class struggle, which might have been interesting, is presented in the most banal terms (my favorite scene, in terms of shameless bombast, comes when Winslett descends into steerage and finds the poor folk all happily dancing jigs on top of the tables).

One way to look at it is in terms of bang for buck. Despite the enormous amounts of money spent on the production, does Titanic really improve on the treatment of this subject in A Night to Remember?

Titanic may be a triumph of kitsch, but a film for the ages? Ugh.

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See, this is what I’m talking about. To me, the only meaningful statements about movies, books, or anything is “I really enjoyed it” or “I didn’t enjoy it at all. It did nothing for me.” Talking about how good or bad a movie was is meaningless, because everything that one person found bad, another found wonderful, or didn’t notice or care about even when it was pointed out.

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It’s not a good film. It’s not even the best Titanic film. A Night to Remember and Titanic with Clifton Webb are infinitely better.

Why? Well, the main reason is that James Cameron is an awful writer. It wasn’t so apparent when he was making zillion-dollar action spectaculars. But then he attempts drama? Um, no. The villain is one of the most one-dimensional in cinema history. The ending was an absolute cop-out. Eternal love can only happen with premature death, so says Cameron. If Jack was allowed to live, he eventually would have begun farting and scratching himself in Rose’s presence, thus destroying her manic-depressive illusion of perfection.

I don’t care how much money it makes. With the exception of Tom Jones, it was the least worthy film ever to win Best Picture.

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In any case…now that I’ve seen Pearl Harbor, I have a considerably increased appreciation for Titanic… :wink:

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Could Cameron be forgiven for coming up with a sappy plot that had to lure repeat viewers, namely teenage girls? The damn film cost so much money that it had to be one of the highest grossing films of all time just to break even. Maybe it wouldn’t have been given the green light unless the script had that hook that drew in the $$. If the plot didn’t have that angle of Jack/Rose, then it wouldn’t have made as much money. That is the business of filmmaking.

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“Oliver!” “The English Patient” and “Around the World In 80 Days” were well below “Titanic” on the Best Picture quality chart.

Was Titanic an all-time great? No. But it was a fine film. Visually impressive, a decent love story, and a big boat sinks. Sounds like a good afternoon at the movies to me.

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When I first heard about the movie I couldn’t hardly wait as I was looking forward to a mordern remake of “A Night to Remember” then I heard it was a romance and my crap alert went off. I was dragged to see it and you know what… I could not get over the hackneyed plot or the terrible Dialogue.
The last half hour when the ship was sinking packed an emotional wallop until they started showing the main characters again.

I was upset because this film could have been so much more but was wasted.

The worst part was all the talk of this movie being a rememberence of the victims of the Titanic. Yeah that would be like claiming “the Dirty Dozen” is a rememberence to all the German soldiers who died in World war II.

Phooey! As for anyone who thinks me a bitter sour puss who hates Romance I say double Phooey. You want a real romantic story I suggest you rent Karma Sutra and see how a romance film should be done.

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my 2 cents. not a great movie, or good movie. a special effects remake of other movies. like the newer King Kong. I could live with that. but the love story stuff. yuck. would have loved to see the lives of about 5 characters and how they handled the sinking. enjoyed it when I saw it. but never saw it again. that is my mark of a good movie. If I want to see it again after 6 months.

I even bought it on DVD for the spouse for christmas last year and had to return it because she didnt want to see it again.

see the originals at a theater and be amazed at a good movie with good special effects.

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I guess I just liked it because it was mindless entertainment. No deep messages, and it wasn’t a romantic comedy, which I hate. Plus, I like that period of history, the clothes, the styles, the music, etc etc.

And Billy Zane is so fucking SEXY.

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In my opinion, Titanic was poorly written and, therefore, boring. And Kate Winslet’s great, but Leonardo DiCaprio is extremely overrated as an actor. (Yes, yes, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. That kind of thing is easier to do than you’d think. Let’s have a thread about mimicry vs. acting sometime.)

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I enjoyed the movie, but the characters were somewhat one dimensional. IMHO, there can be a difference between a good movie and an enjoyable movie, although amovie can be both. Hell, I really enjoyed Clueless, but it was a lousy film!