Titanic [3D] (2012)
Cast
Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson
Kate Winslet as Rose Dewitt Buckater
Billy Zane as Cal Hockley
Kathy Bates as Molly Brown
Bill Paxton as Brock Lovett
Bernard Hill as Captain Edward John Smith
David Warner as Spicer Lovejoy
Written and directed by
James Cameron
Rated PG-13 For shipwreck scenes, mild language and sexuality
The new 3D version of "Titanic,"
like the original 1997 version, is a magnificent motion picture. The
hour or more after the ship hits the iceberg remains spellbinding. The
material leading up to that point is a combination of documentary
footage from the ocean floor, romantic melodrama, and narration by a
centenarian named Rose. The production brings to life the opulence of
the great iron ship. Its passengers are a cross section of way of life
that would be ended forever by the First World War. In a way, the
iceberg represented the 20th century.
James Cameron's film is not perfect. It has some flaws, but I hate
the way film critics employ that word "flaw," as if they are jewelers
with loupes screwed into their eye sockets, performing a valuation. We
can say there are elements that could have been handled differently. We
can begin with some elements that are superb just as they stand.
To
begin with, Cameron avoids the pitfalls of telling a story about which
"everybody knows the ending." Yes, the Titanic strikes an iceberg and
sinks. That isn't the story he tells. He uses that as a backdrop for
stories about hubris, greed, class conflict, romance and a misplaced
faith in technology. The Titanic was doomed the moment it was described
as "unsinkable." There is a chilling conversation on the bridge between
Bruce Ismay, the ship's owner, and Thomas Andrews, its architect.
Ismay: "But this ship can't sink!"
Andrews: "She's made of iron, sir. I assure you, she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty."
Its unsinkability perhaps explains why Capt. Edward John Smith (Bernard Hill),
despite being warned of icebergs, cranked the ship up to its top
velocity and left it speeding blindly through the night. Would the
captain of any other vessel have felt confident in doing that? In
another sense, many of those on board thought of themselves as
unsinkable, including the millionaires Benjamin Guggenheim (Michael
Ensign) and the fictional villain Caledon Hockley (Billy Zane).
Guggenheim called for a brandy and went down with the ship. Hockley
would have thrown women and children overboard to preserve himself. Also
on board was the Denver millionaire Molly Brown (Kathy Bates),
who survived and is known to history as the Unsinkable Molly Brown.
She's shown as one of the few arguing that her lifeboat turn back to
rescue passengers freezing to death in the icy water.
Here already
I have fallen prey to Cameron's storytelling, and have become
distracted from the ship's fate by the fates of those on board. Of
greatest interest to us are Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet), who is engaged to the snaky Caledon Hockley, and Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio),
a steerage passenger who falls in love with her onboard and saves her
life. She is the same Rose, known now as "Rose Dawson," who is the old
lady, the sole living survivor, brought on board a salvage vessel near
the beginning of the film (she's played by Gloria Stuart, who was 86
when the film was made, and topped 100 before she died in 2010). This
elderly woman, with such spirit and old, wise eyes, provides "Titanic"
with what seems impossible: A happy ending. It is happy for her, at
least, because she finds closure with the recovery of a drawing made by
Jack and a final scene involving a famous diamond.
The Roses, young and old, provide a through-line from the day the
ship set sail until the present day. She creates the psychological
illusion that she's the heroine throughout, rescuing the film from a
chronological timeline and providing an eyewitness for the crew on the
salvage and exploration vessel. Cameron uses her as his excuse for an
invaluable narrative device. He has the underwater explorers show her a
little animated film that will "explain" to her how the ship sank, but
actually explains it to us. This device is used all the time as a chalk
talk or imaginary sequence in which the mastermind of a bank heist or
prison escape explains the plan to those who will use it; he's really
explaining it to us, so we'll understand it when we see it. As if
there's not suspense enough when the ship is sinking, we're all the time
wondering when it will break in half. Cameron is also not slow to bring
the architect Andrews up to the bridge, so he can unroll his blueprints
and explain to Captain Smith (and us) how the rushing flood waters will
flow over one bulwark after the next.
The class differences
onboard become a matter of life and death. The lifeboats are reserved
for first class passengers, and those in steerage are locked below
behind sliding gates. Crew members enforce these distinctions, sometimes
at gunpoint; so loyal are they to their employers that, even though
they're going to die, they feel no sympathy for their lower-class
comrades. In an early scene, it is by sneaking up to the first class
deck that Jack saves Rose from jumping off the ship. She has decided she
prefers death to a life among affluent snobs like her fiancée; this
shows she has more principle than imagination. Jack becomes the hero
only because he flouts all class distinctions, a decision that has its
roots deep in 19th century melodrama.
All of these matters take
place in a ship created by art design, set construction, modeling,
animation and miniatures which are state of the art. James Cameron's
films have always been distinguished by ground-breaking technical
excellence.
Now to those "flaws." Both of them involve the
behavior of characters. There are several scenes involving Jack trying
to help Rose escape the sinking ship, and then Rose helping free Jack
after he's handcuffed to a pipe in a cabin, and then Jack again helping
them to escape. Consider Rose. Of her own volition, she leaves the
safety of a lifeboat and dashes back into the bowels of the ship to find
Jack. She wades through water up to her waist, slugs an unhelpful crew
member on the jaw, finds Jack, and then finds a fire ax to break the
chain of his handcuffs.
Plucky, yes? But in all their other escape scenes, Jack pulls her behind him while desperately shouting Rose! Up here! Rose! Down there! Rose! Follow me!
et cetera. This grows monotonous and tiresome. It reminds me of one of
the early definitions in Ebert's Little Movie Glossary, the "Me Push-Pull You."
That's an adaptation of a friend of Doctor Dolittle's, the
"Pushmi-pullyu." I define it as a male who treats a woman as a wee
helpless creature who cannot save herself but must be pushed and pulled.
Given Rose's behavior in finding her way through the flooding ship
while saving Jack, she seems capable enough to be allowed the occasional
Jack! Up here! (There is also the inconvenience that Rose and
anyone else wading through the ice-cold water should quickly be dead of
hypothermia.)
Another character I have questions about is Spicer
Lovejoy, Caledon Hockley's pistol-packing bodyguard and dirty tricks
man. Played by the superb actor David Warner,
Lovejoy is a poker-faced tough guy entirely at the disposal of his
boss. In the ship's desperate final moments, he is always at Hockley's
side with helpful information, such as that a lifeboat on the other side
of the ship is allowing men on board. Lovejoy is invaluable to the
screenplay, because he gives Hockley someone to speak and plot with.
Otherwise the dastard would be reduced to dashing about madly on his
own. Nevertheless, whatever Spicer is being paid is not enough.
Now
for the final flaw. It is, of course, the 3D process. Cameron has
justly been praised for being one of the few directors to use 3D
usefully, in "Avatar."
But "Titanic" was not shot for 3D, and just as you cannot gild a pig,
you cannot make 2D into 3D. What you can do, and he tries to do it well,
is find certain scenes that you can present as having planes of focus
in foreground, middle and distance. So what? Did you miss any dimensions
the first time you saw "Titanic?" No matter how long Cameron took to do
it, no matter how much he spent, this is retrofitted 2D. Case closed.
But not quite. There's more to it than that. 3D causes a noticeable
loss in the brightness coming from the screen. Some say as much as 20
percent. If you saw an ordinary film dimmed that much, you might
complain to the management. Here you're supposed to be grateful you had
the opportunity to pay a surcharge for this defacement. If you're alert
to it, you'll notice that many shots and sequences in this version are
not in 3D at all, but remain in 2D. If you take off your glasses,
they'll pop off the screen with dramatically improved brightness. I know
why the film is in 3D. It's to justify the extra charge. That's a
shabby way to treat a masterpiece.
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