Costly 'Titanic' a horrible tale of love and disaster
Costly 'Titanic' a horrible tale of love and disaster
By Stevie Emilia
JAKARTA (JP): Can we ever forget the Titanic, the ship which
suffered a horrific end in the North Atlantic ocean after
crashing into an iceberg on her maiden voyage and taking almost
all her 1,500 passengers to their death in the icy waters?
The answer is no, especially with Hollywood filmmakers ready
to put a hefty US$200 million at stake to raise the ill-fated
liner to the big screen, drawing one's attention to the story of
man's ill-fate meeting with nature.
Just like the ship, the biggest liner of its era, the film is
declared as the all-time most-expensive film, replacing Kevin
Costner's $175 million Waterworld flop.
In making Titanic, Hollywood was a little smarter this time.
The film industry cooperated and shared the risk.
Titanic was jointly financed by Paramount Pictures and 20th
Century Fox. Fox distributes the film internationally, and
Paramount handles the U.S. distribution.
With such a huge budget, director James Cameron, who also
wrote and produce the film, was challenged to turn Titanic into a
blockbuster just as he had done with The Terminator, The Abyss,
Aliens and True Lies.
Most would-be viewers are familiar with the story of the
demise of the unsinkable Titanic, but Cameron still throws a few
surprises their way.
The opening is a case in point. It shows a modern-day setting
of the real wreck and a bunch of scientists combing the fish-
filled rooms with robots in the hopes of finding undiscovered
treasure.
Instead, they find a drawing of a naked girl.
A 103-year-old woman calls the head of the fortune hunters,
Brock Lovett, played by Bill Paxton (Twister, True Lies,
Terminator), claiming to be the woman in the drawing.
From here the story unfurls in flashbacks, as the aged but
still blooming Rose Dawson Calvert (Gloria Stuart) recounts her
faraway experiences.
One scene shows Rose peering into a video monitor that
displays the wreck, which was taken by Cameron from the original
wreck, and she sees her own reflection in the screen. In another
scene, Rose looks at the monitor, which makes the distance
between past and present no more than a breath apart, as the
liner comes to life. These are special effects that have made
Cameron a cut above the rest.
Then, we see the ship's maiden voyage through the eyes of 17-
year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet), and an unfolding
love story aboard the doomed ship.
Appealing
Clocking in at more than three hours, Titanic is centered
around a love story between Rose, an upper-class American
boarding the ship's first-class, and free-spirited third-class
passenger Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio).
Almost losing in a battle against the urge to follow the
expectations of her snob mother Ruth (Frances Fisher), her
egoistic but rich fiancee Cal Hockley (Bill Zane), and hundreds
of Edwardian society's etiquette rules, Rose is saved by Jack,
who opens her eyes to a world that lies outside her gilded cage
and hauls her back aboard the ship from her suicide attempt.
Winslet (Sense and Sensibility, Hamlet) finds what she is
looking for in DiCaprio (Marvin's Room, Romeo and Juliet), who
whirls her around dancing to a Celtic reel on the third-class
deck while sipping cheap beer, draws her naked and makes out with
her in the cargo hold.
An Academy Award nominee for best supporting actress in Sense
and Sensibility, and declared as one of the 50 most beautiful
people in the world by People magazine, have not stop Winslet
from having fun with DiCaprio on board the Titanic while trying
to escape from her fiance's cruel valet Spice Lovejoy (David
Warner).
Her role in Titanic has already earned her a best actress
nomination for a Golden Globe award, to be announced in Jan. 18.
DiCaprio, 23, also declared as one of the 50 most beautiful
people in the world by People, has had a stunning career. For his
$1 million role as a madly in love third-class passenger, he has
also received a Golden Globe nomination, for best actor.
The most extraordinary scene in the movie is when Jack
and Rose cling to the stern where they first met, but which is
now the summit of the ship, which is vertical and ready to plunge
into the freezing sea.
The computer-generated images of Titanic, especially the
daytime shots, are covered with a strange haze and there are
times when the giant ship does not resemble the real ship.
In the movie, it seems like Cameron -- after wrapping a love
story in the tragic event -- blames the ship's sinking on the
smooching couple, who made two men in the crow's nest fail to
spot the massive iceberg in front of the ship.
But without Rose and Jack, the three-hour film would have been
a giant bore. Cameron anticipated this by mixing fictional and
historical characters fluidly after conducting a five-year study
on the demise of the Titanic.
Historic figures in the movie include Molly Brown (Kathy
Bates), Titanic's most colorful real life first-class passenger,
Captain Edward J. Smith (Bernard Hill) and the shipbuilder's
project manager Thomas Andrews (Victor Garber).
Ambitious
Cameron paid attention to every detail, from lighting fixtures
to the beads on a silk gown, all reproduced for historical
accuracy.
He also recreated an almost full-sized exterior film set of
the Titanic, reproduced the interior of the ship and built a six-
acre, 17-million gallon seawater tank in which to sink her in
Rosarito Beach, Mexico.
He even hired his key personnel, who have previously worked
with him, to ensure the success of the film, and two experts on
the Titanic: Don Lynch and Ken Marschall (authors of Titanic: An
Illustrated History).
The result of his five-year study allowed Cameron to plant
calamitous forebodings in the movie, such as the lack of enough
life rafts for all passengers and crew and the vanity of the
ship's creators and captain.
Cameron, who was nominated for best director and best
screenplay in the Golden Globe Awards, wants to show the dramatic
sinking of the ship without failing to capture the beauty and
optimism of its brief and glorious life.
He also reveals the dark side of humanity underlying the
tragedy and men's faith, courage and sacrifice in the struggle
against nature.
In its own terms, Titanic is broad enough to entertain, yet
precise enough to illuminate.