It's really no surprise when I say that Titanic 3D is the best movie playing right now in movie theaters. Its epic scope and unsurprising amount of passion beats anything. I remember watching the film for the first time more than 17 years ago and being amazed by its pop spectacle. And all through the years I've had a chance to re-watch it and re-live what I had experienced in that very same theater in December of 1997. One can however look back on the flaws that have encompassed James Cameron's film. I always thought the upper class/lower class divide in the film was a bit too facile and manipulative, as if Cameron wanted the rich too be sleazy and devious and the poor to be all too innocent. Ditto Cameron's dialogue which has always been a problem in his films from The Terminator all the way to Avatar.
Then there's the love story which is really the heart and soul of the film and something that I'm sure was well thought out and had substantial meaning to Cameron. It can clearly be seen on screen through the images he creates and NOT the dialogue -"I'll never let go Jack"? ugh. That's the thing though, with all the flaws that come with a Cameron film you can never deny his passion for the images he creates. Just look at Avatar which was worth watching for its incredible imagery despite its Pocahontas-like deja vu and semiprofessional dialogue. In Titanic Cameron explains his story through harrowing images like that of an upside down ship cracked to it foundation, falling bodies dipping into a sea of nothing or two lovers standing at the peak of the boat with their arms up in the air as if finally free of the conventions.
Then there's of course that famous scene in which Kate Winslet's Rose poses naked for Leonardo Dicaprio's Jack. Such pop culture moments are far and few these days. When was the last time a movie came out in which an entire nation was dissecting a slew of its scenes? That stuff just doesn't happen anymore not even when The Dark Knight came out and made Titanic-esque money. However as much as Cameron is to be congratulated for his poet's eye and degraded for his tin ears, one cannot forget the amazing performances that came in the form of Dicaprio and Winslet's. Their careers were just starting and they were not yet known as major talents yet the film changed everything. This is one of those rare instances where actor and actress came together to create something special & given the fact that Dicaprio didn't even get nominated for an Oscar shows the lack of brains in the academy's arsenal at the time.
At the end of it all this was a pop culture masterpiece. Something that not only critics could rave about but audiences too. A kind of Gone With Wind phenomenon that America hadn't really seen since that 1939 epic. Sometimes a movie is just too damn good to neglect despite its obvious flaws and Titanic was that very movie, an American epic that just wow-ed people and convinced them of the power and possibilities that movies can create. James Cameron visual eye, Winslet & Dicaprio's incredible talents and the breathtaking special effects took it all home for us and left us moved by the end of its blown up 194 minute running time . Now if only Cameron could have resisted and taken out that god-awful Celine Dion song.