Titanic (1997) Special Collector’s
Edition DVD
(Region 1)
2005 DVD Release Review
Part 2 - Film Review
Reviewer’s Bias:
- I like the film and it holds a special place in my memory.
Basically, the film is about how the tragedy of Titanic (the extremely big and ambitiously constructed ship) changed thousands of lives forever in the history of our world. As this tragedy unfolds in the film, another story is being told about, a young girl, Rose, who longed for freedom from the chains and burden that were put on her due to her family’s social status (and her mother’s greed.) She finds that neither her mother nor her so-called fiancé was ever concerned as to what she really wanted and she was always forced to contain her feelings, emotions and expressions to meet her mother’s and fiancé expectations. As such, she finds that she was never living for herself but for her mother and fiancé. As she attempts suicide on Titanic, she finds a guy named Jack trying to literally trying to save her from her suicide attempt. After which, a love story between Jack and Rose starts to unfold… as Titanic gets closer to hitting the iceberg… which I will not reveal more so as not to spoil it for anyone who has never seen Titanic (not that there are many in this category).
In terms of its story, yes, it is simple. But well fleshed out as the cast acts out their relevant parts in the film and the audience basically feels with the characters. Kate Winslet’s role as Rose, can be very challenging as Rose is a woman of status and at the same time Kate has to act out Rose’s vulnerable side (as she is being pushed to the brink of her tolerance level). She well deserved the Best Leading Actress nomination at the Oscars. Teenage heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio’s role as Jack, a happy-go-lucky boyish chap, who lives his life “to make each day count”, is quite convincingly portrayed on screen but it simply poses no challenge for Leonardo DiCaprio. (If you are Leo’s fan, please ignore this negative opinion of mine, read the next line instead.) I would consider Leo’s role in Gangs of New York to be an evolution from the image he portrayed in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo+Juliet and Titanic.
Billy Zane’s role as
The combination of Cal and Mr
Lovejoy in the film seemed to be quite similar to ‘Pinky
and the Brain’. The overly serious look of Mr Lovejoy in every scene he appears
seems very comical at times, sometimes I wonder it was very much necessary in
some scenes as it makes him look like Brain in “Pinky
and the Brain”. Analogously,
The cinematography of this film is simply spectacular, especially the scene when the ship travels under the evening sky and the moments/scenes when the ship hits the iceberg and when it is sinking.
The visual effects, in 1997/98, would have been very spectacular but it does not mean that it is unsatisfactory today. All I would say that the VFX is still capable of drawing people of all ages to this film and into its story.
In terms of its score, the film
score and the film itself complement each other very well. James Horner has
done a marvellous job with the film score and with Skywalker sound doing the
soundtrack mixing for this film. The score, dialogue and sounds in the film
does not overwhelm each other while providing the span and scope for
believability. Without the score, the
film may seem to have insufficient depth. We feel with the characters much more
because of the evocative film score. This is especially true, during the
dialogue between Jack and Rose when they were floating above the ocean with the
help of a piece of wooden door. I cried every time I see the scene together
with the film score again. I feel the greatness and ambitiousness of Titanic everytime “Southampton” and “
All in all, I liked the film and I feel that it well deserved the 11 Oscars it had won in 1998. I believe there will be people who feels that it should not have had that many Oscars especially for some categories (which I will not elaborate). In my honest opinion, before seeing Titanic, I always thought going to the movies was to enjoy the CG effects and just let my mind be stimulated by any other interesting aspects of the movie; and that the so-called “artistically” good movies were extremely boring (too much thinking/metaphors/parallelisms). But watching Titanic at the theatres once and the 2nd time on this SE DVD, I feel that it is very much neither of both but rather an experience for the audience to feel more with the story and the characters who were not only passengers of the first ambitiously built ship but victims of this terrible disaster in history…
Score: 4.5 / 5
Stay tuned for Part 3 (Video and Audio Review) of this review.
Review Part 2 – 1
December 2005
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