TITANIC (1997)
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Hyde, Danny Nucci, Gloria Stuart, David Warner, Victor Garber, Lewis Abernathy, Suzy Amis and Bill Paxton.
Screenplay by James Cameron.
Directed by James Cameron.
Distributed by Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox Pictures. 194 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Okay, let me say first off, I liked Titanic, too. But it is not – as so many people are saying – the greatest film ever. The sets and special effects ARE spectacular. As a director, James Cameron is very good and keeps things moving nicely. However, he's not all that great as a writer. The dialogue often clunked, and his storylines were predictable, to say the least. This led me to make up this list of 12 problems with Titanic. I'll be the first to admit some are nitpicking, so sue me...
12. No mention whatsoever of the Californian, a ship that was nearby and could have been there within an hour, but when they saw the distress flares, they thought it was a party as the Titanic did not send a distress signal at the time.
11. When Jack bets everything he and his friend have in the poker game, he smiles and says, "when you ain't got nothing, you ain't got nothing to lose." I don't think Bob Dylan had written "Like A Rolling Stone" in 1912.
10. The captain was not an overwhelmed boob as portrayed in the film.
9. Why is it that blockbusters have to go with the shorthand idea poor=good / rich=bad?
8. When Jack jumps up and yells in the "I'm the king of the world. Whoo! Whoo!" scene, why didn't someone tell him to sit down and shut up?
7. When the rich men retired to the smoking room for cigars and brandy, Rose's mother said they were going to discuss being "masters of the universe." I don't think Tom Wolfe had written The Bonfire of the Vanities in 1912.
6. It is a myth that the band played "Closer My God To Thee" as their last song. They played all upbeat songs to help keep the passengers from panicking.
5. The scene where Rose asked Jack to paint her in the nude was just in there for current audiences. There's no way it would have really happened in 1912.
4. Jack is trying to teach Rose to break away from the shackles that bound her and her bourgeois ways, couldn't he come up with a better idea than teaching her to SPIT?
3. When Rose realizes Jack is dead, she lets go of his hand and he sinks into the deep. While perhaps a powerful image, Jack was wearing a life jacket and would have just bobbed on the top like all the other corpses.
2. The character of Cal, the fiancé, made no sense. Nothing he did in the film served any other purpose than to make him a "Boo! Hiss!" bad guy. Why didn't he get off the boat when he could and knew Rose didn't want to stay with him? Why did he chase them into the heart of the ship and try to kill them when they were almost certainly going to die anyway?
1. The main characters DIDN'T EXIST! There were enough fascinating characters who actually were on the ship that they could have written about.
That isn't even bringing up the question of why the elderly Rose threw away the necklace. Or why she never used it before? And while a romantic conceit, what are really the chances that she'd realize that her part was over and conveniently die on the very same waters that the ship sunk all those years ago.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©1997 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: December 19, 1997.
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