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Titanic (1997 film)

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Titanic
File:Titanic poster.jpg
Directed byJames Cameron
Written byJames Cameron
Produced byJon Landau
StarringLeonardo DiCaprio
Kate Winslet
Billy Zane
Michael Martin
Frances Fisher
Kathy Bates
Danny Nucci
Gloria Stuart
Bill Paxton
CinematographyRussell Carpenter
Edited byConrad Buff IV
James Cameron
Richard A. Harris
Music byJames Horner
Distributed byTemplate:Country data World 20th Century Fox
United States Canada Paramount Pictures
Release dates
Japan October 31, 1997 (premiere at Tokyo IFF)
United States Australia December 19, 1997
United Kingdom January 23 1998
Running time
194 minutes
Country United States
LanguageEnglish
BudgetUS$200,000,000[1]
Box officeUS$1,845,034,188
(worldwide)

Titanic is a 1997 romantic drama / disaster film directed, written and co-produced by James Cameron about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. It stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson respectively, members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ill-fated 1912 maiden voyage of the ship. Bill Paxton plays Brock Lovett, the leader of a treasure hunting expedition, while Gloria Stuart has the role of the elderly Rose, who narrates the story in 1996. The film co-stars Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Caledon Hockley, Kathy Bates as Margaret "Molly" Brown, Frances Fisher as Rose's mother, Ruth, and Danny Nucci as Jack's best friend, Fabrizio De Rossi.

Because Titanic was not completed in mid-1997, problems rose in Hollywood and there was discussion of trimming its length, but director Cameron fought to release it without additional editing. It was released to North America in theatres by Paramount Pictures (worldwide by 20th Century Fox) on December 19 1997, and while it performed well in its first weekend, it was not until the new year that the film would reach its highest ticket sales. Unadjusted for inflation, it holds the record for the highest-grossing film of all time, generating over US$1.8 billion worldwide. [1] [2] In 1998 it was nominated for fourteen Academy Awards and won eleven, including the title of 1997's Best Picture (the second Paramount/Fox co-production with that honor in 3 years after 1995's Braveheart). Titanic shares the record for the most Academy Award wins with Ben-Hur (1959) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).

Plot

In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic searching for a necklace called “The Heart of the Ocean.” Unexpectedly, they discover a drawing of a young woman reclining nude, wearing the Heart of the Ocean the day the Titanic sank. News of this drawing on television attracts the interest of the woman in question, Rose Dawson Calvert, now 101. Old Rose claims that the nude woman in the drawing was her by clearly saying, "Oh yes. The woman in the picture is me." After seeing the drawing in person, she recalls her memories as 17-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater aboard the Titanic. In 1912, young Rose boards the departing ship with the upper-class passengers and her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, and her fiancé, Cal (Caledon) Hockley. Meanwhile, a drifter and artist named Jack Dawson and his best friend Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets to the ship in a game of poker.

File:031028e-p.jpg
101-year-old Rose Calvert examines items that she travelled with on Titanic that have since been recovered from the wreckage.

Distraught and frustrated with her forced engagement to Cal and controlled life, Rose attempts to commit suicide but Jack intervenes. They strike up a tentative friendship as he shares stories of his adventures traveling and sketching, and their bond deepens when they leave the first-class formal dinner for a much livelier gathering in third-class. Soon they fall in love but Cal is informed of her partying in the steerage and forbids Rose to meet Jack again. Eventually, Jack confronts Rose alone, but she is inclined to ignore their growing affection because of her engagement and responsibilities. However, Rose later changes her mind and decides to offer her heart to Jack in a forbidden romance. As a sign of her affection, she asks him to sketch her in the nude wearing only the "Heart of the Ocean." Afterward the two run away from Hockley's manservant, Spicer Lovejoy. They run away below decks to the cargo hold where they enter a car and make love.

In the midst of Jack and Rose's romance, Captain Edward J. Smith has seemingly been ignoring many warnings about upcoming ice fields in the ship's path, and the Titanic maintains high speed. At 11:40 PM, the two lookouts see an iceberg directly in the Titanic's path. Despite the efforts of the crew and engineers, the ship strikes the iceberg and water begins to flood the compartments and causes the ship to begin sinking. When Cal discovers Rose's relationship with Jack, he plots revenge, deciding to frame Jack for stealing the "Heart of the Ocean." Hockley bribes the master-at-arms to handcuff and trap Jack in a room. Although Rose is at first indecisive, she later runs away from Cal, risking her chances of getting on a lifeboat, in order to find and rescue Jack. With the help of Titanic shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, Rose eventually frees Jack.

After Rose manages to successfully free Jack with a fire axe, they reunite with Fabrizio, but they are soon split up again. Jack never sees Fabrizio again, as he is later crushed by a falling smoke stack. They then break through a gate and make their way back to the boat deck, where Cal is searching for Rose. Cal and Jack manage to persuade Rose to board a lifeboat, but after realizing that she cannot leave Jack, Rose jumps back on the ship and reunites with Jack on the Grand Staircase. Infuriated beyond belief, Cal takes Lovejoy's pistol and chases Jack and Rose down the staircase, shooting at them. After running out of ammunition he realizes that he unintentionally gave Rose the diamond. Hockley returns to the boat deck and gets aboard Collapsible A by pretending to look after an abandoned child. This is one of only two lifeboats remaining on the ship. Although Jack and Rose manage to avoid Cal's fury, they find that the lifeboats are gone. With no other options, they decide to head aft and stay on the ship for as long as possible before it sinks completely. Eventually, the ship breaks in half and begins its final descent, washing everyone into the cold, icy waters.

File:Titanicpic1.JPG
The Titanic's bow end plunges underwater.

Jack and Rose are separated under the water, but eventually reunite, and the camera pulls back, revealing hundreds of people dying a painful death from hypothermia. Meanwhile, in Lifeboat 6, Molly Brown tries to convince Quartermaster Robert Hitchens to go back and rescue people, stating that they've "lots more room," and to the other women in the boat, "It's your men out there!" Molly's pleas go unheeded as Hitchens threatens to throw her overboard if she doesn't be quiet. So, in twenty boats, the few survivors wait and listen to the cries of their fellow passengers. In the twenty-eight degree Fahrenheit water, Jack manages to grab hold of a wall paneling, but only one of them can climb onto the surface. Jack sacrifices himself, and tells Rose to get on. While lying on the wall paneling, Jack makes Rose promise that, whatever happens, she gets out alive. When Officer Harold Lowe arrives with an empty Lifeboat 14, Rose tries to wake Jack, but then realizes that he has frozen to death. Upon this realization, she begins to lose hope and wants to stay there to die with Jack, but remembers her promise. She does her best to call out to Lowe, but he does not hear her and rows away, seemingly leaving her to die. Remembering her promise "never to let go," Rose manages to unclasp Jack's frozen hand from her own, letting his body disappear into the sea. Throwing herself into the water, Rose swims over to where a dead officer floats on one of the deck chairs. She blows on his whistle and attracts Lowe's attention. She is pulled to safety, joining the 5 other survivors from the water. Rose later boards the RMS Carpathia. On the Carpathia's deck, Rose notices Cal looking for her. When he turns in her direction, she turns away, not letting him see her face. This was the last time she ever saw Hockley. Upon arrival in New York City, Rose registers her name as "Rose Dawson" rather than her maiden name, reflecting her commitment to Jack as his wife and implying their plans for marriage. She discovers the "Heart of the Ocean" tucked into Cal's coat pocket.

After completing her story, the elderly Rose steps onto a railing and quietly throws the necklace into the dark Atlantic where her last memory of Jack rests. In Rose's room, viewers sees pictures of her life's achievements, including a photograph of her riding a horse at the Santa Monica Pier, just as she and Jack had planned to do together. There is also a roller coaster in the background of this picture, a picture of her next to a plane, another reference to the plans that she and Jack made. Rose lies in a bed nearby as the shot pans across her peacefully sleeping, perhaps deceased face into darkness. The film ends with a vision of young Rose reuniting with Jack at the Grand Staircase, surrounded by those who perished with Jack on the ship. In the final scene, Rose kisses Jack, and the people on the staircase start to applaud.

Cast and characters

Main article: List of characters in Titanic (1997)

Production

A brand-new studio was built for the making of this film, at Popotla, near Rosarito Beach in Mexico, just 40km south of the international border. A giant tower crane was used for aerial tracking shots of the 90% scale model of Titanic that was built in the ocean. When this epic disaster film was not finished in time for its scheduled July 1997 release,[2] shockwaves were sent through Hollywood; executives started wondering if a situation similar to that of Heaven's Gate would occur. The releasing studios 20th Century Fox (which handled the film's distribution outside the U.S.) and Paramount Pictures (which handled the U.S. distribution) panicked. With a budget of $200 million,[3] Titanic became the costliest film of all time by mid-1997 (now the fifth most expensive movie ever). When director James Cameron delivered the film to Paramount, it ran over three hours and speculation arose whether he would work in Hollywood again. Cameron defended his production and threatened most executives that they were not going to shorten the film's length. Cameron admitted that he felt as though Titanic would be unsuccessful.

Filming occurred from 16 September1996 to 23 March1997.

Reception

Critical Reception

The film garnered mostly positive reviews from critics. It has been a "Certified Fresh" film on Rotten Tomatoes with 83% overall approval from critics and 81% from users.[4] The film also received a 75 out 100 metascore on Metacritic, classified as a generally favorable reviewed film. The metacritic users also awarded it with a 7.5/10 average rating.[5]

Roger Ebert said "It is flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted and spellbinding... Movies like this are not merely difficult to make at all, but almost impossible to make well. The technical difficulties are so daunting that it's a wonder when the filmmakers are also able to bring the drama and history into proportion. I found myself convinced by both the story and the saga."[6] It was one of his top ten films of 1997.[7] James Berardinelli explains, "Meticulous in detail, yet vast in scope and intent, Titanic is the kind of epic motion picture event that has become a rarity. You don't just watch Titanic, you experience it."[8] It is his second best movie of 1997.[9]

Some reviewers felt that the story and dialogue were weak while the visuals were spectacular. Kenneth Turan's review in the LA Times was particularly scathing. Dismissing the emotive elements, he says "what really brings on the tears is Cameron's insistence that writing this kind of movie is within his abilities. Not only isn't it, it isn't even close."[10] Barbara Shulgasser of San Francisco Examiner gave Titanic one star out of four, citing a friend as saying "the number of times in this unbelievably badly written script that the two [lead characters] refer to each other by name was an indication of just how dramatically the script lacked anything more interesting for the actors to say."[11]

Box office

The film received steady attendance after opening in North America on December 19 1997. By Sunday that same weekend, theaters were beginning to sell out. The film debuted with $28,638,131. By the new year Titanic had increased in popularity and theaters continued selling out; unusually, it took fifteen weeks for its weekly gross to decline 50%, the most for any film in the 1990s. By March 1998 it was the first film to earn more than $1 billion worldwide.[12] The movie stayed in theatres for over 6 months. Some theatres in South Africa ran it for longer than a year, bringing in approximately R40 Million ($5,490,671)

Titanic holds the record for the highest-grossing film of all time in the North American market with $600,788,188. The previous North American record of $460,998,000 was held by Star Wars (another 20th Century Fox film).[13] Unadjusted for the effect of inflation, Titanic also holds the record for the highest-grossing movie of all time in the worldwide box office with $1,835,300,000 [14]. The second place Return of the King is about $700 million short of Titanic's record.

Awards

Titanic began its awards sweep starting with the Golden Globes, winning four including Best Film (Drama), Best Director, Best Original Score and Best Song.[15] Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart and James Cameron's screenplay were also nominated but lost.[16] It won the ACE "Eddie" Award, ASC Award, Art Directors Guild Award, Cinema Audio Society Award, Screen Actors Guild Awards, (Best Supporting Actress Gloria Stuart), The Directors Guild of America Award and Broadcast Film Critics Association Award (Best Director James Cameron), and The Producer Guild of America Awards, It was also nominated for ten BAFTA awards including Best Film and Director.

It tied All About Eve for having the most Oscar nominations in history with 14. It won Best Picture and Best Director. It also picked up best costume design, visual effects, sound, sound effects, original dramatic score, film editing, song, art direction and cinematography. Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart and the Make-up artists were the only other nominees that failed to win. James Cameron's original screenplay and Leonardo DiCaprio were not nominated.[17] It was the second movie to win eleven Academy Awards after Ben-Hur. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King would also match the record in 2004.

The love theme song also won the Grammy Awards for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television. It also won Best Movie and Best Male Performance for Leonardo DiCaprio at the MTV Movie Awards. The film was voted as Best Film at the People's Choice Awards. It won various awards outside the United States, including the Awards of the Japanese Academy as the Best Foreign Film of the year. Titanic eventually won 87 awards and had additional 47 nominations from various award giving bodies around the world.[18]

American Film Institute

Since its release, Titanic has been constantly appearing on the AFI's award winning 100 Years... series. So far it has ranked on the following five lists.

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Rank Notes
Thrills 25 A list of the top 100 thrilling movies in American cinema compiled in 2001.
Passions 37 A list of the top 100 love stories in American cinema compiled in 2002.
Songs 14 A list of the top 100 songs in American cinema compiled in 2004. Titanic ranked 14th for Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On."
Movie Quotes 100 A list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema compiled in 2005. Titanic ranked 100th for Jack Dawson's (Leonardo DiCaprio) cry of "I'm the king of the world!".
Movies 83 A 2007 (10th anniversary) edition of the 1997 list of the 100 best movies of the past century. Titanic was not eligible when the first list was released.

Re-Release

There has been word of a re-release of Titanic due to its successful original run as well as the advances in special effects and digital enhancement. Titanic's director, James Cameron, is said to be considering a re-release of his film in digital 3D.[19]

Controversy

In one scene, First Officer William Murdoch is shown to shoot and kill two passengers (including Jack's friend Tommy O-Ryan) during the frenzy to get to the lifeboats. Ashamed, he commits suicide, despite Wilde's pleads. When his nephew Scott Murdoch saw this, he objected since, according to Scott, Murdoch neither shot any passengers nor commited suicide[20] (although Fifth Officer Lowe did fire warning shots during the course of the evening). A few months later, Fox Vice-president Scott Neeson went to Dalbeattie, where Murdoch lived, to deliver a personal apology, and also presented a £5000 donation to Dalbeattie High School to boost the school's William Murdoch Memorial Prize.[21]

Soundtrack

Main article: Titanic (soundtrack)

Template:Sound sample box align right Template:Multi-listen start Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen end Template:Sample box end

The soundtrack CD for Titanic was composed by James Horner and sold more than twenty-seven million copies, notable because it included only one pop song with lyrics. The soundtrack includes performances from the Norwegian singer Sissel Kyrkjebø, and the famous Canadian diva Céline Dion. It became a worldwide success, and led to the release of a second volume that contained a mixture of previously unreleased soundtrack recordings with newly-recorded performances of some of the songs in the film, including one track recorded by Enya's sister, Máire Brennan of the Irish band Clannad. "Hymn to the Sea" features Bad Haggis's Eric Rigler on the uilleann pipes and whistles.

James Horner wrote the song "My Heart Will Go On" in secret with Will Jennings because Cameron did not want any songs with singing in the film. Dion agreed to record a demo with the persuasion of her husband René Angélil. Horner waited until Cameron was in an appropriate mood before presenting him with the song. After playing it several times, Cameron declared its approval, although worried that he would have been criticized for "going commercial at the end of the movie".[22] It eventually won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Original Song, meaning that without the inclusion of the song, the movie would not have tied the record for most Oscar nominations or Oscars won.

DVD

Main Article: Titanic Special Edition DVD

References

  1. ^ "Box office statistics for Titanic (1997)". BoxOfficeMojo.com. Retrieved October 15 2006.
  2. ^ Peter Bowes (1997-12-22). "Despatches". BBC. Retrieved 2007-02-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "Titanic cost of making movies". BBC. 1997-12-18. Retrieved 2007-02-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "Titanic (1997)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2006-12-07.
  5. ^ "Titanic". metacritic.com. Retrieved 2006-12-07.
  6. ^ Roger Ebert (1997-12-19). "Titanic". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 2006-12-07. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ "Siskel & Ebert's Favourite and Least Favourite Movies of 1997". Retrieved 2006-12-07.
  8. ^ A Film Review by James Berardinelli
  9. ^ James Berardinelli Top 10 of 1997
  10. ^ Kenneth Turan (1997-12-19). "Titanic Sinks Again (Spectacularly)". LA Times. Retrieved 2007-02-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ "TITANIC' FILMMAKERS SHOULD HAVE SUNK MORE MONEY INTO THE SCRIPT
  12. ^ "Titanic sinks competitors without a trace". BBC. 1998-02-25. Retrieved 2007-02-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ "Box Office". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-12-07.
  14. ^ "All-Time Worldwide Boxoffice". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2007-01-26.
  15. ^ "Titanic sweeps Golden Globes". BBC. 1998-01-19. Retrieved 2007-02-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ "Nominations for the 55th Golden Globe Awards". BBC. 1998-01-17. Retrieved 2007-02-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ "Love story that won the heart of the Academy". BBC. 1998-03-24. Retrieved 2007-02-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ Titanic Awards and Nominations
  19. ^ http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6064090.html
  20. ^ "Nephew angered by tarnishing of Titanic hero". BBC. 1998-01-24. Retrieved 2007-02-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  21. ^ "Titanic makers say sorry". BBC. 1998-04-15. Retrieved 2007-02-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ Parisi, Paula (1998). Titanic and the Making of James Cameron. London: Orion. p. 195. ISBN 0-7528-1799-X.
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