Titanic (1997)

Titanic is among the most anticipated premieres of 2012. It is not a brand new movie or a remake of James Cameron’s masterpiece. It is the good old Titanic with Kate and Leo coming back in the 3-D format in the year of the 100th anniversary of the catastrophe.

Titanic, which is undoubtedly one of the best disaster movies in the history of cinema, was released in 1997 and set the record of the highest worldwide gross. This record remained absolute for more than 12 years until it was beaten by Avatar in 2010. Thus, Cameron’s name is written in the history of cinema as the name of the two greatest blockbusters’ director.

The chart of the world’s highest-grossing films shows that the sci-fi genre is an absolute leader in this point. Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lord of the Rings and other movies of the genre occupy the top lines. Being a realistic drama movie based on historic events, Titanic is however at the top.

14 Academy Awards Nominations and 11 golden statuettes, the most expensive and the highest-grossing movie of the 20th century, one of the best epic films ever – all this is about Titanic.

Thrilling special effects, impressing grandeur of the ship, magnificent both in its luster and collapse, beautiful underwater shootings… However, these are not the things we love about this movie most of all. Many Titanic-fans share the opinion that it’s the tender and tragic love story of Rose and Jack that provides the movie with such a great artistic value.

Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) is a girl from an aristocratic family, a bride of a brilliant rich heir Cal Hockley (Billy Zane) and the Titanic’s first-class passenger. Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a poor artist, a gambler and an adventurer from the third class. In the best traditions of drama movies these two youngsters from different social classes who are absolutely no match for one another meet on board and fall in love. Their love will be impetuous, full of touching tenderness and passion, but tragically doomed from the very beginning. Jack will die in the cold waters of the Atlantic saving Rose, and Rose will live up to 100 years keeping the love for Jack in her heart forever. Though this plot is quite predictable, it doesn’t diminish the romance of this eternal love story.

It is symbolic that 10 years later Winslet and DiCaprio reunited in Revolutionary Road, which was also praised by critics and got a number of prizes and awards.

James Cameron, a great fan of striking visual effects and large-scale shooting, has revealed a very scrupulous approach to work. Underwater shooting shows us the real Titanic’s wrecks, while the ship model he shot is a 90% copy of it. The special effects of the movie don’t yield to those of Cameron’s Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Before Titanic was released, many skeptics were predicting a failure to the movie with an immense budget and no stars in the cast. However, they were wrong. Winslet and DiCaprio faced their sidereal hour in Titanic and became stars right after the release. Today, after 15 years, they are still maintaining that reputation. Winslet with her soft appearance and beautiful personality is still great at performing romantic heroines (Finding Neverland, The Holiday). As for Leonardo DiCaprio, in the latest years he has given up the cute image of a hero-lover for more serious and intellectual dramatic roles seen in Inception, Shutter Island and The Departed. Many critics consider this a great step forward; however the actor is most famous and loved for his young and touching Jack Dawson, desperately in love with Rose.