“TITANIC” FILM REVIEW

INTRODUCTION
Is the quote “You jump, I jump.” familiar to you? Most people know this
popular and classic quote from the movie “Titanic”. “Titanic” is the second most
successful movie made by James Cameron who is the director, producer, screenwriter
and editor of this movie after his production of “Avatar” as written in Glenday and
Craig’s Guinness Book of Records (2013). Although huge budget of $200 million was
used in the movie production, but the movie has a great success reaching a box office
of $2.187 billion, according to data from Box Office Mojo (n. d.). According to
British Board of Film Classification (1997), the movie is 3 hour and 14 minutes long
and it was released on January 23, 1998.
“Titanic” is a fictional and historical disaster-romance movie that visualizes
the love story of a lady, Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) from the upper-class
family and a poor man, Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) who wanders around the
world with the tragic shipwreck disaster that brings their romance and fate to an end.
Rose is a first-class passenger and Jack is a third-class passenger onboard of RMS
Titanic. During the first night on RMS Titanic, 17-year-old Rose tries to suicide by
jumping off the ship due to forced engagement by her mother to marry Cal Hockley
who is a 30-year-old rich businessperson for maintaining their high-class status and
solving financial problems of her family after death of her father. Jack who was
nearby the stern saw this situation and he saves Rose’s life. After this, Rose becomes
close with Jack due to the happiness and freedom she gets when she is with Jack.
People from the upper-class need to always maintain good posture, social and dining
etiquette. She now realizes people can have a joyful life without being rich. Through
more days they spend together on the ship, the more they fell in love with each other.
They went through the hardships of being together due to the restrictions of Rose’s
mother and her fiancé, Cal. Despite the fact that they have gone through these
hardships, what is more unfortunately was, they have to deal with the ill-fated
incident of sinking of RMS Titanic, the incident that has changed their lives ever
since.

STRUCTURE OF STORY
Based on information from IMDb (n. d.), the movie “Titanic” has a major
success by having 121 awards, including 11 rewards from 14 nominations of the
Academy Awards (The Oscars) and 74 nominations from the movie alone. Cameron’s
hard effort in directing and writing the storyline of this movie was what that makes
this movie a great success. The full and detailed story was told clearly in this 194-
minute long movie and it was precise enough to leave a good, deep and memorable
impression on the audiences.
The flow of this story is well-structured and organized. It also shows the main
themes of freedom and love. The story was started by a deep see explorer, Brock
Lovett (Bill Paxton) who found a portrait drawing of a young lady at the shipwreck
site of RMS Titanic. It was found out that a long-lost valuable blue diamond necklace,
named “The Heart of the Ocean” was worn by the young lady in the drawing. To find
out the whereabouts of the necklace, Brock and his team soon found out that the
young lady in the drawing is Rose Dawson Calvert, previously Rose DeWitt Bukater
who is currently 100 years old. Rose then reminisced and started to tell her story
about her past about her love story with Jack Dawson and the horrifying shipwreck
disaster that she had faced. This makes the audiences anticipated about Rose’s
pastime and makes the audience to wonder about how did Rose survived from the
shipwreck.
Next, there is scene that brought audiences in an anxiety and worried mood,
that is when RMS Titanic hit the iceberg on the starboard (right) side and causing the
sinking of the ship. The movie shows terrifying scene of people shouting, crying and
running in panic all over the ship. It also let audiences to previse about how are Jack
and Rose going to survive through this tragic disaster. Besides, there are touching and
heart-throbbing scenes that have believed to make many audiences cried. Rose is
willing to sacrifice her life to save Jack from Cal’s personal assistant, Spicer Lovejoy
(David Warner) who handcuffed Jack onto a pillar at the lower deck on the ship to
avoid him to have contact with Rose. Additionally, Rose jump back on to the sinking
ship to find Jack because that she would not want to leave him alone, she is willing to
sacrifice her life to be with the one she loves. These scenes touch the audiences’ deep
to their heart as it shows the willingness of sacrificing life for love.
Lastly; although it was heart-breaking when Jack knows that he might not
survive through the tragedy, he wants Rose to stay strong in her future life, for finding
the happy and free life that she would like to live. Rose promised Jack and she really
did found the life she wanted in the future. This gave a sense of warmth to the
audiences as the power of love encourages a person to be strong in his or her life.
Although Jack could not stay with Rose, but the memories they had will be stayed in
Rose’s heart for eternity. At least, the ending is not making the audiences to be
crestfallen. On the contrary, the mixture of happiness, touching, anxious and heart-
broken feelings can be deeply felt by the audiences, leaving audiences deep
impression and relation on the movie, making “Titanic” the most favourite movie of
all time for many.

MUSIC
On the other hand, the background music and theme song in “Titanic” are very
well-composed. According to Discogs (n. d.), all 15 tracks including background
music and theme song used in the movie are composed by James Horner. The
background music used are very compatible to the scene in the movie. It represents
the feelings that needed to be brought out in a particular scene. The background music
can show transition; for example, from a peace and calm scene to a tense and
horrifying scene by just changing background music used and by adding sound effects
when necessary. Besides, the song “My Heart Will Go On” which is sang by Celine
Dion has become a popular hit since the release of the movie. Until now, it has
become a popular classic love song that were still loved by many until today as
reported in ABC News (May 8, 2017).
ACTORS AND CHARACTERS
Furthermore, the movie producers also have chosen their best actors and
actresses who can fit this movie well. Leonardo DiCaprio who is the main actor of
this movie has won 50 awards from 167 nominations in his acting career life (IMDb,
n. d.). His most noticeable winning award is 2016 Best Actor Award of The Oscars
for the movie “The Revenant”. Additionally, the main actress of this movie, Kate
Winslet has won 15 awards from 48 nominations (IMDb, n. d.). Her most noticeable
winning award is 2009 Best Actress Award of The Oscars for the movie “The
Reader”. Both the main actors of the movie “Titanic” are very good in acting, they
can successfully bring out the emotion and feelings that are needed in the movie
through well-expression and show great utilization of their acting skills and
knowledges.
In the movie “Titanic”, the interactions between both the main actor, Leonardo
and Kate show realism to both character of Jack and Rose in the movie. Their facial
expressions and actions are highly focused in the movie. Their expressions showed
need to be as natural and real as possible to let the audiences to really feel the
interactions and feelings between Jack and Rose. This enables the audiences to
understand and experience what the actors are expressing and the true feelings of the
characters that are intended to deliver to the audiences. The sense of happiness,
touching, sad, oppression and anger are clearly conveyed by the actors to the
audiences, this is the factor that allows audiences to focus and devote fully into the
scenarios in the movie.
Rose who is having a strong, bold and independent personality always seek for
happiness and freedom of life portrays that woman should stand up and speak out to
live the life they wanted. Besides that, Jack who is a passionate lover with his
mesmerizing love towards Rose makes many female audiences fall in love with the
attractive character. Of course, other actors for supporting roles and extra actors are
also fairly important to the movie. By the combination of interactions between the
main actors and the other supporting actors, this brings out a whole situation and
scenario that are needed to be delivered to the audiences to understand what is
happening currently in the particular scene.

PRODUCTION
Lastly, the director of the “Titanic”, James Cameron has put vast effort into
the production of this movie. It was the first movie that has used the largest budget, as
much as $200 million at the year 1997 reported by Garrett and Diane in Big-budget
bang-ups (n. d.). The major reason for a huge budget used is because that a replica of
RMS Titanic was built for production of this movie. This is to enhance realness of the
movie. Based on Marsh and Kirkland (n. d.), the actual size replica of the RMS
Titanic was rebuilt using the actual blueprint of the RMS Titanic, including The
Grand Staircase that was only accessible by the first-class passenger. According to
Titanicandco (n. d.), most scene of the movie was taken on the replica to increase
level of reality to the audiences. In addition, director Cameron has recreated the actual
scene of the RMS Titanic breaking into half before sinking fully into the ocean
(Marsh & Kirkland, n. d.). Stuntmen were also hired to demonstrate scene of the
current conditions of the passengers finding way and struggling to survive when
facing this tragic disaster of the ship-breaking into half and sinking afterward (Marsh
& Kirkland, n. d.). Furthermore, according to James Cameron (2005) in his Deep
Dive Presentation DVD itself, Cameron has dive into the actual shipwreck site of
RMS Titanic at the Atlantic Ocean to shoot the real wrecked ship, also for intensify
reality of the movie. Hardwork and major efforts that Cameron has put into this movie
has made this movie a great success by not neglecting every single precise detail to
make this movie as real to the audiences’ viewing as possible.

CONCLUSION
The movie “Titanic” is highly recommended to people who loves watching
historical, drama or romance movie. It features the history of RMS Titanic, which was
sunk during its maiden voyage on the year 1912. It also shows the romance act
between Jack and Rose and the tragedy of shipwreck that they have to face. “Titanic”
is an awesomely- created, fascinating, classic and high-rated movie that has received
many good reviews, recommendations and acknowledgements from many different
parties and organizations. The aspects of having a well-written story with attractive
storyline, well-composed background music, heart-catching theme song, professional
actors and humongous effort for preparations of tools, props and models used to
enhance reality of the movie have driven to the success of this great movie, being the
all-time favourite movie for many until today as stated on The Top Tens (n. d.).