Titanic (M). Director: James Cameron. Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslett, Gloria Stuart, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Bill Paxton. 194 minutes
Legend has it that upon its original theatrical release in the US 15 years ago, James Cameron's epic Titanic was listed as running for two hours and 74 minutes. The reason was a perceived aversion among American audiences towards films that ran for longer than three hours. It's probably an urban myth, propagated at the expense of 'dumb' Americans. But said Americans may have had a point. Titanic is too long.
I have nothing against long films per se. But to me Titanic's running time is needlessly bloated by an unnecessary framing narrative, in which an elderly Titanic survivor (Stuart) shares her story with a boatload of high tech treasure hunters; and by an overly drawn out 'lust story' in which beautiful youngsters Jack and Rose (DiCaprio and Winslett) grope each other across the class divide.
At a recent screening for media, held to promote the revamped 3D conversion of Titanic that arrives in cinemas today, in time for next week's 100th anniversary of the ship's historical demise, we were shown 45 minutes of selected scenes: the 'reader's digest version', quipped producer Jon Landau prior to the presentation. For me, 45 minutes is about enough, especially after several viewings of the entire film in years past.
It was sufficient to remind that, despite its failings, Titanic is an excellent film. Its great strength is its portrayal of small human stories against the gargantuan disaster of the doomed ship's final hours. Yes, the sight of the massive ship sloping, snapping, and finally sinking beneath the waves is spectacular. But the tragedy is the loss of life, not of vessel, and the film doesn't lose sight of this.
If images of a weeping elderly couple embracing on their bed, awaiting death together as their cabin fills with water, and of a mother reading to her children to offer them the small gift of love and comfort before the end, are shamelessly trite, they are also effectively emotive. I remember choking up as a 15-year-old cinemagoer at the melancholy dignity of musicians who continue to play even as the deck beneath them lists treacherously.
We feel the stab of injustice as third class passengers are barred below deck to face certain death; qualified outrage at a villain who rescues a child in order to secure his own place