Titanic (1997)

Directed by: James Cameron | 194 minutes | action, drama, romance | Actors: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Bill Paxton, Gloria Stuart, Bernard Hill, Suzy Amis, Danny Nucci

Overloaded with Oscars, in the DVD closet of every air-mile-growing household and a number 1 hit for the title song. The movie ‘Titanic’ was a direct hit and rightly so. This is drama for everyone: good looks in rags, monkeys with gold rings, steamed window sex and to top it off a vertically sinking ship, the oh so slow sinking ship of love. And under the creak of the supposedly untouchable ocean liner, love climbs to its peak, only to die.

This is the romantic tale the Titanic’s incredible history needed and an ideal historical anchor for the classic love “against the odds.” It took a lot of dollars, reportedly 300 million and of course you can help a lot of charities with that, but we have to admit that it has been worth it. How fascinating can an hour of watching a ship sink be?

Here the chaff separates from the wheat, the men from the boys and the women from the girls. And love gives extra strength, Rose and Jack know. The glorious last hour is the strength of the film, which in the first two relies mainly on the sympathy for the two main characters and the beautiful decorum. We found DiCaprio and Winslet at their peak, him as the young promise and she as the junior premiere of the costume drama. The two never got along, as if the flame had burned too hard. DiCaprio is the proverbial young hero and they don’t grow old or are forgotten. Those are the hard laws of cinema and Winslet knows them all too well after her weight problems. James Cameron had them together in one movie at the right time; this Canadian SF dinosaur shows how to build big drama with ‘Titanic’.