Titanic (1997 film)
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romantic disaster film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. Incorporating both historical and fictionalized aspects, it is based on accounts of the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet star as members of different social classes who fall in love during the ship's maiden voyage. The film also features an ensemble cast of Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Hyde, Victor Garber, David Warner, Suzy Amis and Bill Paxton.
Titanic
James Cameron
- James Cameron
- Jon Landau
- Conrad Buff
- James Cameron
- Richard A. Harris
- Paramount Pictures
(United States and Canada) - 20th Century Fox
(International)
- November 1, 1997 (Tokyo)
- December 19, 1997 (United States)
195 minutes[3]
United States
English
Cameron's inspiration for the film came from his fascination with shipwrecks. He felt a love story interspersed with the human loss would be essential to convey the emotional impact of the disaster. Production began on September 1, 1995,[15] when Cameron shot footage of the Titanic wreck. The modern scenes on the research vessel were shot on board the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, which Cameron had used as a base when filming the wreck. Scale models, computer-generated imagery and a reconstruction of the Titanic built at Baja Studios were used to recreate the sinking. The film was co-financed by Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox; Paramount handled distribution in the United States and Canada while 20th Century Fox released the film internationally. Titanic was the most expensive film ever made at the time, with a production budget of $200 million. Filming took place from July 1996 to March 1997.
Titanic was released on December 19, 1997. It was praised for its visual effects, performances (particularly those of DiCaprio, Winslet, and Stuart), production values, direction, score, cinematography, story and emotional depth. Among other awards, it was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won 11, including Best Picture and Best Director, tying Ben-Hur (1959) for the most Academy Awards won by a film. With an initial worldwide gross of over $1.84 billion, Titanic was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark. It was the highest-grossing film of all time until Cameron's next film, Avatar (2009), surpassed it in 2010. Income from the initial theatrical release, retail video and soundtrack sales and US broadcast rights exceeded $3.2 billion.[16] A number of re-releases have pushed the film's worldwide theatrical total to $2.264 billion, making it the second film to gross more than $2 billion worldwide after Avatar. In 2017, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
In 1996, aboard the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, Brock Lovett and his team search the wreck of RMS Titanic. They recover a safe they hope contains a necklace with a large diamond known as the Heart of the Ocean. Instead, they find only a drawing of a young nude woman wearing the necklace. The sketch is dated April 14, 1912, the same day the Titanic struck the iceberg that caused it to sink.[Note 2] After viewing a television news story about the discovery, centenarian Rose Dawson Calvert contacts Lovett, identifying herself as the woman in the drawing. Hoping she can help locate the necklace, Lovett brings Rose aboard Keldysh, where she recounts her experiences as a Titanic passenger.
In 1912 Southampton, 17-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater, her wealthy fiancé Caledon "Cal" Hockley and Rose's widowed mother Ruth board the Titanic. Ruth emphasizes that Rose's marriage to Cal will resolve the family's financial problems and maintain their upper-class status. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson, a poor young artist, wins a third-class Titanic ticket in a poker game. After setting sail, Rose, distraught over her loveless engagement, climbs over the stern railing, intending to commit suicide. Jack coaxes her back onto the deck and they develop a friendship. Jack soon admits that he has feelings for Rose. When Cal and Ruth object, Rose rejects Jack's attentions, but returns to him after realizing she has fallen in love.
Rose brings Jack to her state room and requests he draw her nude, wearing only the Heart of the Ocean. They later evade Cal's servant, Lovejoy, and have sex in a Renault Towncar inside the cargo hold. On the forward deck, they witness the ship's collision with an iceberg and overhear its officers discussing its seriousness. Cal discovers Jack's sketch and an insulting note from Rose in his safe, along with the necklace. When Jack and Rose return to warn the others about the collision, Cal has Lovejoy slip the necklace into Jack's pocket to frame him for theft. Jack is confined in the master-at-arms' office. Cal puts the necklace into his own overcoat pocket.
With the ship sinking, the crew prioritize women and children for evacuation. Rose finds and frees Jack, and they make it back to the deck, where Cal and Jack urge Rose to board a lifeboat. Intending to save himself, Cal lies that he will get Jack safely off the ship and wraps his overcoat around Rose. As her lifeboat is lowered, Rose, unable to abandon Jack, jumps back onto the ship. Cal grabs Lovejoy's pistol and chases Jack and Rose, but they escape. Cal realizes the necklace is still in the coat he gave Rose. He poses as a lost child's father to board a lifeboat.
Jack and Rose return to the deck. The ship's stern is rising as the flooded bow sinks; the two desperately cling to the stern rail. The upended ship breaks in half and the bow section sinks. The stern slams back onto the ocean, upends again and sinks. In the freezing water, Jack helps Rose onto a wood transom panel among the debris, buoyant enough only for one person, and makes her promise to survive. Jack dies of cold shock, but Rose is among six people saved by the one returning lifeboat. RMS Carpathia rescues the survivors. Rose avoids Cal and her mother by hiding among the steerage passengers and giving her name as Rose Dawson. Still wearing Cal's overcoat, she discovers the necklace tucked inside the pocket.
In the present, Rose says she heard that Cal committed suicide after losing his fortune in the 1929 Wall Street crash. Lovett abandons his search after hearing Rose's story. Alone on the stern of Keldysh, Rose takes the Heart of the Ocean, which has been in her possession all along, and drops it into the sea over the wreck site. While she is seemingly asleep in her bed,[17] her photos on the dresser depict a life of freedom and adventure inspired by Jack. A young Rose reunites with Jack at the Titanic's Grand Staircase, applauded by those who died that night.
Post-production
Effects
Cameron wanted to push the boundary of special effects, and enlisted Digital Domain and Pacific Data Images to continue the developments in digital technology he pioneered on The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Many previous films about Titanic shot water in slow motion, which did not look wholly convincing.[87] Cameron encouraged his crew to shoot their 45-foot-long (14 m) miniature of the ship as if "we're making a commercial for the White Star Line".[88] Afterwards, digital water and smoke were added, as were extras captured on a motion capture stage. Visual effects supervisor Rob Legato scanned the faces of many actors, including himself and his children, for the digital extras and stuntmen. There was also a 65-foot-long (20 m) model of the ship's stern that could break in two repeatedly, the only miniature to be used in water.[87] For scenes set in the ship's engines, footage of the SS Jeremiah O'Brien's engines were composited with miniature support frames, and actors shot against a greenscreen.[89] In order to save money, the first-class lounge was a miniature set incorporated into a greenscreen backdrop behind the actors.[90] The miniature of the Lounge would later be crushed to simulate the destruction of the room and a scale model of a First-Class corridor flooded with jets of water while the camera pans out.[91]
Release
Initial screening
Distribution for the film was split between Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox; the former handling the distribution in the United States and Canada, and the latter handling the international release.[84] Both studios expected Cameron to complete the film for a release on July 2, 1997.[105] The film was to be released on this date "to exploit the lucrative summer season ticket sales when blockbuster films usually do better".[24] In April, Cameron said the film's special effects were too complicated and that releasing the film on that date would not be possible.[24] The studios considered pushing the film to late July or the first week of August, but Harrison Ford, whose film Air Force One was to be released on July 25, is reported to have informed Paramount, which had produced his lucrative Indiana Jones and Jack Ryan franchises, that he would never work with them again if they released Titanic so close to his own film.[106] On May 29, 1997, Paramount pushed back the release date to December 19, 1997.[77] "This fueled speculation that the film itself was a disaster." A preview screening in Minneapolis on July 14 "generated positive reviews" and "[c]hatter on the internet was responsible for more favorable word of mouth about the [film]". This eventually led to more positive media coverage.[24]
Cameron refused to hold the film's world premiere in Los Angeles.[85] Paramount disagreed with Cameron's decision, but Fox acquiesced and went ahead and held the premiere on November 1, 1997, at the Tokyo International Film Festival,[107][85] where reaction was described as "tepid" by The New York Times.[108] Positive reviews started to appear back in the United States; the official Hollywood premiere occurred on December 14, 1997, where "the big movie stars who attended the opening were enthusiastically gushing about the film to the world media".[24]
Critical reception
Initial
Titanic garnered mostly positive reviews from film critics, and was positively reviewed by audiences and scholars, who commented on the film's cultural, historical, and political impacts.[149][150][151] On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 88% based on 255 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A mostly unqualified triumph for James Cameron, who offers a dizzying blend of spectacular visuals and old-fashioned melodrama."[136] Metacritic, which assigned a weighted average score of 75 out of 100, based on 35 critics, reports the film has "generally favorable reviews".[152] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare "A+" grade, one of fewer than 60 films in the history of the service from 1982 to 2011 to earn the score.[153]
With regard to the film's overall design, Roger Ebert stated: "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." He credited the "technical difficulties" with being "so daunting that it's a wonder when the filmmakers are also able to bring the drama and history into proportion" and "found [himself] convinced by both the story and the sad saga".[154] He named it his ninth-best film of 1997.[155] On the television program Siskel & Ebert, the film received "two thumbs up" and was praised for its accuracy in recreating the ship's sinking; Ebert described the film as "a glorious Hollywood epic" and "well worth the wait," and Gene Siskel found Leonardo DiCaprio "captivating".[156]
James Berardinelli stated: "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."[157] It was named his second best film of 1997.[158] Joseph McBride of Boxoffice Magazine concluded: "To describe Titanic as the greatest disaster movie ever made is to sell it short. James Cameron's recreation of the 1912 sinking of the 'unsinkable' liner is one of the most magnificent pieces of serious popular entertainment ever to emanate from Hollywood."[159]
The romantic and emotionally charged aspects of the film were equally praised. Andrew L. Urban of Urban Cinefile said: "You will walk out of Titanic not talking about budget or running time, but of its enormous emotive power, big as the engines of the ship itself, determined as its giant propellers to gouge into your heart, and as lasting as the love story that propels it."[160] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly described the film as "a lush and terrifying spectacle of romantic doom. Writer-director James Cameron has restaged the defining catastrophe of the early 20th century on a human scale of such purified yearning and dread that he touches the deepest levels of popular moviemaking."[159] Janet Maslin of The New York Times commented that "Cameron's magnificent Titanic is the first spectacle in decades that honestly invites comparison to Gone With the Wind."[159] Adrian Turner of Radio Times awarded it four stars out of five, stating "Cameron's script wouldn't have sustained Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh for 80 minutes, but, somehow, he and his magical cast revive that old-style studio gloss for three riveting hours. Titanic is a sumptuous assault on the emotions, with a final hour that fully captures the horror and the freezing, paralysing fear of the moment. And there are single shots, such as an awesome albatross-like swoop past the steaming ship, when you sense Cameron hugging himself with the fun of it all."[161]
Titanic suffered backlash in addition to its success. Some reviewers felt that while the visuals were spectacular, the story and dialogue were weak.[151] Richard Corliss of Time magazine wrote a mostly negative review, criticizing the lack of interesting emotional elements.[162] Kenneth Turan's review in the Los Angeles Times was particularly scathing. Dismissing the emotive elements, he stated, "What really brings on the tears is Cameron's insistence that writing this kind of movie is within his abilities. Not only is it not, it is not even close."[163] He later argued that the only reason that the film won Oscars was because of its box office total.[164] Barbara Shulgasser of The 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."[165]
Retrospective
According to Dalin Rowell of /Film, "With complaints about its lengthy runtime, observations that certain characters could have easily fit onto pieces of floating furniture, and jokes about its melodramatic nature, Titanic is no stranger to modern-day criticism."[166] In 2002, filmmaker Robert Altman called it "the most dreadful piece of work I've ever seen in my entire life".[167] Similarly, French New Wave director and former Cahiers du Cinéma editor Jacques Rivette referred to it as "garbage" in a 1998 interview with Frédéric Bonnaud and was particularly critical of Winslet's performance, who he said was "unwatchable, the most slovenly girl to appear on the screen in a long, long time."[168] In 2003, the film topped a poll of "Best Film Endings",[169] but it also topped a poll by Film 2003 as "the worst movie of all time".[170]
In his 2012 study of the lives of the passengers on the Titanic, historian Richard Davenport-Hines said, "Cameron's film diabolized rich Americans and educated English, anathematizing their emotional restraint, good tailoring, punctilious manners and grammatical training, while it made romantic heroes of the poor Irish and the unlettered."[171] The British film magazine Empire reduced their rating of the film from the maximum five stars and an enthusiastic review, to four stars with a less positive review in a later edition, to accommodate its readers' tastes, who wanted to disassociate themselves from the hype surrounding the film, and the reported activities of its fans, such as those attending multiple screenings.[172] In addition to this, positive and negative parodies and other such spoofs of the film abounded and were circulated on the internet, often inspiring passionate responses from fans of various opinions of the film.[173] Benjamin Willcock of DVDActive.com did not understand the backlash or the passionate hatred for the film. "What really irks me ...," he said, "are those who make nasty stabs at those who do love it." Willcock stated, "I obviously don't have anything against those who dislike Titanic, but those few who make you feel small and pathetic for doing so (and they do exist, trust me) are way beyond my understanding and sympathy."[132]
In 1998, Cameron responded to the backlash, and Kenneth Turan's review in particular, by writing "Titanic is not a film that is sucking people in with flashy hype and spitting them out onto the street feeling let down and ripped off. They are returning again and again to repeat an experience that is taking a 3-hour and 14-minute chunk out of their lives, and dragging others with them, so they can share the emotion." Cameron emphasized that people from all ages (ranging from 8 to 80) and from all backgrounds were "celebrating their own essential humanity" by seeing it. He described the script as earnest and straightforward, and said it intentionally "incorporates universals of human experience and emotion that are timeless – and familiar because they reflect our basic emotional fabric" and that the film was able to succeed in this way by dealing with archetypes. He did not see it as pandering. "Turan mistakes archetype for cliché," he said. "I don't share his view that the best scripts are only the ones that explore the perimeter of human experience, or flashily pirouette their witty and cynical dialogue for our admiration."[174]
In 2000, Almar Haflidason of the BBC wrote that "the critical knives were out long before James Cameron's Titanic was complete. Spiralling costs that led to it becoming the most expensive motion picture of the 20th Century, and a cast without any big stars seemed to doom the film before release. But box office and audience appreciation proved Cameron right and many critics wrong." He added that "the sinking of the great ship is no secret, yet for many exceeded expectations in sheer scale and tragedy" and that "when you consider that [the film] tops a bum-numbing three-hour running time, then you have a truly impressive feat of entertainment achieved by Cameron".[175] Empire eventually reinstated its original five-star rating of the film, commenting: "It should be no surprise[,] then[,] that it became fashionable to bash James Cameron's Titanic at approximately the same time it became clear that this was the planet's favourite film. Ever."[176]
The film's climax has sparked many debates over the years on whether both Jack and Rose should have been able to fit on the floating door and survive, becoming among the most talked about aspects of the film.[177] Cameron has stated he often gets asked about the scene and has spoken about and tested it numerous times; one early test said they could not,[178] while another in advance of the film's 25th anniversary, said it was possible but unlikely and depended on numerous variables.[179]
In 2017, on the 20th anniversary of its release, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[180] It was listed among the 100 best films in an Empire poll and in a later poll of members of the film industry.[181][182] In 2021, Dalin Rowell of /Film ranked it the third-best film of Cameron's career, stating that it is "easily one of his best films, simply because it defied the odds", and considering it "a legitimately remarkable achievement — one that, despite its large budget, has a humble, earnest center. Even with all of the jokes the Internet loves to throw its way, Titanic demonstrates that Cameron is truly capable of everything he can imagine."[166]
Home media
Titanic was released worldwide in widescreen and pan and scan formats on VHS on September 1, 1998.[201] More than $50 million was spent to market the home video release of the film.[202] Both VHS formats were also made available in a deluxe boxed gift set with a mounted filmstrip and six lithograph prints from the movie. In the first 3 months, the film sold 25 million copies in North America with a total sales value of $500 million, becoming the best selling live-action video, beating Independence Day.[16] In that time, it sold 58 million copies worldwide, outselling The Lion King for a total worldwide revenue of $995 million.[16] By March 2005, the film has sold 8 million DVD and 59 million VHS units.[203] In the United Kingdom, the film sold 1.1 million copies on its first day of release, making it the country's fastest-selling home video release. It would hold this record until it was surpassed by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in May 2002 when that film sold 1.2 million home video units during its first day.[204] Within the first week of release, Titanic quickly beat The Full Monty, selling a total of 1.8 million home video copies.[205]
NBC acquired the US television broadcast rights for $30 million, which was considered a bargain.[16]
A DVD version was released on August 31, 1999, in a widescreen-only (non-anamorphic) single-disc edition with no special features other than a theatrical trailer. Cameron stated at the time that he intended to release a special edition with extra features later. This release became the best-selling DVD of 1999 and early 2000, becoming the first DVD ever to sell one million copies.[206] At the time, less than 5% of all U.S. homes had a DVD player. "When we released the original Titanic DVD, the industry was much smaller, and bonus features were not the standard they are now," said Meagan Burrows, Paramount's president of domestic home entertainment, which made the film's DVD performance even more impressive.[206]
Titanic was re-released to DVD on October 25, 2005, when a three-disc Special Collector's Edition was made available in the United States and Canada. This edition contained a newly restored transfer of the film, a 6.1 DTS-ES Discrete surround sound mix and various special features. In PAL regions, two-disc and four-disc variants were released, marketed as the Special Edition and Deluxe Collector's Edition respectively. They were released in the United Kingdom on November 7, 2005. A limited 5-disc set of the film, under the title Deluxe Limited Edition, was also only released in the United Kingdom with only 10,000 copies manufactured. The fifth disc contains Cameron's documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, which was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Unlike the individual release of Ghosts of the Abyss, which contained two discs, only the first disc was included in the set.[132] In 2007, for the film's tenth anniversary, a 10th Anniversary Edition was released on DVD, which consists of the first two discs from the three-disc 2005 set containing the movie and the special features on those discs.[207]
The film was released by Paramount Home Entertainment on Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D on September 10, 2012.[208] The 3D presentation of the film is split over two discs and is also THX-certified. Special features on another disc included many of those featured on the 2005 Special Collector's Edition DVD along with two new documentaries titled "Reflections on Titanic" and "Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron."[209] The latter aired on National Geographic on April 9, 2012, and was executively produced by Cameron.[210]
A 4K release of the film was released on December 5, 2023, on both digital and Ultra HD Blu-ray.[211][212][213][214]
Re-releases
3D conversion
A 2012 3D re-release was created by re-mastering the original to 4K resolution and post-converting to stereoscopic 3D format. The Titanic 3D version took 60 weeks and $18 million to produce, including the 4K restoration.[215] The 3D conversion was performed by Stereo D.[216] Digital 2D and in 2D IMAX versions were also struck from the new 4K master created in the process.[217] The only scene entirely redone for the re-release was Rose's view of the night sky at sea on the morning of April 15, 1912. The scene was replaced with an accurate view of the night-sky star pattern, including the Milky Way, adjusted for the location in the North Atlantic Ocean in April 1912. The change was prompted by the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who had criticized the unrealistic star pattern. He agreed to send Cameron a corrected view of the sky, which was the basis of the new scene.[218]
Titanic Live
Titanic Live was a live performance of James Horner's original score by a 130-piece orchestra, choir and Celtic musicians, accompanying a showing of the film.[240] In April 2015, Titanic Live premiered at the Royal Albert Hall, London, where the 2012 3D re-release had premiered.[241]