The Critical Review EssayOn the Titanic - Essay Example

Titanic The titanic is a film that has elicited different reaction from different people over the last few years since it hit the theatres in 1997. The film tells an interesting story that is simple but that touches at the heart of many people. The titanic features passengers aboard an ill-fated ship that sinks in the ocean after hitting an iceberg. All the passengers died in the gruesome accident. Aboard the ship is a couple who are in love and Cameron has made the film to be about the couple. In directing and producing Titanic, Cameron uses his characteristic style of realism where the characters come to life. He also concentrates on creating a story line that most people can identify with. His decision to direct and produce this film was inspired by an actual event that had happened almost a hundred years ago (Marsh). The Titanic, a film that shows the relationship, selfish, love, sacrificesd, and has a complicated storyline. The main characters in the Titanic are Jack Dawson, who was played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Rose DeWitt Bukater, who was played by Kate Winslet. They play the roles of a young couple who are in the ship. The woman’s mother does not approve the love between the couple and the woman’s boyfriend to whom her mother desperately wants to marry in order for them to live the life of extravagance. The story line is about two main people who are in relationship. There is Ruth and her daughter Rose. Ruth wants Rose to agree marrying Cal who is a wealthy young man. Her plan is that she and her daughter can continue living a life of extravagance that they were living before her husband died. Rose is reluctant because she does not love Cal. While on board the Titanic, a romantic relationship starts to simmer between rose and Jack, who is poor young artists of 20 years and who had managed to be in the ship after winning a ticket from a rotary (Moses). Eventually, the two fall in love and start to have a secret meeting. However, It’s reached a new turn when the Titanic hits an iceberg. Among the passengers, Rose and Jack were the first ones to know as they overheard the engineer’s discus the fact that the ship had hit an iceberg and that the possible repercussion were serious. This storyline is important in a number of ways. To begin with, James Cameron uses a storyline of an underdog who wins a fight (Bernard). The underdog in this case is Jack who is a penniless artist who ends up winning a woman’s heart. The man Cal, who interested in the woman was a wealthy man and compared to Jack’s financial status, it would have been hard for him to win the womans heart became he had nothing to offer her. Furthermore, Rose’s mother had endorsed Cal to be the one to marry with Rose. By having Jack end up being the person who wins the girl, the importance of this in the story is that people like to lobby for underdogs because everybody have felt like an underdog at some instance in their lives. This is therefore a story that many people can identify with. People feel happy when those who seem weak seem to win against the strong because they feel that this is an assurance that even they can overcome the odds that are stuck against them in life. This storyline is also easy to follow and the audience is likely to be able to follow the film as it goes. It maintains a simple storyline that one that is easy to relate to anyone who lives in any society. The other interesting issue with regard to the storyline is that it features the issues that affect and occur to ordinary people. Instead of the storyline being so complicated, the film maintains an easy to follow storyline. James Cameron said that he wanted to get cast members who would be able to translate the energy and the liveliness that was in the ship. For instance, he wanted the person to portray Jack to be a person who would be able to portray the energy hat jack would have exuded in the ship and during the unfortunate events that occurred to the ship (Morris). The other important thing is that the girl refuses to fall for the man her mother endorses. This is something that happened on a daily base. Parents who try to push their children to do certain things only push them away from these things. The plot remains interesting because it features the things that people can do on a daily basis. However, even on providing a profile that the public can relate to, the film also manages to bring a twist to the story so that it is not automatically predictable. For a person watching this for the first time and never heard about the film, they would never be able to predict what the end will be. At the same time, for a person who has already seen the movie or have already heard the story, the film would still be very interesting because of the nature of the events. This is not like any other Hollywood movie whose plot revolves around two rivals throwing blows at each other, it is a story of humanity, one that can be repeated over and over again without it being too repetitive. The issue of the social order and how it affects people can come out in the film. For instance, in the cast, there is a woman called Molly, who are looked down upon the first class passengers in the ship because they not only think she is vulgar, but also because they think she is “new money.” The selfish interest of the mother to Rose is also another twist that would make many people to be interested in the film. Her materialism leads to her willing to marry off her daughter who is only seventeen years old to a thirty year old man, just as a way to achieve his means of getting an extravagant life. The Titanic is a film about something that any society cherishes, which is about true love. The Love between Rose and Jack is almost in line with the American fairly tale where the less deserving gets to win at the end of the day. James Cameron’s Titanic is like an inverted fairy tale in that in this case instead of the poor girl marrying the prince; the poor boy marries the princess. It is a film about the impossible when it comes to matters of love and romance. This is why as James Cameron says; “it [Titanic] has continued to attract audience and even some people go to the theatre to watch it for the second, even third time (Cameron).” The Titanic is a great movie that will continue to tell the story that has tragedy and romance in it. The film that can interest any person who watches it. James Cameron has an affinity to know what will interest the audience and this is evident in all his films, even those he has produced after the Titanic. Sacrifice The theme of trust is the underpinning them in the film is the theme of sacrifice presented as an evolving phenomenon that coils itself around romance. Cameron uses romance to bring the theme of sacrifice and he illustrates this by the relationship between Jack and Rose. These two young people each other and starting having something common that developed into friendship. This friendship grows into trust. Trust is the lifeline to any romantic relationship, and this trust does not have to be based on anything, it can be just about people who trust each other, not because they know each other too well, but because they are yearning for love and companionship. However, Cameron knows that this trust that has grown between Jack and Rose needs further testing. The best way to test trust is sacrifice; if you are trustworthy, you would do anything for me. This becomes more evident at the end of the film. Rose sacrifices her freedom and even endangers her life by going to the bottom of the ship where jack is shackled (which is dangerous considering that the ship was sinking and the last place anyone would like to be is at the bottom deck). The theme of sacrifice is further depicted when Jack chooses to sacrifice his life so as Rose would carry one. At this point, their love and romance is sealed, there is no doubt beyond this that they are on love, to the point of willing to die for each other. Works Cited Cameron, James.. Alternate Ending Commentary (DVD). 20th Century Fo. 2005 Marsh, Ed. Construction Timelapse (DVD). 20th Century Fox. 2005 Morris, Patricks. Titanic Movie. New York, NY: Pearson, 2012. Moses, Donald. Understanding the Titanic. New York, NY: Pearson Books, 2014. Weinraub, Bernard (April 21, 1997). "Hollywood Braces for Likely Delay Of Titanic". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2014. Read More