I seem to be saying this a lot but in this case I’m really surprised not to find an old review ‘cos I do remember writing a few things about this movie before, even though at the same time I’m pretty sure it’s a good 5 years since I last really watched it. So the few regular readers might recognise a few things I say here, I don’t know.

In short, this is an even better movie to me now than I remember it being when I first saw it, and it’s been a slow build. My sister and I were talking about it as it started tonight (on BBC 2, I have no idea why they were showing it today, like why not back in April on the anniversary of the incident or later in the year on the 10th anniversary of the movie itself?), and we both seem to have the same attitude to the movie, like you think “Titanic” and you think, “yeh, it’s ok … but … it’s ‘Titanic’” or something. I think it relates to how big the movie became so suddenly, it kind of forces an awkward cynicism, a knee-jerk reaction to prevent oneself following the herd as it were. But y’know, once that sepia opening starts, the slo-mo departure from Southampton, James Horner’s beautiful main theme? Consider me disarmed.

Even the things I always considered perhaps the worst things wrong with the movie I seemed to see through a different eye on this viewing – Leonardo Dicaprio has absolutely won me over with his last few performances, really going back to his original greatness in such things as What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? ... I have never admired his performance here as much as I did this time around, it’s not just merely adequate, it actually sucked me in like only my favourite actors can on this viewing. I even loved Billy Zane this time around – like so many things in the movie, he’s undeniably cheesy, even a little choppy and wooden, in his performance … but what can I say, it just all fits together and works for me in the end.

Basically what I’m saying here is, I think enough time has passed. And this is about as close we’ve had to a true “Classic” (in the old Hollywood golden age of cinema sense, quality and perception and everything else be damned) in about 20 years if not more. Even though I’m quick to shudder at the fact it’s 10 years this Christmas since its release, it really doesn’t feel like it’s that long since it came out … as a movie, if anything, it actually feels older ... it feels so much more like a solid, impeccable, untarnished thing than anything in recent memory, even the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Only 2 or 3 of the visual effects shots (a couple of virtual actors and, unfortunately, the final shot of it disappearing under the water bug me the most) really reveal the movie’s age. It’s the extraordinary moments of humanity – the good, and the bad – the child gazing at a flare going off, completely oblivious to the danger, like it’s a firework; the ship’s designer, shame-faced, leaving on a lifeboat; the elderly couple embracing in their bed, surrendered to the inevitable; the captain, and oh boy should that guy have been nominated for a supporting Oscar, along with Kathy Bates, I don’t care how short their screentime is – it’s those moments that really make me completely unable to call it less than a perfect movie.

It may be a little overlong, but it’s certainly nowhere near as overlong as lesser movies have been in just the past couple of years; it may have a slightly dodgy, even insensitive framing device, but I have to say, it ultimately works for me – the “virtual sinking” they show the elderly Rose at the start is a case in point, an absolutely perfect moment of visual foreshadowing.

Ultimately, I know it’s not perfect, but there’s just too much that make it a candidate for lifelong repeat viewings. The first half hour, from that sepia opening to the actual departure from Southampton, and the shots of the ship at sea, the little dinghy boat dwarfed by her, the dolphins jumping out of the water in front of her, culminating in the “I’m the King of the World!” line that, yes, James Cameron ruined at the Oscars, but is still a huge neck-hair-raiser, are just about the most feelgood thing I’ve ever seen in movies. The second hour moves surprisingly quickly and has some wonderful old-fashioned comedy in there. And the whole sinking … truly, those visual effects are brilliant. It’s a classic, I just can’t say anything more than that.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 10:38 pm in 5 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.