Photo by Elodie Provosty
Article by Elodie Provosty
Everybody knows the tragedy of the RMS Titanic in 1912 when the unsinkable ship sank after hitting an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean. However, the American movie industry retold the story as a romantic drama in 1997, creating a new memory of the word Titanic. The movie Titanic stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet and was directed, written, and co-produced by Canadian filmmaker James Cameron.
“The first time I watched Titanic,” says Avery Brown, a junior at the Willow High School, “the suspense had me so stressed I could not finish the movie, but it was so good.” Titanic, which has a screen time of three hours and fourteen minutes, really prolongs the sinking of the ship, making the watcher feel a lot of suspense. The movie focuses on a forbidden love between a high society woman (Rose) who is engaged to another man and a poor boy who won his ticket to the Titanic in a poker game (Jack).
“The story has so many ups and downs,” Chloe Klump, Willow junior, proclaims. “It kept me invested the entire time, wondering what would happen next.”
For all the people who love and praise this movie, there are some who disagree with making the tragedy into a love story.
“I did not appreciate the movie Titanic,” junior Graham Williams said. “I feel like they turned a historical event into a sappy romance novel.”
Another junior, Jacob Watson, felt similarly, stating, “Honestly overrated. It is corny, and I feel like it is not an accurate representation of the Titanic.”
While many feel this way, James Cameron did leave many details in the movie historically accurate, a few examples being the decorations of the ship and an old couple dying together holding hands in bed as the ship went down, which there are reports of.
In my personal opinion, I think the movie was very well done. I loved all the different conflicts between characters and how all the characters came together for each other when the ship began to sink. I thought that the building of the love story was also well done, the way Jack longed for Rose but everyone told him he was hopeless and would never get a chance. Cameron also showed the class difference between Jack and Rose very well, how they both grew up so differently, and the vastly different mannerisms of the lifestyles they both lived. Rose, being born into a higher class, felt trapped in her own life, while Jack, who had next to nothing in terms of money and material goods, seemed to enjoy life and even taught Rose to do the same, which was the basis for her falling in love with him.
Overall, Titanic is a widely loved movie, and it’s not just for its beautiful cast, but all the decisions and acting that went into the making of it. But there will always be doubters of the movie. Could they both fit onto the door as it sunk into the sea? What do you think?
