essay on titanic movie

Like a great iron Sphinx on the ocean floor, the Titanic faces still toward the West, interrupted forever on its only voyage. We see it in the opening shots of “Titanic,” encrusted with the silt of 85 years; a remote-controlled TV camera snakes its way inside, down corridors and through doorways, showing us staterooms built for millionaires and inherited by crustaceans.

These shots strike precisely the right note; the ship calls from its grave for its story to be told, and if the story is made of showbiz and hype, smoke and mirrors–well, so was the Titanic. She was “the largest moving work of man in all history,” a character boasts, neatly dismissing the Pyramids and the Great Wall. There is a shot of her, early in the film, sweeping majestically beneath the camera from bow to stern, nearly 900 feet long and “unsinkable,” it was claimed, until an iceberg made an irrefutable reply.

James Cameron’s 194-minute, $200 million film of the tragic voyage is in the tradition of the great Hollywood epics. It is flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted and spellbinding. If its story stays well within the traditional formulas for such pictures, well, you don’t choose the most expensive film ever made as your opportunity to reinvent the wheel.

We know before the movie begins that certain things must happen. We must see the Titanic sail and sink, and be convinced we are looking at a real ship. There must be a human story–probably a romance–involving a few of the passengers. There must be vignettes involving some of the rest and a subplot involving the arrogance and pride of the ship’s builders–and perhaps also their courage and dignity. And there must be a reenactment of the ship’s terrible death throes; it took two and a half hours to sink, so that everyone aboard had time to know what was happening, and to consider their actions.

All of those elements are present in Cameron’s “Titanic,” weighted and balanced like ballast, so that the film always seems in proportion. The ship was made out of models (large and small), visual effects and computer animation. You know intellectually that you’re not looking at a real ocean liner–but the illusion is convincing and seamless. The special effects don’t call inappropriate attention to themselves but get the job done.

The human story involves an 17-year-old woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater ( Kate Winslet ) who is sailing to what she sees as her own personal doom: She has been forced by her penniless mother to become engaged to marry a rich, supercilious snob named Cal Hockley ( Billy Zane ), and so bitterly does she hate this prospect that she tries to kill herself by jumping from the ship. She is saved by Jack Dawson ( Leonardo DiCaprio ), a brash kid from steerage, and of course they will fall in love during the brief time left to them.

The screenplay tells their story in a way that unobtrusively shows off the ship. Jack is invited to join Rose’s party at dinner in the first class dining room, and later, fleeing from Cal’s manservant, Lovejoy ( David Warner ), they find themselves first in the awesome engine room, with pistons as tall as churches, and then at a rousing Irish dance in the crowded steerage. (At one point Rose gives Lovejoy the finger; did young ladies do that in 1912?) Their exploration is intercut with scenes from the command deck, where the captain ( Bernard Hill ) consults with Andrews ( Victor Garber ), the ship’s designer and Ismay ( Jonathan Hyde ), the White Star Line’s managing director.

Ismay wants the ship to break the trans-Atlantic speed record. He is warned that icebergs may have floated into the hazardous northern crossing but is scornful of danger. The Titanic can easily break the speed record but is too massive to turn quickly at high speed; there is an agonizing sequence that almost seems to play in slow motion, as the ship strains and shudders to turn away from an iceberg in its path–and fails.

We understand exactly what is happening at that moment because of an ingenious story technique by Cameron, who frames and explains the entire voyage in a modern story. The opening shots of the real Titanic, we are told, are obtained during an expedition led by Brock Lovett ( Bill Paxton ), an undersea explorer. He seeks precious jewels but finds a nude drawing of a young girl. Meanwhile, an ancient woman sees the drawing on TV and recognizes herself. This is Rose (Gloria Stuart), still alive at 101. She visits Paxton and shares her memories (“I can still smell the fresh paint”). And he shows her video scenes from his explorations, including a computer simulation of the Titanic’s last hours–which doubles as a briefing for the audience. By the time the ship sinks, we already know what is happening and why, and the story can focus on the characters while we effortlessly follow the stages of the Titanic’s sinking.

Movies like this are not merely difficult to make at all, but almost impossible to make well. The technical difficulties are so daunting that it’s a wonder when the filmmakers are also able to bring the drama and history into proportion. I found myself convinced by both the story and the saga. The setup of the love story is fairly routine, but the payoff–how everyone behaves as the ship is sinking–is wonderfully written, as passengers are forced to make impossible choices. Even the villain, played by Zane, reveals a human element at a crucial moment (despite everything, damn it all, he does love the girl).

The image from the Titanic that has haunted me, ever since I first read the story of the great ship, involves the moments right after it sank. The night sea was quiet enough so that cries for help carried easily across the water to the lifeboats, which drew prudently away. Still dressed up in the latest fashions, hundreds froze and drowned. What an extraordinary position to find yourself in after spending all that money for a ticket on an unsinkable ship.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

• Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson
• Kate Winslet as Rose Dewitt Bukater
• Bill Paxton as Brock Lovett
• Kathy Bates as Molly Brown
• Billy Zane as Cal Hockley

Written and Directed by

• James Cameron

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Titanic , American romantic adventure film , released in 1997, that centres on the sinking of the RMS Titanic . The film proved immensely popular, holding the all-time box-office gross record for more than a decade after its release.

The film begins with the robotic exploration of the Titanic ’s wreckage by treasure hunters who hope to locate a fabled massive blue diamond, known as the Heart of the Ocean, that was supposedly lost when the ship sank. They recover a safe that contains some papers, including a drawing of a nude woman wearing a necklace with the gem in it. After the illustration is aired on television, the team is contacted by an old woman (played by Gloria Stuart) who tells them that she is the one depicted in the drawing, Rose DeWitt Bukater, thought to have died in the accident. Hoping that she can help them find the jewel, the treasure hunters bring Rose to their expedition ship. Most of the film’s story is then told in flashbacks as she recounts the Titanic ’s fateful 1912 voyage.

Upper-class Rose (now played by Kate Winslet ) boards the ship with her mother (Frances Fisher) and her well-to-do fiancé, Cal ( Billy Zane), whom she is marrying for financial reasons. Distraught by the pressure of her arranged marriage, Rose contemplates suicide on the ship’s stern. She is talked down by third-class passenger Jack Dawson ( Leonardo DiCaprio ), a handsome but penniless artist. Over the course of the voyage, she becomes increasingly attracted to Jack. Meeting in secret, Rose asks him to draw her wearing the Heart of the Ocean necklace, which was a gift from Cal. Rose and Jack subsequently make love, and Rose tells Jack that she will go with him once the ship docks. Later that night, however, they witness the Titanic ’s fatal impact with an iceberg.

As the ship begins to sink, the couple seeks out Rose’s mother and Cal, who has discovered Rose’s romantic entanglement. He frames Jack for theft by having the necklace placed in Jack’s coat pocket. Jack is arrested, and Cal later puts the necklace in his own pocket. Though she initially hesitates, Rose comes to believe Jack’s claims of innocence, and she eventually finds him in the master-of-arms’ office, handcuffed around a pipe. Using an axe, she is able to free him as water floods the room. The lower-deck gates are locked, but Jack helps break down the one trapping them. He and Rose return to the upper deck, where Rose is placed in a lifeboat by Cal, who wraps his jacket around her—still containing the necklace. Cal lies to her, saying Jack will be able to leave the Titanic safely, but she refuses to leave Jack behind and jumps back onto the ship. Cal chases them in a jealous rage but eventually gives up to board a lifeboat, using a crying child as an excuse for passage. Rose and Jack are left on the ship as it breaks apart and sinks, the lifeboats having all been launched. Jack helps Rose onto a floating piece of the wreckage so that she can later be rescued by a returning lifeboat, while he himself dies of hypothermia . Onboard the Carpathia , the ship that rescued Titanic ’s survivors, she adopts the name “Rose Dawson” and discovers the necklace in Cal’s jacket. The film returns to the present day, and centenarian Rose is revealed to still have the jewel in her possession. Her story told, she drops the famous necklace into the ocean.

Though much of the film’s plot deals with the fictional romance between Rose and Jack, writer/director James Cameron put a great deal of work into the historical accuracy of the sets and story. Many real-life figures are featured throughout the film, including Capt. Edward J. Smith (Bernard Hill), J. Bruce Ismay (Jonathan Hyde), and “Unsinkable” Molly Brown ( Kathy Bates ), and actual underwater footage of the wreck was used for the opening scenes. Cameron himself went on several dives to explore the sunken ship, and he designed an almost-to-scale replica of the Titanic for the film’s production. At the time of its production, Titanic was the most expensive film ever made, costing some $200 million. However, it recouped its expenses several times over. The film was somewhat of a phenomenon, especially among teenage girls and young women enamoured with DiCaprio, and the media widely reported on instances of individuals seeing the movie dozens of times in the theatre.

Titanic was nominated for 14 Academy Awards , tying the record set by All About Eve (1950), and it won 11, equaling the record set by Ben-Hur (1959), which was later matched by Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). In addition to winning Oscars for best picture and director, Titanic also received an Academy Award for the song “My Heart Will Go On,” performed by Céline Dion . A 3-D version of the film was released in 2012, shortly before the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking.

• Studios: Twentieth Century-Fox , Paramount Pictures , and Lightstorm Entertainment
• Director and writer: James Cameron
• Producers: James Cameron and Jon Landau
• Music: James Horner
• Running time: 194 minutes
• Leonardo DiCaprio (Jack Dawson)
• Kate Winslet (Rose DeWitt Bukater)
• Billy Zane (Caledon [Cal] Hockley)
• Kathy Bates (Molly Brown)
• Gloria Stuart (Old Rose)
• Lead actress (Kate Winslet)
• Supporting actress (Gloria Stuart)
• Art direction*
• Cinematography*
• Costume design*
• Film editing*
• Original dramatic score*
• Original song (“My Heart Will Go On”)*
• Sound effects editing*
• Visual effects*

by James Cameron

• Titanic Summary

The film opens with images of the Titanic ’s departure from Southampton in April, 1912. In the present day, treasure hunter Brock Lovett leads a team of submersibles down into the Titanic’s wreck. He finds a safe containing a drawing of a nude woman wearing a necklace he is seeking, called “the Heart of the Ocean.” Brock receives a phone call from a 101-year old woman claiming to be the subject of the drawing, and he flies her out to his research vessel to hear her story.

Named Rose Dewitt Bukater, she explains to Brock and his team that she had boarded the Titanic in Southampton with her fiancé, Cal Hockley , and her mother Ruth. Thus begins the flashback which will be most of the film's narrative. We see Jack Dawson , the penniless artist with whom she will soon fall in love, winning tickets for the Titanic 's voyage in a lucky round of poker in a nearby pub, and he boards the ship at the last minute. Rose describes the Titanic as “slave ship,” given how suffocated and unhappy she feels as Cal’s wife-to-be. After the ship departs from the harbor, Jack and his friend Fabrizio ecstatically rejoice at the ship’s bow. Rose dines in first class with other members of the upper crust, including Molly Brown , the shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, and White Star Line executive J. Bruce Ismay. Rose especially resents her mother and Cal’s controlling natures, and Ismay’s arrogance when describing the Titanic .

That night, Rose is about to commit suicide by hurling herself from the ship’s stern, when Jack happens upon her and convinces her to step back over the railing by saying he will jump in after her. White Star Line officials initially think Jack has attacked her, but Rose improvises a lie to exonerate Jack and conceal the motives behind her own behavior. Rose convinces Cal to invite Jack to dinner the following night. The next day, Rose strolls the deck with Jack, thanking him for his discretion. Initially shocked by his bluntness, Rose warms to Jack, especially impressed by his drawings. Molly lends Jack a tuxedo to wear to dinner in first class, where Jack charms the well-to-do with his carpe diem philosophies—all except for Rose's mother Ruth. After dinner, Jack secretly invites Rose to a raucous party below deck, where she drinks, dances, and feels liberated in the company of regular people.

The following morning at breakfast, after being informed of Rose’s behavior by his valet Lovejoy, Cal furiously scolds Rose. Ruth forbids Rose from seeing Jack again, reminding her that her marriage to Cal is crucial for remedying their family's precarious financial state. Jack tries to visit Rose in church, but is restrained by Lovejoy. Later that day, Rose strolls the decks with Thomas Andrews, noting that the ship only has lifeboats for half its passengers. Jack pulls Rose into a gym room and delivers an impassioned speech, worried that marrying Cal will extinguish the “fire” within her, but Rose tells him not to contact her anymore.

Later at sunset, Jack is standing at the bow of the ship when Rose approaches, saying she has changed her mind. Jack lifts her onto the railing, instructing her to close her eyes and spread her arms, and the two kiss. Rose invites Jack back to her first class cabin while Cal is at the smoking lounge, and asks him to draw her wearing only the Heart of the Ocean, which she retrieves from Cal’s safe. Jack draws her, and the two are later interrupted by Lovejoy. Jack and Rose sneak out the back entrance, and Lovejoy pursues them below deck. They run through the boiler room and wind up in a cargo area holding automobiles. They make love in one of the cars, and reemerge laughing on the ship’s deck, just as the ship is about to make contact with an iceberg.

The ship's lookouts ring the captain, and all over the Titanic , crew members work to throw the ship’s engines into reverse, to no avail. The ship collides with the iceberg, and Rose brings Jack with her to notify her mother and Cal about the collision, but Lovejoy and Cal frame Jack for stealing the Heart of the Ocean, and order the master-at-arms to arrest him. Below deck, alarmed third-class passengers see their cabins begin to flood, as above them, first class passengers remain largely oblivious to the severity of the accident. Thomas Andrews explains to Captain Smith, J. Bruce Ismay, and chief officer William Murdoch that the ship will sink in a matter of hours.

Rose shocks Cal and her mother by refusing to board a lifeboat, and instead goes searching for Jack, who has been handcuffed below deck under Lovejoy's charge. Thomas Andrews gives her directions through the crewman's passage to the rapidly flooding D-deck, where Rose finds Jack chained to a pipe. After failing to find a key, Rose runs through C-deck and finds an axe. She miraculously chops through Jack's handcuffs, and the two escape D-deck together. In C-deck, Jack helps the third-class passengers uproot a bench and ram through a gate preventing them from ascending to the upper levels.

Cal retrieves the Heart of the Ocean from his safe and stashes it in his coat. He finds Rose and Jack, and unwittingly gives Rose his coat with the diamond. He and Jack jointly convince Rose to board a lifeboat. Rose watches Jack as she descends, then leaps back aboard the sinking ship. Rose reunites with Jack, telling him, "You jump, I jump, right?" Enraged and jealous, Cal steals Lovejoy's gun and fires at Rose and Jack, sending them fleeing back down into the lower decks. He then realizes that Rose now has the Heart of the Ocean. Below deck again, Jack and Rose find a small child and try to rescue him, before being swept up in a current flooding the ship. They barely manage to escape the depths of the ship after Jack retrieves a pair of keys dropped by a fleeing White Star Line attendant.

Jack and Rose pass Thomas Andrews in the dining area, and he apologizes to Rose for not building a better ship. On deck, the ship's band plays while anarchy breaks loose. Cal finds a small, lost child and cynically uses her to board a lifeboat. William Murdoch, overwhelmed by managing the lifeboat triage, accidentally kills a passenger and then commits suicide. Captain Smith steps into the wheelhouse as it floods, killing him instantly. As the ship sinks by the bow, Jack and Rose run to the stern. The ship eventually snaps in half, and the front half sinks. Jack and Rose cling to the railing of the stern as the back half of the ship rises vertically into the air. Jack tells Rose to hold her breath as they finally go under.

Jack guides Rose to a piece of debris that she can use to stay afloat. Molly tries convincing the other people in her lifeboat to turn around and look for survivors, but is overruled. Jack makes Rose promise she will survive, and dies before the first lifeboat returns. Rose blows on a whistle to call the lifeboat, and is taken with the other survivors aboard the Carpathia the following morning. She registers the next day as "Rose Dawson" upon arriving in the United States. In the present day, Rose explains to Brock and the others that Jack saved her every way a person can be saved, and that Cal killed himself after the stock market crash in 1929. That night, Rose drops the Heart of the Ocean back into the sea. She goes to sleep and dreams she is back on the Titanic , kissing Jack, surrounded by smiling faces.

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Study Guide for Titanic

Titanic study guide contains a biography of James Cameron, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Titanic
• Character List
• Director's Influence

Wikipedia Entries for Titanic

• Introduction

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Letter of Recommendation

‘Titanic’ Is My Favorite Movie. There, I Said It.

A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets; this is mine.

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By Jessie Heyman

A year ago, I went on a date, and the guy asked me what my favorite movie was. A simple question, but I stammered. His brow furrowed. “Didn’t your profile say that you love movie quotes?”

I didn’t want to reveal the truth — not so soon, at least — so I hid behind the Criterion Collection (“ ‘La Strada,’ ‘Rebecca,’ etc.”). Then a scene flashed in my head — a swell of music, an enormous hat: “You can be blasé about some things, Rose, but not about Titanic!”

A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets; my secret is that I love “Titanic.” This has been true since I was a 10-year-old in a darkened theater, weeping uncontrollably on my mother’s lap. Like the children onscreen waving farewell to the doomed steamer, I marveled at the grandeur of what was passing before my eyes: a sweeping history lesson and a devastating romance between a first-class passenger named Rose (Kate Winslet) and a below-decks dreamboat named Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio). Until then, my cultural diet had consisted of Rodgers and Hammerstein singalongs and the Disney canon. “Titanic” — rapturous, tragic, real — was an awakening. In just over three hours, the film colored all my notions of grown-up life: love, loss, the female struggle, the unbreakable bond of a string quartet.

To my child’s mind, “Titanic” was impossibly vast: It felt as though the movie encompassed the entire mysterious range of human life. It was, unequivocally, the most powerful experience I’d ever had with a work of art — but I was 10. I couldn’t fully understand this feeling of transcendence, so I just kept rewatching. I saw the movie three times when it was released in 1997. The following year, when it came out on VHS — a fat brick of a box set, neatly split into two acts of happy and sad — I routinely popped in the pre-iceberg tape to enjoy with my after-school snack. I began fixating on unlikely features of the film, delighting in its ancillary characters’ banal dialogue: the clueless graybeards (“Freud? Who is he? Is he a passenger?”); the poetry of the bridge (“Take her to sea, Mr. Murdoch. Let’s stretch her legs”); the snobbery of Rose’s mother (“Will the lifeboats be seated according to class? I hope they’re not too crowded”).

As I matured, I stopped my regular viewings, but the movie continued playing in my mind. I was a melancholy indoor girl myself, and Rose perfectly articulated my teenage ennui: “the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter.” Even in the face of more complex ideas and challenges — like the travails of gender politics or problems of class — I found myself leaning on its casual wisdom and glossy sentimentality. The film’s unsubtle gender commentary began to feel revolutionary. (“Of course it’s unfair,” the chilly matriarch says while tightening the strings of her daughter’s corset. “We’re women.”) In the late ’90s, everyone I knew adored “Titanic,” but I felt in my heart that my own love affair with it was something special.

It was, unequivocally, the most powerful experience I’d ever had with a work of art — but I was 10.

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My Favorite Movie: Titanic (Essay Sample)

Table of Contents

Introduction

What’s your favorite film? Writing an essay on a movie that made an impact on your heart is a fun and memorable experience. It is a time of revisiting your emotional journey through a narrative that resonated with you.

This essay outlines one’s favorite film, which happens to be Titanic. It contains a summary of the author’s highlights of his immersive experience with the movie.

Got a movie you like that you want to write about? Contact us for essay writing help . We can match you with a writer who can help you come up with a well-crafted article.

My Favorite Movie: Titanic

Titanic will always be my favorite movie, not only because of the historical relevance of the movie’s storyline. The scenery featured in the movie and the assertiveness and brilliance of the actors makes the movie stand head and shoulder above all others.

A 1997 hit, Titanic emotionally unveils the bittersweet story of two teenagers who encounter each other on a ship and are instantly smitten. Jack Dawson (Leonardo di Caprio) and Rose Bukater (Kate Winslet), while on the RMS Titanic on its maiden voyage from the coast of England to the United States, fall in love at first sight, despite their different social classes. Dawson, a young and talented artist from a poor background, and Rose, a young woman married to a wealthy but cruel older man who she does not love, have an intense whirlwind affair on the ship.

Directed by filmmaker James Cameron, Titanic reveals the nature of you-and-me-against-the-world relationships that exist in society, which continue to be mirrored in this day and age. While still frowned upon by more traditional segments of society today, a teenage girl from a wealthy family can get married to a poor boy from a humble background,  as long as the two are in love.

Why Titanic is The Ultimate Love Story

Apart from the power of love thriving and surviving in every situation as a dominant theme, Titanic reminds us that we can find love anywhere regardless of the prevailing situation.

A particularly poignant scene shows Rose about to jump off the back of the ship into the cold ocean water when Jack tells her, “I’ll be right after you.” He was ready to jump into the water to save her.  Another favorite moment of mine is when the ship’s crew’s attention is drawn to Jack and Rose as they make love on the ship’s deck, just as the ship hits an iceberg.

The death of 1500 out of 2200 people on board and the frantic effort to save some of the passengers add to the tragic beauty of the story. It was a heartbreaking backdrop to Jack trying to save his lover as the bitter-cold ocean water sweeps onto the deck, flinging many passengers out into the sea. Despite many people opposing their romance, most notably Rose’s mother, their courage to face the odds reinforces the theme of timeless and bold love.

Little details in the film’s cinematography make the story more compelling. The dance of the dolphins rhythmically aligns itself to the movement of the ship, the warmth of the glorious sunshine greeting the faces of excited travelers, and a masterful soundtrack create a glorious backdrop to a tale worth telling.

Few movies inspire as much emotion as Titanic. It definitely stands out for its combination of intelligent elements and perfect acting. The main actors bring out the message of the movie clearly, and they thoughtfully and sensitively embody the situation and life of the twentieth century as well as the modern times.

Finally, I love how Celine Dion interpreted the theme song, “My Heart Will Go On.” It achingly reflects the journey of the star-crossed lovers, and the resolve to move forward with life to do that love justice even when their time together has ended. The hopeful lyrics, penned by Will Jennings, are so well-written.

The 1997 movie Titanic remains to be my all-time favorite movie. Every aspect of the movie,  from casting to scene selection, is done flawlessly and the themes are woven into every scene clearly and perfectly.

Titanic Essay In 200 Words

No other Hollywood-made love story hits me just as much as that of Jack Dawson and Rose Bukator in the award-winning picture Titanic. I simply could not get through the whole movie without a box of tissues and a glass of wine.

The journey of these two characters and their evolution as lovers are beautiful to watch. Though hailing from opposite social classes, being stuck together on a ship caused them to see past their differences and fall head-over-heels in love.

Director James Cameron’s guidance of Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio is commendable. Although the two actors are already brilliant and have good Hollywood track records to begin with, his oversight really helped them bring out the essence of the main characters. Billy Zane deserves recognition as well, as he played a villain with a believable motivation.

Though only Rose survived at the very end, I was satisfied with the way that Titanic ended. It had its own take on a heartbreaking but hopeful ending. It made me look back on the couple’s best moments together on the ship, but also wish Rose well on a new chapter of her journey without Jack.

What about you? What’s your favorite movie?

How To Start A Talk About Your Favorite Film?

Talking about something that has made such an incredible mark on your life should not be so difficult. It should, as a matter of fact, come quite naturally to us. In writing about something from the silver screen that you found unforgettable, before reviewing the actual scenes and lines, it is good to always begin first with your “Why.” Why did I find this film so thrilling? What was it about the movie that I connected with so passionately? How did the experience of the artists enrich the characters? How did the cinematography provide an interesting background for the journey to unfold? How did I see the director’s influence on the acting and styling of the set? How does it compare to some of the films in my list of favorites?

How To Write A Reaction Paper About Titanic Movie?

In order to excellently pen a reaction paper about Titanic, you should first recall your very own reactions to the film, especially during your first time watching it. What were the raw emotions that you felt, whether positive or negative? What roused you and what bored you? What parts of it satisfied you and what scenes left you hanging? Identifying the key elements that provoked you to react is crucial in figuring out how you’re going to write that paper. It is a process of you thoughtfully dissecting Titanic and pointing out the areas that you liked and didn’t like.

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Strengths of the Moview ”Titanic”

Titanic is a popular film that received acclaim from the industry and the audience. It was a colossal and unprecedented success upon the release, and it took more than a decade for another work by Cameron to overtake it. Although some consider the film overrated, its long-lasting impact and universal appeal attest to the quality. Those would be impossible without strong themes, memorable characters, and an engaging narrative.

Titanic ’s prominent themes include love, social inequality, and self-sacrifice, all tangled in a tragic event that resonated with many people by itself. The story concerns a love triangle involving two engaged members of the high society and a young man of low status. While the idea is not novel, the setting refreshes it and makes the dynamic of the relationship. Despite being short-lived, the feelings are genuine, and the final departure is rather emotional. The theme of social and financial inequality in a relationship remains relevant to new generations, although it has different manifestations nowadays. Meanwhile, almost all characters sacrifice something in the film, including their lives. It is an emboldening experience that makes the audience consider the value of what they hold dear. Overall, the themes of Titanic are effective due to their universality, lasting relevance, and emotional execution.

Titanic has a vast cast of characters, some of which existed in real life, but the focus is on the three fictional ones which comprise the love triangle mentioned before. Rose is an adventurous and somewhat fearless young woman who feels constrained by her elevated social status, reminiscent of classic literary works. Her infatuation with a low-class artist, Jack, invigorates her and enables her defiance of the family and fiancé. Both men are each other’s opposites, and it is fascinating to witness Cal’s jealousy unfold in the middle of the disaster. However, he realized that he had lost Rose’s heart forever, and he does some benevolent actions before exiting the scene. Meanwhile, Jack enjoys a loving and understanding relationship with Rose and later willingly sacrifices his life for her, fully aware that she will have someone else after him. Altogether, the characters are vivid, believable, and easily earn the audience’s sympathy or wrath.

Titanic has an engaging narrthat which contributed to the story’s overall strength. The film has a frame structure, starting and ending in the present, with the main events happening in the past. It provides a feeling of realism and proves to be especially effective at the end when we see the main heroine aged and regretful, and the ambiguity of her fate also intrigues the audience. The act of parting with the necklace could indicate Rose’s resolution to leave the events behind, but they seemed so important to her life that they could equal death. Interestingly, Jack managed to predict the circumstances of her passing, or his words left such a powerful impact on Rose that she decided to live accordingly. No matter the truth, the narrative devices enhance the themes and make the audience sympathize with the characters.

Summarizing everything, Titanic is an example of a filled hatch that won universal acclaim through the box office and numerous awards. Its achievements are based on the work’s immortal themes, striking characters, and narrative which supports them. Perhaps, other films surpass Titanic in those aspects, but what made it unique is the combination of the elements which transformed the film into an ultimate romance story in cinema.

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Titanic: a Closer Look – Film Summary and Analysis

This essay will provide a detailed exploration of the Titanic, delving into its history, construction, and the fateful maiden voyage that ended in tragedy. It will examine the factors that led to the sinking, including technological failures, human error, and the ship’s design. The piece will also discuss the cultural and historical impact of the Titanic disaster, as well as its enduring legacy in popular culture and maritime safety reforms. On PapersOwl, there’s also a selection of free essay templates associated with Analysis.

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The Titanic was a film like no other, offering audiences all aspects that they love to watch in one movie. It included a compelling love story based on a historical reference of the sinking of the Titanic.

The Titanic offered a captivating story the was based on the real-life events on the sinking of the Titanic ship. It did all of this while also portraying the story with attractive protagonists that made the story even more appealing because it offered many generations to also see romance, and a love story the audience knew most likely wasn’t going to end well knowing the fate of the Titanic. The film was influenced by audiences need for tragedy and use of a real-life event, that was the sinking of the Titanic. The film influenced other films with its use of making a real-life event into a fiction love story, it made audiences feel that this event could have happened in the real-life event. The film impacted a whole generation with its captivating storyline, use of directorial skills, and character development.

The film accomplished exactly what its generation was looking for, they needed a storyline that made them feel for its characters because of the love story that ends in tragedy. Titanic accomplished its goal of making people feel and then some. Cameron made the feeling of sadness that the movie goers would feel at the end almost addicting to them. Audiences would go watch the film more than once sometimes three to four times, this was also not just in the United States. People in other countries would go watch the film more than once even in countries like France where it was not known for people to go watch films more than once (Ansen, D., Brown, C., Sawhill, R., Yahlin, C., & Takayama, H. ,1998). The films story was an original story with the touch of real life events that was the sinking of the Titanic. The film made audiences fall in love with the characters and the love story and basically took it all away from them at the end. The film touched audience’s emotions in ways that they were not expecting when they first watched the film. Its Audiences enjoyed the feelings that the film made them experience even if it ended in tragedy, that aspect was what was most appealing to the audience because they may have felt like this extravagant love story could have happened aboard the Titanic.

The films story gave audiences hope that people that lived in two completely different worlds such as Jack being the poor guy, and Rose the rich girl could grow to fall in love so deeply regardless of their social status. It made people believe in love at least for the three hours and 14 minutes that the movie lasted. That is a powerful thing for a movie to achieve. It gives the idea that money does not matter and has nothing to do with happiness, but that love is what brings happiness. This especially was attractive to the younger teens that watched the movie countless times after its release. It also related to teens in the sense that they could relate to the rebellion that Rose was demonstrating to her mother and her finance. Rose’s mother did not want Rose to lose her fiancé because she did not want to lose the money that was in store if Rose did marry. The film made people of all ages believe that there was a thing such as true love out there, females especially thought that there might me a Jack for them and guys imagined that there might be a Rose out waiting for them also. Although the movie had great special effects such as the scene of the Titanic actually sinking, the emotions and the love story conveyed on screen is what really impacted the audience. In essence the people aboard the Titanic is what made the film so great, such as when they were all waiting for their death and the scenes that Cameron was able to capture of the passengers in their final moments of life.

The characters in the film also made it possible for audiences to fall in love with the film. James Cameron the director of the film made two great choices in the protagonist of the film with Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack, and Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt. When Leonardo was cast in the role he was still a relatively unknown actor, only starring in a few select films before the Titanic such as Romeo and Juliet. Cameron made sure the he cast Leonardo instead of a more well-known heartthrob knowing that Leonardo was the right man for the job, He also made sure the Jack was portrayed as the man of any woman’s dream with barely any flaws to his personality. Jack lite up the screen every time he was had a scene and that worked out for the film in the end because every girl fell in love with Jack just like Rose did.

James Cameron’s directorial skills is also what made the film what it is and why it made the impact that it did on our society. Cameron was a director that has much passion about the films that he makes. He did not skimp on the amount of money that was spent on the film, just the scene that demonstrates the ship sinking cost the studio $4.5 million. Cameron is a director that does not care whether he makes a profit on a film because he believes in his art which is movie making. He made sure that everything in the film looked as authentic as possible including the costumes that they wore to the most minimal detail that the average movie goer probably didn’t even notice. Cameron could capture the time period that the film was set in perfectly down to the last detail. Cameron was also very hands on with the film and made sure that he always worked as hard as he could on the film. He also worked his actors hard so that the film could look as authentic as possible, especially the scene where Jack and Rose were at the end in the water, since they had to be inside the cold water for hours on end. If anyone else had directed Titanic it would not have had the same impact that it did and still had had in our society. Cameron’s directorial skills took its audience to the movie itself, making its audience experience the movie and not just watch it.

Titanic had a great influence on the films that came after it, but not necessarily on the artistic way, instead making other filmmakers try to strive to gain the $1 billion that Titanic was able to reach worldwide that no other film had done before it. Unlike Cameron that could reach to that point with a love story, other filmmakers reached that point mainly with sequels. They would make already big hits in the box office, for example like the Harry Potter series into an even bigger film with the sequels that followed it (Corliss, R. 2012). A sequel would usually be the film that was able to hit the $1 billion mark at the box office. Cameron was able to achieve this without a sequel and not using the same format the films that followed the Titanic. The films that followed the hero usually prevails at the end while in the Titanic the ship sinks and the hero being Jack dies and the end. James Cameron was able to beat his own box office record with his film Avatar. Titanic changed movies forever in the way that movies now focused more on the money aspect than the story and art aspect of it. Titanic was one of the most expensive films to make, but it ended up paying off in the end since it did reach the $1 billion mark at the box office. Many films following that made tried making their films as big as possible in order to achieve that same goal, which made the films actually lack many of the things that made Titanic great such as the narrative and the originality of the film.

Titanic also had an influence on society because it changed the way that we went to the movies. Before Titanic movie goers did not have the habit of going to see that same movie more than once at the theater. While when Titanic came out in theaters people, especially the younger generation would go see the movie more than once. It made audiences sit through a movie that was more than 3 hours long and enjoy every minute of it. This opened audiences to especially American audiences to broaden their horizons when it comes to long movies because even though they are long it does not mean that they are bad movies, just like Titanic proved.

Titanic has proven to be a film great for all times, with its storyline that kept audiences all around the world entranced to the screen. Its characters on the screen that could perfectly capture the love that they felt towards each other regardless of the odds that they faced because of their social status. It made people believe in love and feel emotions that they were not necessarily expecting when the ship sank and most of the people died, including the hero of the film and Roses true love. James Cameron’s directorial skills and the amount of risk taking that he had on the film was also what made the film be as impactful as it was and still is to this day. He had such great attention to detail and cared so much about his film that he was able to capture the time period and its characters perfectly that really took the audience to the time period and really made them feel the story. He was also able to push his actors in ways that they would act totally authentic in their roles. Titanic also changed the way that people made movies, production studios focused more on the money aspect of movie making then before. Since Titanic was one of the most expensive movies to make, but it was also the highest grossing film in the box office having reach $1billion, they wanted to produce even more films of that magnitude after Titanic.

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Titanic — Themes And Motives In James Cameron’s Titanic

Themes and Motives in James Cameron's Titanic

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Home / Essay Samples / Entertainment / Titanic / Titanic Movie: A Cinematic Retelling of Tragedy and Love

Titanic Movie: A Cinematic Retelling of Tragedy and Love

• Category: Entertainment
• Topic: Film Analysis , Movie Review , Titanic

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