The Oscars Are Fun BUT They Don't Mean SQUAT

I must preface the coming rant by pointing out that I am aware my opinion is not a popular one. Some of you will cringe when you realize what this post is about. You are entitled to your opinion. If you love "Titanic" fine. Good for you. You are well within your rights to enjoy it. It is my professional opinion that you have been DUPED and I am going to tell you why.

I've gotten a lot of flack for my critical opinions of popular films. People say things like "You just hate it because it's made money!" or "You're just jealous." or, my personal favorite, "Millions of people liked it and they can't all be wrong!". I have a few responses to those statements. There is a bit of truth to all of them. A bit. It is a bit of a coincidence that most things made for mass consumption seem sub par to me, but there have been some popular things that I have enjoyed. Even so the trend in popular entertainment is to follow sure fire, paint by numbers formulas that are designed to play your heartstrings like a harp. There is no truth in the manipulation and I find it depressing that real people's lives can be so easily fit into a Hollywood recipe. Am I jealous? Sure. I'm jealous. How can such mediocre crap get such accolades (and money) while I toil in unjust anonymity? I can't lie, it totally sticks in my craw. I understand that millions of people really liked "Titanic", but millions of people also liked Lionel Richie, the mullet and George W. Bush. Millions of people CAN be wrong.

Look at it this way, if you want to buy a car who do you ask for advice? Do you ask your girlfriend whose main interest is Prada handbags or do you go to your greasemonkey cousin? If you are in the market for a Picasso do you ask Uncle Earl or a professional art dealer? Just because entertainment is fun and subjective does not mean that there are not professional standards and goals that those creating it should reach for. Yes, I'm glad you were entertained by it, but I hated it. You can like anything you want just as you can buy any car you want or any Picasso you want. It is just that without critical thought and examination you may end up getting screwed in the end.

I have one last thing to say in this pre-tirade moment. I could probably let "Titanic" slide as a cheap piece of melodrama if it hadn't been so hyped and fussed over. Not to mention the amount of money spent! Many who know me well have heard my frustration, screaming about how the emperor has no clothes. I hate it when people are getting cheated. 11 Oscars for that piece of mediocrity is a crime. Now, without further ado, I will tell you why.

First, the script is poorly constructed with outdated, melodramatic conceits. Do we really believe that people in 1912 lived cliche lives like so many damsels tied to railroad tracks by villains with handlebar moustaches? Let's examine the conflict here. Our heroine, Rose, is being forced by her frightened and once wealthy mother to make a good marriage with Snidely Whiplash- otherwise known as Cal. Cal is a one demensional villain whose only goal in life is acquisition and Rose is his prize. Then Rose meets a fun loving artist named Jack who shows her a world of enjoyment unknown in her society. Her dilemma is this, should I please my mother and marry the jerk who clearly has bad character and a tendancy toward violence or should I go with the cute boy who showers me with dimestore novel phrases and implausable sex in the back of an automobile stored in cargo? Well, any Edwardian lady knows the answer to that!

Rose and Jack are anachronistic. Their dialogue does not share the same cadence with the other characters in the film. Their easy manner is quite 20th century and out of step with the other characters. Their sudden lapses into extreme vulgarity do not seem to fit. You and I might scream, "shit shit shit!" as freezing water encrouches, but that seems a very 20th century response to stimulus. As does Rose's outburst at the lift operator:

"I'm through being polite, God Damn It! Now, take me down!"

Circumstantially speaking, would a good Protestant girl really decide to start taking the name of the Lord in vain when death is imminent? Does it make sense that a proper girl would abandon her upbringing and suddenly sprout an entirely new personality in the space of an hour without any trace of the person she was before? Running around, punching men and screaming "shut up" at strangers? I cannot suspend my disbelief.

The scene where she frees Jack from his handcuffs by chopping them off with an axe is such a fabrication. She should have chopped his hand off with the axe, or at least a finger. Since circumstances have been manipulated to bring them all over the sinking ship we may as well see if freezing water would cauterize a major wound like that and give them yet another obstacle to overcome!

Another fabrication that gets my dander up deals with the musicians who bravely played the ship down. According to accounts, they never played "Nearer My God to Thee". This is a manipulation that does not truly represent who these men were. In reality they played upbeat tunes to keep the mood light and provide hope and order when there was none. This was not a generation to wallow in the face of death, nor were they predisposed to self pity like their late 20th century counterparts. This musical choice was a a theatrical conceit designed to give the audience a break from the screaming and to instruct us to feel sad for their impending doom. Do we really need to be told? Is that how out of touch we are with our fellow man that we can watch them die and have to be told to mourn them? Heaven help us if that's the case.

And what's with the Degas floating underwater?

The ultimate massage in this film is a classist one. Poor good. Rich bad. There is no grey area except the one provided by the nouveau riche Molly Brown. Taking into account that notable (and brief) exception, all other rich characters are selfish and/or cruel and all poor characters are noble and kind while the crew of the Titanic are portrayed as lackeys of the wealthy. The purpose of this is to highlight the injustice of who lived and who died. Granted, class warfare is alive and well and there is a valid point to be made in this microcosm of 1912 society. However, I personally resent the idea that ONCE AGAIN we have to be directed who to root for. If we have to pick and choose who will live and who will die we would much rather have a kind and noble person live but this oversimplifies the conflict when the rich who survive are horrible creatures and the poor who die are wide eyed innocents. I guarantee there was at least one poor asshole on that ship and I bet he died. Suffering of this magnitude should bother us whether they are sweet as pie or a giant pustule of a human being. It is unfair to place blame on the survivors for surviving and that is just what Cameron's film does. It instructs us to resent them and to pass judgment on them while the truth would be better served if he could have found a way for the audience to understand them. It's uncomfortable, but that is when art is at its greatest- when it challenges us to understand.

Yes, he does include a couple of nods to this as he has characters explaining:

"If we go back there they'll all swamp us!"

And that is the depth of his understanding on the subject. Does that help you to put yourself in their soggy shoes?

One notable historical tragedy is the treatment that the crew member Murdoch gets in the script. He's the one who took a bribe from Cal, shot two poor people and then shot himself. This did not happen. This is propaganda that besmirches a real man who, by all reports, did his service with honor and sacrificed himself as he saw that others' lives were saved. This was acknowledged by Cameron who eventually issued a public apology for smearing this man's name and he made a donation for a monument to his heroism. Too little, too late as the most lasting monument to that man's life is his portrayal in this film.

The dialogue is embarassingly cheesy and littered with more heaving bosoms than a Harlequin romance novel.

JACK: This is crazy.

ROSE: I know, it doesn't make any sense, that's why I trust it.

And my personal favorite, when Bill Paxton confesses on the ship deck:

For three years, I've thought of nothing except Titanic. But I never got it. I never let it in.

Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

I question Jack's clear thinking as the ship finally breaks apart and sinks to the bottom of the sea. He warns Rose:

JACK: The ship is going to suck us down. Take a deep breath when I say.

That's pretty scientifically savvy for an artistic little street rat.

JACK: We're gonna make it, Rose. Trust me.

ROSE: I trust you!

Well isn't that sweet?

JACK: Listen, Rose, you're going to get out of here. You're gonna go on and you're gonna make lots of babies and watch 'em grow. You're gonna die an old lady warm in her bed. Not here. Not this night. You understand me?

Why does that babies line just sound weird and stilted?

Much has been made of the authenticity of the film, the attention to detail and the recreation of the ship and all its' finery. I agree. The art direction was beautiful and impressive. But having the right cultery does not make for truthful interaction or good dialogue. In fact, the artifacts seem like artifacts. They are too precious and hardly endowed with the quality of daily use items- with the notable exception of that ugly-ass diamond necklace that looked like something you could get in a Happy Meal. If the actors cannot interact with their space as if they LIVE in it then it is difficult to go into their world. It is a subtle thing that only another actor would specifically notice, but this is the craft. In the big picture, these details are important. I could believe that they were on the Titanic if they filmed the movie with a cardboard box and a couple of tin cans if the actors made it happen for me. In a way, having all the details "perfect" made for lazy acting. I did not see the endowments which can only make me think that they didn't go through the actor's work of making the objects real and personal. A sensitve and intelligent director would have demanded it.

Ultimately what bothers me most about this film is its gross insensitivity. Putting fictional (one dimensional, anachronistic, melodramatic...) lovers in the midst of a tragedy of this magnetude and then turning it into a flashy action picture (which is what it is) is insulting to the memories of those who lost their lives. If you disagree with me think about how you would feel if ten years from now someone came out with a billion dollar epic about two fictional lovers mingling with real people entitled "Escape from the North Tower". It's tasteless and exploitative.

All you need to do to uncover the intent behind this movie is to look at the elements that went into it. This film's first intention was not to educate nor was it supposed to illuminate the mistakes made that led to this tragedy. It was meant to make money. Contrary to popular belief, I have no problems with people making money. What I do have a problem with is people making money off others' frozen blood. The elements of a blockbuster are all there- the contrived love story, wet clothing, sex, gun toting lunatics, money, jewels, action, adventure, property destruction...this was not a high minded drama about people coping with extreme circumstances. This was an action picture like "Terminator". (And for the record, I had a lot of fun watching "Terminator") I just hate the fact that people are fooled into thinking it is anything more than that.

If Cameron had really, honestly and truly wanted to highlight the fate of Titanic and those who lost their lives he would have scrapped the love story altogether. Although many experts contest whether the ship broke apart above or beneath the water and much of what happens during the sinking is conjecture it is, at the very least, visually skillful. I give credit where it is due. The action of the ship breaking apart and crashing onto those in the water below is indeed dramatic and awe inspiring in a way. The best parts of the film are with tirtiary characters quietly awaiting death. Of course, even this is heavy handed and clumsy, but I would have rather watched that then the heavy breathing and forced giggling of Jack and Rose for 3 plus hours.

If I had to make a film about Titanic (and I don't- you see, that's the choice here, isn't it?) I would have made the camera (i.e. the audience) into the main character of the film. I would have made the film in real time and had the audience struggle to survive/ be witness to the tragedy rather than filter it through two fictional characters. Jack and Rose could have been witness to just about any maritime disaster but Cameron chose Titanic because everyone has heard of it and that familiarity breeds curiosity. It's easier to sell and there are enough Titanic-o-philes out there to create instant interest. I'll make the argument again, if his true passion was for the tragedy of Titanic he would have made a different picture. Or maybe he's just not that skilled.

There are so many other issues that I have with this film, from the cheesy score and faux emotional theme song (will someone stick a sock in Celine Dion's yap and stop that vibrato caterwalling?) to its stilted exposition to its corny ending. Every time I see Jack waiting at the top of the stairs flanked by the smiling faces of the dead I can't help but sing to myself "Be our guest, be our guest...". It is everything I despise in modern American cinema. It squanders the opportunity to truly explore human nature in depth and instead presents us with a shallow representation that satisfies us with easy answers to difficult questions. It is a reassuring film, but it is not honest and it does not ask us to learn anything from the experience. It's candy. Once you ingest it you are left with a little sugar rush but it has no intrinsic value.

Don't be fooled by the sugar rush.