Beholding the Blind Spot: TITANIC
Shows up 84 years late with the diamond you've been searching for
In a convergence as fateful as Jack and Rose meeting aboard the RMS Titanic, I recently reached the Titanic episodes of Blank Check in my binge of their backlog, just as another of my favorite podcasts, The Hold Up, announced they’d be covering the movie on their show. Given that all I do all week is work from home and listen to podcasts, why wouldn’t the universe use that medium to deliver a sign?
And so I knew. It was time to finally watch Titanic.
When you hear people recount the cultural moment that was James Cameron’s romance/shipwreck epic, you learn quickly that “I was six when it came out” isn’t actually a strong excuse for missing out. A friend who is my age told me his family all went to see it together in theaters three times. I put the question out about exactly where the first of the famous double VHS tape set ended so I could take an intermission at that point when I watched it, and another friend my age was able to give me almost the exact last line spoken. Meanwhile, my mother covered my two-year-old eyes through an entire drive-in screening of Jurassic Park, and my dad kept the parental controls on our TV well into my teens. So, a major disaster film with a bit of tasteful nudity? Not really my parents’ idea of a family outing.
I do feel like there was a period in my childhood when “My Heart Will Go On” was just always playing somewhere in the distance, and if you put my flute from junior high in my hands, I might be able to give you the first few notes by muscle memory. But beyond that, nothing about Titanic spoke to me beyond its general reputation, and so I never sought it out. Not even my brief fixation on the career (and face and accent) of Ioan Gruffudd (Fifth Officer Lowe, who brings back the one boat at the end) was inspiration enough to get me to sit down for a three-hour romance I already knew the major beats of through osmosis.
But that’s the thing about this movie. At the very least, you go in knowing the ship is going down. What I didn’t realize was that I’d be watching it go down in real time, and that the back half of the movie was going to be one of the best action movies I’ve ever seen. I texted my partner while the ship was taking on water to tell them how deeply stressed out I was watching this, and they texted back, “Yeah a ship is sinking.” To be fair, they had a point. You go in knowing the ship is sinking. If you’re getting to it as late as me, you go in knowing the cultural staying power of this movie. I should have figured there was more to it than a saccharine, tragic love story.
And credit where credit is due: I liked the love story! It’s true that Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio aren’t historically actors I’ve had much interest in. DiCaprio in particular always seemed overrated to me, especially with all that pre-The Revenant pushing to “finally” get him an Oscar (stumping that hard for any white guy when you can count the black lead actor Oscar winners on one hand is… a choice). There is one movie in which he very much worked for me, and that is, of course, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. With Titanic the following year, it seems 1996-1997 was the pretty boy Leo sweet spot for me. But he wasn’t just cute – he had the audacity to be pretty charming too. When he starts taking off his coat and shoes just in case he can’t talk Rose out of jumping, I was sold. Later, when he and Rose have had sex in the car, he’s clearly kind of wrecked by it, which I love. He’s both someone who’s been making it out in the world, and someone young who is experiencing something new and precious with this young woman he’s met. Vulnerability is a good look on a guy.
As for Rose, if I’d seen Titanic earlier in my life, it may have made me a bigger Kate Winslet fan. I will say, I don’t think the drawing scene would have been the sexual awakening for me that it was for so many others. Don’t get me wrong, she’s stunning, and the way she teases Jack while he remains steadfast in his professionalism is so charming. But my italicized “oh” moment with Rose was when she got that axe, baby! If any woman deserves to take some hacks with an axe, it’s the woman betrothed to Cal. In all seriousness, I love Rose’s arc. She goes to the edge of the ship in the beginning, not because she wants to die, but because she wants to live, and she doesn’t think she can within the confines of her poisonous engagement. Put that character in absolute peril, and you see just how much she wants to live. It’s kind of an impressive subversion of the trope of killing a woman to further a man’s narrative, not just in the gender reversal, but in that tragedy doesn’t twist and darken Rose the way it often does with male protagonists. Jack lets some light in, and Rose doesn’t snuff it out once he’s gone, instead going on to live the full life she promised him she would.
As famous as the film itself, but far less romantic, is Titanic’s production story. There is plenty to be impressed by – in particular, I think the sets (the interior rooms, the staircase, the ship itself that they built, all from blueprints, plans, and photos of the actual Titanic) are phenomenal. The movie looks incredible, and I actually paused it partway in to look up what Oscars it won (specifically to make sure they got the award for editing, which of course they did, because they won almost everything). However, you don’t have to dig too deep to learn the set was probably not a very fun one. James Cameron, at least at the time of this movie, falls into my least favorite filmmaker narrative, which is the drill sergeant who gets a pass on behaving the way he does because his art is good. DiCaprio said in an interview that he never felt like he was in danger on set, but Winslet spoke to being left very bruised by the shoot, also citing Cameron’s ill temper which, though it was often aimed at the crew more than the actors, “genuinely frightened” her. Bill Paxton, who appeared in multiple Cameron movies and was a friend to him, said, “Jim is not one of those guys who has the time to win hearts and minds.” That doesn’t seem like a sustainable way to be a filmmaker, But of course, he’s made the number two and three highest grossing movies of all time, and who is going to rein that in? Ultimately, a Screen Actors Guild investigation concluded that the set was not inherently dangerous, but I do wonder if standards have evolved, and how supported Winslet in particular was on that set.
I’m going to be no-fun-dot-jpg for one more moment to address the whole “there was room on the door for Jack” thing. It’s not about room! He tries to get on after her and the whole thing almost tips over! That’s a thing that happens on screen for you to see! And I don’t know guys, I think they get a pass for not trying harder after all that running around to stay on the ship until the very last moment. Now that I’ve seen the movie, I really don’t understand why that is such an enduring point. Why theorize on an old, answered question when you could instead spend your time perfecting the cadence and pitch of your impression of Billy Zane realizing he put the diamond in the coat… and then he pUt ThE cOaT oN hEr!?
And speaking of dunking on Cal, I would be remiss if I ended this without shouting out Kathy Bates as (The Unsinkable) Molly Brown, who has possibly my favorite line in the film: “You gonna cut her meat for her, too, Cal?” I like to think that the “you controlling piece of shit” was heavily implied. RIP Cal Hockley, death by burn, well before the ship went down.
Ultimately, I am glad to have addressed probably the most obvious film blindspot of my lifetime (though if you ask my coworkers, it’s more shocking that I’ve never seen The Lord of the Rings). Feeling nostalgic for Titanic, or just recently got around to it like me? Be sure to check out the episodes of Blank Check and The Hold Up I mentioned up top. Got a recommendation of an acclaimed film you’re now worried I haven’t seen? Let me know on Twitter!