Every year, it seems, Turner Classic Movies shows a movie during its annual "31 Days of Oscar" that it has never shown before.
For example, I recall that, two or three years ago, one of the films that was shown was Oliver Stone's "Nixon," which qualified for inclusion because it was nominated for four Oscars, although it didn't win one. It was the premiere of "Nixon" on TCM, as I recall.
I'm sure there have been others in recent years. Offhand, they just don't come to mind.
Anyway, tonight it is "Titanic"'s turn. The 1997 film that matched "Ben–Hur" for the most Oscars won (11 — a record that was duplicated a few years later by "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King") will make its TCM debut at 9:15 p.m. (Central) tonight.
I've heard the disparaging talk about "Titanic" — reports of how the love story and the onscreen presence of Leonardo DiCaprio drew teenage girls for multiple viewings (thus inflating the film's box office haul, which shattered existing records) always seemed to be at the heart of most of the criticism. Well, Celine Dion's hit song that served as the movie's theme took its share of criticism as well.
I saw "Titanic" twice at the theater (and DiCaprio had nothing to do with it). I must admit that I was impressed with the historical details, the costumes, the furnishings. Everything I read about Titanic, both before and after I saw the film, told me that director James Cameron and his crew had done their homework. It was a faithful, authentic re–creation.
Granted, Jack and Rose were fictional, but their love affair served the purpose of making audiences care about a story that, by the time the film was released in December 1997, was more than 80 years old. Jack and Rose gave the story a personal, intimate touch that made it live in the minds of those who saw it. By the time the ship struck the iceberg midway through the movie, audiences were hoping there was some way they could be among the survivors — but the fact that one of them had to die drove home the extent of the tragedy for a world that had no memory of that time.
As for Dion's song, well, I never really cared for it, but I've never been a Celine Dion fan, anyway. Something had to be the theme song, and if that 4½–minute song is what prevents you from seeing the brilliance of a 3¼–hour movie, I feel sorry for you. I can only conclude that you don't appreciate the things that made "Titanic" the movie experience it was.
Some people get all worked up about Kate Winslet having been nominated for Best Actress and Gloria Stuart (who will be 100 years old on the Fourth of July) for Best Supporting Actress when DiCaprio wasn't nominated for Best Actor.
But that is a red herring, as far as I am concerned. The acting wasn't what was recognized on Oscar Night that year. Along with receiving Best Picture, the film was recognized for all the parts that made up the complete package — costumes, cinematography, sound and visual effects, art direction, editing, directing, sound, dramatic score. Much of what was done could not have been done even 5 or 10 years earlier.
The writing wasn't nominated, but it really wasn't bad, that "king of the world" line notwithstanding.
And, given the fact that the sinking of the Titanic has been said to have been the last gasp of a truly social caste system in the nations of the West, there was ironic foreshadowing of the issues that would plague the period to follow when Stuart said, reflecting on the day her character boarded Titanic, "It was the ship of dreams to everyone else. To me, it was a slave ship taking me back to America in chains." Not long after the ship sank, American women were given the right to vote, and much of the story of the 20th century was about their steady gains in influence — gains that Rose's character could only imagine but the older edition, played by Stuart, had an array of photographs that told the viewer she had played her role and, schmaltzy as it may seem, proved that she had been true to her promise to Jack to "go on" and live a full, rich life.
And, OK, some of the writing was somewhat obvious, like when Elderly Rose solemnly says, "A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets." On both of the occasions when I saw this movie in the theater, this line evoked loud, knowing sighs from the women in the audience. The line struck me as being somewhat predictable. Really? An "ocean of secrets" in a film about the Titanic?
Well, the writing wasn't nominated for an Oscar — and maybe that was appropriate. By and large, it really only served the purpose of providing a framework for the rest of the production. Once the ship started to sink, there were quite a few mini–dramas that could have been achieved — and, in fact, were achieved — using only statements that were recalled in the testimony of the survivors — like the moment when the ship's bandleader tells his fellow musicians, "Gentlemen, it has been a privilege playing with you tonight" as they play the music of the era while the ship continues to sink beneath the waves.
Actually, that may have been the perpetuation of a legend, as apparently was the band's rendition of "Nearer My God To Thee." Over the years, a myth has developed that says that was the final song played, but, based on my research, no one really knew what the band's final selection was. I guess there was too much confusion for anyone to notice — and most of the people who survived the sinking may have been a fair distance from the ship in lifeboats that had already been launched.
Well, there has to be a certain amount of leeway given in telling the story of a disaster as profound as the sinking of the Titanic in the North Atlantic in April 1912.
And I urge you to watch — and appreciate — Cameron's achievement.
