Plunging into 'The Abyss'

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"It's not easy being a cast–iron bitch. It takes discipline and years of training. A lot of people don't appreciate that."

Lindsey (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio)

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In 1989, James Cameron was still about a decade away from unimaginable fame and fortune as the Oscar–winning director of "Titanic."

Several years earlier, he had worked on special effects for an eminently forgettable movie called "Piranha II: The Spawning" — which, I suppose, was his first foray into aquatic cinema.

But 25 years ago today, his first directorial exploration of the sea — "The Abyss" — hit the big screen. (OK, he might have been inspired by the relatively recent discovery of the Titanic's remains.)

I do not use the word exploration lightly. It was truly a deep–sea adventure, a journey into the inky depths of the ocean. In fact, it went deeper than "Titanic" ever did — and introduced moviegoers to a Steven Spielberg–esque world far below the surface.

Actually, the inhabitants of that underwater world rivaled, in many ways, the extraterrestrial characters Spielberg cooked up for audiences over the years. That was appropriate because the premise of the movie was that the crew of a still–experimental underwater oil drilling platform (led by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, whose character designed the platform) was called in to investigate a suspicious nuclear submarine crash. The suspicion was that the crash was caused by extraterrestrials.

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To contact these extraterrestrials, they had to explore a deep underwater canyon.

Meanwhile, they had another set of problems with one of the crew members who was growing increasingly paranoid. And, to top it off, Mastrantonio's character was paired with her ex (Ed Harris), the rig's foreman. All of that gave the story a suitably soap opera atmosphere — as well some underwater intrigue.

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Virgil (Ed Harris): Hippy, you think everything is a conspiracy.

Hippy (Todd Graff): Everything is.

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Still, I thought it was an absorbing movie with a story that was accessible even to those who were not sci–fi inclined.

I've heard that Harris nearly drowned while making "The Abyss."

Apparently, he ran out of oxygen when he was filming a scene where he had to hold his breath underwater for an extended period of time. He signaled that he needed oxygen, but the safety diver was hung up on some cable and couldn't get to him. Another crew member gave Harris a regulator, but it was upside down, and Harris got water instead of air. Finally, he got a regulator in the right position and was able to breathe again.

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I've heard he broke down in tears later.

My understanding is that "The Abyss" did not use many stunt people. The actors were certified to dive before filming started and did their own diving. That accounts for the sense of realism — as well as, perhaps, stories I have heard of how raw emotions became during filming.

Mastrantonio has refused to talk about "The Abyss" in interviews. "'The Abyss' was a lot of things," she reportedly said. "Fun to make was not one of them."

"The Abyss" received four Oscar nominations and won one (Best Visual Effects).

Anatomy of a Mutiny

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"The first thing you've got to learn about this ship is that she was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots."

Lt. Keefer (Fred MacMurray)

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Sea adventures always seem to have fascinated moviegoers.

I'm not sure why that is so. Maybe it is because when there is a conflict at sea, the only choice is to resolve it somehow. There is only so much space to occupy; outside of that is miles and miles of ocean.

When a conflict occurs on dry land, there is always (well, usually) the option of going someplace else.

Things went very wrong for the fictional crew of the equally fictional USS Caine during a typhoon.

Before I say anything else about this movie, let me ask you a question: Which Humphrey Bogart performance do you think was his best, his most memorable?

Would you pick "Casablanca," which won Best Picture? Bogart was nominated for Best Actor, but he lost to Paul Lukas for "Watch on the Rhine."

Or would you pick "The African Queen," which was not nominated for Best Picture? Bogart won his only Best Actor Oscar for that one.

Would you pick a movie like "The Maltese Falcon" or "The Treasure of Sierra Madre," for which he was not nominated for Best Actor?

Or would you pick "The Caine Mutiny," which made its debut 60 years ago today? Bogart received his third and last (and perhaps most deserving) Best Actor nomination for it — but he lost to Marlon Brando for "On the Waterfront."

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For many reasons, I might be inclined to pick "The Caine Mutiny," which was a first–rate sea adventure. However, I have always seen similarities between the role Bogart played in "The Caine Mutiny" and the one he played in "The Treasure of Sierra Madre."

It may not be Bogart's best performance, but, for me, it may be his most memorable because the character is so different from the roles he usually played.

Bogart's characters were always flawed in some way. Sam Spade and Rick Blaine were in love with women they couldn't have — and they knew it. Fred C. Dobbs was consumed with the desire for wealth, and Charlie Allnut, well, he had more problems than can be mentioned here.

But even though they had personal issues, all those characters were self–assured. They could manage things well enough on their own. Captain Queeg could not. He had been under great pressure throughout his naval career, and the story of how he cracked under the strain of commanding a nondescript vessel was the story of the Caine itself.

At the heart of the story was a young, affluent ensign on his first assignment. He didn't care for the commander in charge and was glad when he was replaced by Queeg, who appeared to be more of a disciplinarian.

"Mr. Maryk," he said to Van Johnson, his executive officer, "you may tell the crew for me that there are four ways of doing things aboard my ship: The right way, the wrong way, the Navy way and my way. They do things my way, and we'll get along."

That was reassuring — temporarily — until Queeg's behavior brought his stability into question, particularly when he began rolling a pair of steel balls in his hand.

It was bad enough when, distracted by a crewman who was out of uniform, Queeg permitted the ship to go in a circle and cut its own towline. But later, when Queeg went on a preposterous search for strawberries that went missing, most of the crew began to doubt his stability.

At that point, three staffers from the Caine — Johnson, Fred MacMurray (a writer) and Robert Francis (the young ensign) — set out to report Queeg's erratic behavior to the admiral but thought better of it at the last minute.

Things reached a boiling point on board the Caine during the typhoon. Queeg froze under pressure, and Johnson relieved him of command — thus setting in motion a sequence of events that led to a court–martial for Johnson and Francis. They were represented by Jose Ferrer, who was reluctant at first. He admitted that he would prefer to prosecute.

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There were high hopes among the defendants when MacMurray's character was called to testify. He, of course, had been the one who had planted the idea of Queeg's mental instability in everyone's heads. He was a writer, they said. He had a way with words and would be able to explain to the court what it had been like on the Caine, but he wound up taking no responsibility. When he heard that Queeg had been relieved of command, MacMurray said, he was "flabbergasted."

That was a good word for the reaction of the defense, too. Later, when talking about MacMurray on the stand, Ferrer told the ship's crew, "You ought to read his testimony. He never even heard of Captain Queeg."

Ferrer's character had no choice but to put Queeg on the stand and ask him direct questions about his bizarre behavior. Queeg pulled out his steel balls and began rolling them in his hand while he testified. The point was made, and the defendants were acquitted.

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"The Caine Mutiny" was nominated for seven Oscars, but it took home none. That was unfortunate. Director Edward Dmytryk really deserved better than that.

Columbia Pictures, knowing this would be the last movie producer Stanley Kramer would make for the company, slashed the budget and relied on Bogart's reputation and the success of the book upon which the movie was based. The gamble paid off, but the financial restrictions under which he worked led Dmytryk to make — perhaps out of necessity — a great movie.

Bogart's acting achievement was only part of it. Johnson gave an astonishing performance as a foolish first officer whose intentions were good, and Francis was just as good as the naive and even more foolish ensign.

But I think that, perhaps, the most impressive performance was turned in by Dmytryk — creating a top–of–the–line movie for, essentially, bargain–basement prices.

The Calm Before the Storm

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I liked Roger Ebert's lead paragraph in his "Dead Calm" review: "The key image of 'Dead Calm' is of two ships drawing near each other in the middle of a vast, empty expanse of ocean. The emotions generated by this shot, near the beginning of the film, underlie everything that follows, making us acutely aware that help is not going to arrive from anywhere, that the built–in protections of civilization are irrelevant and that the characters will have to settle their own destinies."

That really summarizes things well. The ocean was a player in the movie — at times a barrier from both good and evil, at other times completely neutral, but always there. The lesson was clear — the rules of dry land do not apply on the high seas.

(Actually, in these days of the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 and the speculation that it may have crashed in the Indian Ocean, "Dead Calm" is not a bad metaphor. When it is said the plane apparently ran out of fuel in a remote portion of that ocean, it's worth remembering that scene to which Ebert referred.

(Technology has changed many things in the lifetimes of most of us, but it still has not overcome things like time and space. In an era when technology seems to bring everyone in the world closer together and that it really does seem to be a small world after all, it is folly to forget that there are still places in this world that are as unknown to us as the surfaces of distant planets — or that we humans are mere specks occupying this blue–green ball floating in space.)

I had never heard of Nicole Kidman before "Dead Calm" premiered 25 years ago today.

She had been in several movie and TV projects, but they, like "Dead Calm," were Australian projects. I don't recall many Australian movies that made it to the American market in the '80s.

Her co–star, Billy Zane, had had a few small roles in movies like "Back to the Future," but he hadn't received a lot of attention.

After I saw "Dead Calm," I knew who both were. Each received international acclaim. Deservedly so.

That was appropriate, I suppose, because their characters really didn't like each other. At all. It seemed to come so naturally from them that it didn't seem as if it could be acting.

Well, Kidman's character was sympathetic at first, but that didn't last. And Zane's character, well, he was psychopathic.

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Even though she was a familiar face in Australia, Kidman was still young (21) and virtually unknown. Zane wasn't much older (23). Their ages really weren't important to the story.

They had to be that young, I suppose. Most older characters probably wouldn't be as plausibly hostile to each other. Oh, I suppose a few might be, but most older characters seem to have a kind of grandparent quality. They're more likely to bake cookies for you or take you fishing than to attack you.

Kidman had to be young to be a believable mother, I suppose — although women don't always become mothers when they are truly young, do they? I was the first child in my family, and my mother was nearly 30 when I was born. So Kidman's character could, conceivably, have been older — but I doubt that Zane's could have. And he would have gotten the best of most of the 30–something women I have known (none of whom had the energy to keep up with a toddler).

When the story began, Kidman's character and her husband (an Australian naval officer played by Sam Neill) lost their young son in a car crash. To help them recover from their loss, they took their yacht on a vacation to the Pacific, where, just when it seemed they were beginning to mend, they encountered a drifting schooner that was taking on water.

A man (Zane) rowed over to the yacht in a dinghy, explained that his boat was taking on water and that everyone on board had died of food poisoning. Neill's character was suspicious so he decided to go over to the boat and check out the situation. He left Zane with Kidman — when I first saw the movie, I thought at the time that was his biggest mistake even though everything seemed to be under control. Zane, apparently exhausted from his ordeal, was asleep, and the door to his cabin was locked from the outside. (I remember wondering at the time why the door locked from the outside.) My fear was confirmed as the movie played out.

Neill found the corpses of Zane's companions — and a video tape that suggested Zane had killed them all in some kind of maniacal frenzy. He tried to return to his yacht, but, by the time he got there, Zane had awakened, knocked out Kidman and sailed away. Neill really had no choice but to return to the ship and try to repair it.

He would spend most of the rest of the movie repairing the schooner and then trying to catch up to his yacht.

In the meantime, the still emotionally fragile Kidman tried everything to persuade Zane to turn around and go back for her husband. She even pretended, at one point, to be attracted to him (after she had exhausted her bag of tricks) and yielded to his advances.

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But she hated him — and he hated her, too — and she was constantly trying to contact her husband by radio and figure out a way to get the yacht back to where he was.

Actually, I think the movie would have been a first–rate thriller if not for a few things that I just never could work my way around.

It could have been a great story about the resourcefulness of a woman who apparently knew little about sailing before the trip but managed to learn a great deal about it — mostly on her own (perhaps recalling instructions her husband once gave her but of which the audience knew nothing) — when her husband's life was on the line.

To make her way back to the schooner (the radar equipment indicated the distance between them was more than 40 miles), Kidman had to overcome Zane, tie him up and lock two doors that he would have to get through to reach her. Of course, he did, and she had to fend him off again, this time using a speargun.

Then, with no fuel left and daylight fading, Kidman managed to use the sails to maneuver the yacht to where Neill had set fire to the rapidly sinking schooner, watching it sink from some debris, and then fired a flare into the sky, all to signal his wife. He hoped — but couldn't know — she had seen it.

I found it a little implausible — but then I realized that, being the novice at sailing that she was and probably having been raised with a moral code that prevented her from killing another human, even in the extreme circumstance of oceanic isolation, it was an understandable response to the situation.

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The first time I watched the movie, I asked myself, "Why didn't he take the dinghy?" As far as I knew, there was nothing wrong with it.

And I had to agree with Ebert. Kidman's character should have killed Zane instead of tying him up. She knew what he was. She knew he had left her husband to die, and he would probably do the same to her eventually.

I understood that she played along with his naive fantasy that they were a couple on vacation in the Pacific in order to survive. But, when she had seized control of the yacht and had the upper hand, she kept him as a prisoner. How long did she intend to maintain that? After she picked up her husband, would they make a beeline for the nearest port to turn him over to the authorities? You couldn't tell from the movie. Perhaps it was explained in the book upon which the movie was based.

At sea, as in space, no one can hear you scream. And every minute Kidman wasted fending off Zane cost her precious time. Still, she tied him up.

So that part didn't make sense to me.

But neither did the ending, when it appeared that Zane was out of their lives forever — only to pop up suddenly like the hand that comes out of the dirt at the end of "Carrie."

There were other inconsistencies, much more modest and easier to explain. And, in the end, I had to say the performances were genuine.

But I still felt it was a flawed movie in many ways, and not the least of its flaws was its over–the–top conclusion.

I had to agree with Washington Post critic Desson Howe, who wrote, "For much of the movie, you're enthralled. By the end, you're laughing."

Survival in the North Atlantic

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It would be quite a challenge for a modern movie director to make a film like "Lifeboat," the Alfred Hitchcock drama that made its debut 70 years ago today.

It isn't that disaster movies are so rare. They aren't. But disaster movies like "Lifeboat" — which require a good story and great acting in the absence of splashy special effects — are quite rare, if not nonexistent, today.

Hitchcock had been playing it safe, I suppose, in the years before "Lifeboat." He had made some of his best movies in the preceding years, but they were mostly melodramas, not quite as thrilling as the thrillers he produced later in his career. In fact, many of his projects could be described as routine.

Apparently, he decided to stretch his creative wings with "Lifeboat."

"Lifeboat" was a real challenge for Hitchcock. It was really his first movie to be set entirely in a confined space. He revisited that style in a couple of movies a decade later — "Rear Window" and "Dial M For Murder."

In "Lifeboat," a diverse group of people found themselves together in a lifeboat in the North Atlantic after their ship and a U–boat sank each other, and they were forced to work with each other to achieve a mutual objective — survival.

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The group included mostly British and Americans, but there was one German survivor who was pulled into the boat. That led to some remarkable discussions ...

For example, at one point, it was suggested that the German should be thrown overboard and allowed to die. But, after a spirited argument, the German (who was later revealed to have been the captain of the U–boat), was allowed to stay on the boat.

One could hardly imagine a more diverse cross–section of passengers in a cramped lifeboat — but Hitchcock's exploration of the characters made for a gripping story.

Hitchcock was known for his cameo appearances in his films. Usually he appeared briefly and casually as a very minor character, but a movie like "Lifeboat" presented him with some unusual problems.

Given the fact that "Lifeboat" was set at sea, Hitchcock couldn't exactly walk by as he did in other films. But he could be seen as the before and after photos in a newspaper ad for a weight–reduction project.

Hitchcock's greatest influence in the film could be seen in the performances he drew from his cast. Tallulah Bankhead gave what may have been her best performance as a cynical columnist, but she didn't outshine her co–stars, like William Bendix and Hume Cronyn.

If you've never seen "Lifeboat," you should — and you will have your opportunity a week from today. Turner Classic Movies will be showing it next Saturday at 7 p.m. (Central).

Man Against Nature

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I suppose there were two names that hovered over John Sturges' project, "The Old Man and the Sea," which premiered on this day in 1958 — Ernest Hemingway, who wrote the original novella, and Spencer Tracy, a much–beloved actor, possibly the most beloved of his generation, who played the Old Man in the movie.

Little needs to be said of either, I suppose. Hemingway has been admired for decades for his writing style, so accessible to ordinary readers, in no small part because he continued to follow the style rules of the Kansas City Star, the newspaper for which he worked as a teenager — "Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative."

(I find that credible. I spent many years working for newspapers, all of which followed Associated Press style religiously. I haven't written for a newspaper in quite awhile, but I still write in AP style. It's a part of me now.)

Anyway, I guess that accounts, at least in part, for the popularity of the book — although I wouldn't underestimate the story and the brilliant character study of the Old Man, whose name in the book was Santiago.

And what can one say of Tracy? He was a legend nominated for Best Actor nine times — an accomplishment in that category that has been matched only by Sir Laurence Olivier.

In the movie Tracy was called Santiago by The Boy, but my memory is that most of the time he was simply called the Old Man. It's been awhile since I read the book, but in Hemingway's novel, I believe he was referred to as Santiago more often. He was still called the Old Man but not as frequently.

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Well, anyway.

Both the book and the movie told the story of the Old Man's solitary battle with a marlin. The Old Man was a Cuban fisherman who had gone 84 days without landing a fish and had gained a reputation for being extremely unlucky. Because of this, the Boy had been forbidden to go fishing with the Old Man and was encouraged instead to go fishing with the more successful fishermen from the village.

(By the way, the Boy had a name in the book, too, and it may have been mentioned a time or two in the movie, but I don't remember for certain.)

The Boy continued to visit the Old Man, though. He brought him food and talked about baseball with him.

Early on the 85th day, the Old Man once again set off in pursuit of a fish, and the rest of the movie was really more of a character study than a telling of his battle with an enormous marlin. Still, the battle played an important role. After hooking the marlin, the Old Man was dragged farther into the Gulf Stream in the next two days and nights than he ever intended to go.

On the third day, the marlin was visibly tiring, and the Old Man was practically delirious. He managed to pull the fish close enough that he could stab it and end its life, but he called it "brother" even as he did so.

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Ever since I first saw the movie, I have marveled at how calm the seas were. There were hardly any waves for Santiago to face. He was able to devote all his attention to his struggle with the marlin. I don't remember now if that condition was mentioned in the book — or if it was a by–product of filming on a Hollywood set.

Nevertheless, an epic struggle it was. For Santiago, it was his ultimate test as a man — and, after he won it, he pondered the price the magnificent fish would bring as he turned his boat for home. In the book, though, during his battle with the fish, the Old Man had decided that the marlin had proven himself, and no one would be worthy of eating him.

That was not a problem because sharks were drawn to the carcass by the blood in the water, and they devoured most of it even though Santiago tried valiantly to fight them off. He lost his harpoon in the process and tried to fashion a makeshift harpoon by tying his knife to an oar, but that, too, was lost.

When the sharks had been repelled, though, the Old Man spoke to what was left of the fish, even though it could not hear him (and would not have understood him if it could). He explained that he had gone out farther to sea than he had intended, and he apologized to the marlin.

Only a skeleton remained when the Old Man finally returned to shore. Exhausted, he collapsed in his bed in his modest shack and fell into a deep sleep. While he slept, a group of fishermen congregated around the boat and looked at the skeleton.

In the years since I first saw "The Old Man and the Sea," it occurred to me that it was reminiscent, at times, of two other movies.

It reminded me of "Jaws," obviously, because of the role other sharks played in the story — although they weren't the focal point of the story (and the shark footage was real — no mechanical sharks were used in the '50s).

And it reminded me of "Cast Away" — a story of a man struggling against the elements (and talking to an object that was incapable of responding).

Tracy was nominated for Best Actor, but he lost the Oscar to David Niven. The other nominees were Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis — pretty formidable lineup.

I always thought Tracy was ideal for the role. I doubt that anyone else could have been plausible in it.

Hemingway's book, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1953, was well received, coming on the heels of what may have been his most disappointing work. It was also his last book to be published in his lifetime.

Most of the time, writers aren't particularly pleased with movie adaptations of their work, but my understanding is that Hemingway was pleased with this movie. Leland Hayward, the producer, reported that Hemingway was even complimentary of Tracy — and the two of them were known to have argued.

Sturges, however, was not as pleased with the final product. TIME reported he called it "technically the sloppiest picture I have ever made."

We should all be so sloppy.

The First Voyage of the Pirates of the Caribbean

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"If you were waiting for the opportune moment, that was it."

Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp)

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It seems to me that one of the best backdrops for a summer blockbuster has to be a movie that is set on or near water — or anything that one might perceive to be cooling and refreshing.

One of the big attractions of movies is the promise of escapism, right? Usually, you escape through a well–acted, intriguing story — but, no matter how intriguing the story or how top notch the acting may be, who wants to watch a movie that is set in the kind of environment you left behind when you entered the theater?

That isn't a moviegoer's only consideration, of course, but I'm sure that plays a role. "The Shining," after all, took place in a remote resort in Colorado in winter — but the movie was released in late spring. "Jaws" — if not the first summer blockbuster, certainly the first mega blockbuster — came out in late June. And "Lawrence of Arabia" — which was, of course, set in the desert — was released a couple of weeks before Christmas.

I remember, in my childhood, that the movies I usually enjoyed the most were the ones in climates that were opposite whatever prevailed outside. There were a few exceptions to that, but the best summer movies were, as I say, set on or near water or in winter — or anything else that made me feel cooler — which included, I suppose, any movie that could send a good chill down your spine.

Anyway, 10 years ago, "Pirates of the Caribbean" made its debut as a movie. One had to wonder why it took so long.

Pirates of the Caribbean was the last Disneyland attraction that Walt Disney himself helped design. It was unveiled at Disneyland in California in the late 1960s — nearly four decades before the movie version hit the theaters. In the interim, three other versions of the ride were designed and introduced at Disney theme parks around the world.

For modern moviegoers, that's the reverse of the accepted procedure. Usually, there is a hit movie first, and it is followed by an amusement park attraction.

In this case more than a couple of generations came to Disneyland and rode the ride before a movie with the same name appeared in movie theaters.

Well, that is a little misleading, I suppose. It was called "Pirates of the Caribbean" in print and general conversation, but that is really the name of the four–film franchise. The title of each was followed by a colon and the name of that particular episode in the story. "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" is the actual name of the movie that premiered 10 years ago today.

I visited Disneyland once when I was about 15. I don't specifically remember the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, but there were times when the movie seemed like an animated version of a Disneyland ride — if only because there was a certain similarity between all of the rides.

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No matter.

"Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" was swashbuckling good summer fun. Some effects almost certainly could not have been achieved when Disney helped design the original ride in the mid–'60s; others probably were possible, but they would have seemed more primitive if they had been attempted earlier than they were.

The central character of this and all subsequent "Pirates of the Caribbean" flicks was Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), a rather flamboyant character who, although a pirate, avoided all fights unless his participation was absolutely necessary. Depp truly made the role his own. (Imagine a combination of Keith Richards — according to Depp, the inspiration for his performance — and Depp's earlier portrayal of Hunter S. Thompson.)

(The only other actor I felt could have been as over the top as the role required was Crispin Glover, the dorky father from "Back to the Future" and the title character in the remake of "Willard." Glover brought enough eccentricity to any such part that he played, but I thought Depp did quite well.)

But Depp wasn't the star of "Pirates of the Caribbean." He was entertaining enough, but I've seen several of his movie performances that were better. The real star of the movie, I felt, was its special effects — the animated skeletons and all that stuff.

Probably the greatest drawback to this movie, I thought, was its length, nearly 2¼ hours. As it lurched to its conclusion, I felt that the moviemakers had tried to do too much. I noticed at the time that some of the children in the audience got antsy even though the movie had 20, even 30 minutes remaining.

I happened to catch this movie again on cable a month or two ago, and I found myself wondering, as I watched, about the fates of child stars, one of whom was featured briefly.

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Most moviegoers probably already were familiar with Keira Knightley, who was the lead actress. Knightley, who was appearing in TV commercials and making guest appearances on TV shows when she was a child, made her movie debut in "Star Wars Episode I" and her first extended film appearance a couple of years later.

She was already familiar, to a certain extent, to viewers, but the young version of her character was played by Lucinda Dryzek, who was not yet 12 when this movie premiered.

It was a rare movie appearance for Dryzek, who has made a career of TV roles. In her native Britain, she is mostly known in recent years for her ongoing part in a BBC series, Life of Riley.

It's good to see a child star make a successful transition to more adult roles, especially given the kinds of problems many former child stars have had.

The Unsinkable Titanic

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Last April, on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, I watched the 1997 James Cameron film that was based on that event — and, ultimately, matched records for both Academy Award nominations and wins.

That film was released to theaters 15 years ago today.

I guess I hadn't watched that movie all the way through since I saw it on the big screen, but the movie brought back all kinds of memories of the time when I saw it.

I was deeply, passionately in love with a woman from my office, and we had just begun what turned out to be a very brief relationship — sort of like a shooting star one sees on the deepest of dark nights. It was a confusing, mysterious relationship that ended abruptly and painfully. Even now, there are things about it that I don't understand — and I'm not sure I want to so I don't think about her much.

But the centennial earlier this year of the actual Titanic's sinking — and now the anniversary of the release of that record–setting movie — have forced me to think about Liz and that time in our lives.

When "Titanic" made its debut, she had left town to spend the Christmas holidays with relatives in another state, and I didn't know she had returned until I received an e–mail from her. She was almost casual in her e–mail. She didn't announce "I'm back!" She just launched into a conversation.

(If she is still living, that's probably how she texts with the people in her life when she returns from a trip somewhere. She probably just picks up threads of weeks–old conversations — as if the intervening gap had never happened.)

"Have you seen Titanic yet?" she asked me. "I saw it the other day. It was really good."

I hadn't seen the movie yet, and I tried to get her to go see it with me, but she declined. She encouraged me to see it, but once was enough for her, she said.

So I went to see it alone — and first thought, when I walked into the viewing room at the multiscreen theater, that I had walked into the wrong room by mistake. On the screen were scenes from an undersea exploration, and I didn't make the immediate obvious connection — that this was a modern–day expedition to the wreckage site on the ocean floor.

I almost walked out to look for the correct viewing room when I saw some of the ship's wreckage, and I put two and two together.

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Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio): Do you trust me?

Rose (Kate Winslet): I trust you.

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Actually, I saw the movie twice in the first few months of 1998. The second time was with a woman who had been my first serious girlfriend many years earlier. She and her husband were in Dallas for some sort of professional conference, and I wound up taking her to see "Titanic" one Saturday afternoon while he was in a conference session.

That was weird and wonderful at the same time. I had rarely seen her since we broke up, but we got caught up on things quickly, and going to see a movie with her again really felt like old times — minus the awkward pressure of the teenage years. We treated each other like the old friends we were instead of the old lovers we used to be. She had been married for several years by that time, anyway, and she and her husband had had two children together.

Our lives had gone in different directions, and we both knew that. There were no attempts to recapture a past that was long gone, but we both were interested in each other and earnestly hoped the other was happy. I confided in her that I was in love, but, at that point, the relationship was sputtering. In my heart, I didn't think it would last much longer.

And it didn't. It went down — although not quite as spectacularly as the Titanic did.

But that's another story, anyway.

The re–creation of the sinking of the Titanic was about as accurate as it could be. I had read quite a bit about that event before I saw James Cameron's movie, and everything I saw lined up with what was known at the time.

The success of "Titanic" brought international acclaim for Leonardo DiCaprio, who was not nominated for an Oscar for his performance. His co–star, Kate Winslet, was nominated, but her performance was not generally well regarded. In fact, she was panned by many.

But, frankly, any talk that linked DiCaprio and/or Winslet to the blockbuster was a shot in the arm for their careers.

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DiCaprio and Winslet were just appearing on moviegoers' radars at the time. Consequently, they generated the most talk.

But I felt that perhaps the most unheralded member of the cast was Gloria Stuart, who was a mere toddler when the actual Titanic sank and whose career began decades before her co–stars were born.

She played the old version of Rose, who appeared on the screen more often in the person of Winslet.

But Stuart's Rose had the wisdom that comes with age. Winslet's character was a teenager, flighty and uncomprehending about many things. It was hardly surprising when the dialogue that came from her mouth was inane.

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Rose (Kate Winslet): It's so unfair.

Ruth (Frances Fisher): Of course it's unfair. We're women. Our choices are never easy.

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Old Rose, on the other hand, had this reasonable response when told that no evidence of Jack being on board the Titanic had ever been found.

"No, there wouldn't be, would there? And I've never spoken of him until now. Not to anyone."

That, I suppose, was the net result of the Rose character's wisdom as she matured.

But even Stuart was capable of similarly schmaltzy dialogue — thanks to the writers.

"A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets."

That was a bit much for me, but it came near the end of the movie — and apparently it struck a responsive chord with many of the women who saw it.

And I had to admit that it didn't take anything away from what I thought had been a pretty good performance.

The Academy apparently agreed. Stuart was nominated for Best Supporting Actress (she lost to Kim Basinger). The actress who played Stuart's younger self, Winslet, also lost (to Helen Hunt).

Those were the exceptions to the rule. "Titanic" was nominated for 14 Oscars — and won 11.

The Scariest Villain Who Was Hardly Seen

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As I observed last year, it was on this day in 1975 that the practice of heavily promoting the summertime theatrical release of a motion picture (i.e., a "blockbuster" movie) began.

And I guess there was no more harrowing film sequence that could have ushered in that era than the opening of "Jaws."

Actress Susan Backlinie was only on the screen a few seconds, really, but her character's violent death while taking a moonlight swim resonated with audiences as surely as the infamous shower scene in "Psycho" 15 years earlier.

I presume, though, that, as audiences projected themselves into each situation, they could imagine circumstances in which they could get away from a knife–wielding intruder, even if they appeared to be cornered, naked, in a shower. It was much more difficult, if not impossible, to imagine being attacked in the ocean by a shark — and managing to escape.

It couldn't have surprised anyone who had read Peter Benchley's novel upon which the film was based. The cover illustration of a young woman swimming along the surface while a shark, its mouth agape, rises from the murky depths has become iconic.

That illustration was used in the movie posters so I can't imagine that the opening sequence surprised many of those in the audience who had not read the book — but, even so, I always wondered how many people were genuinely shocked by what they saw.

Admittedly, they saw very little of the shark.

And that, I suppose, is what made "Jaws" truly terrifying — the menace lurking in the murky depths, unseen until it was too late.

It's interesting, isn't it, that both of those fearsome images involved water — the life–giving substance, cleansing, refreshing, restoring. On a hot summer's day, when one is grimy and sweaty, there may be nothing more appealing than a cool lake or stream. I've never been a big fan of beaches — I guess they've always been too crowded for my taste — but I suppose most beachgoers fancy the beach as a large swimming pool.

And a pool isn't usually threatening — unless you're behaving recklessly.

But there was nothing reckless about the young woman's behavior at the opening of "Jaws." You may draw whatever conclusions you like about her moral behavior, skinny dipping at night — and originally intending to do so with a young man she had just met — but, as I understand it, sharks are drawn to movement, and she was doing that alone (and, it can be assumed, she would have been doing even if she had been wearing a bathing suit and her male companion had not fallen on the sand and remained there in a semi–conscious stupor, unaware of the struggle she was waging for her life not far away).

Of course, the actual shark in "Jaws" wasn't real. He was a mechanical shark that was given the name Bruce — after, as I understand it, Spielberg's lawyer.

I suppose there's some significance to that — perhaps adequately explaining it calls for someone who is certifiably anti–lawyer, and I'm not sure I belong in that group. I mean, I recognize the need for lawyers. They don't just exist to run up outrageous bills. They do provide a legitimate, specialized service — one for which I hope I will have little use in my life, but that's beside the point.

Later, I guess you could say Benchley "saw the light." In his later years, he claimed that the image of the shark as man's predator was false, and he warned that they were endangered by man's aggressive treatment of them and their environment.

"Jaws," he said, could not be written today with the shark cast as the villain. "[I]t would have to be written as the victim for, worldwide, sharks are much more the oppressed than the oppressors."

That may be true, but I read "Jaws" back when it was a bestseller, and I'm sure I would get the same chills down my spine if I read it again today.

The movie still does that to me.

Titanic's Maiden Voyage on TCM

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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.

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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.