Elegant Production Design and Surprising Visual Outcomes: Titanic

Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. Incorporating both historical and fictionalized aspects, it is based on accounts of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. The film “Titanic” represents the ship that was deemed unsinkable and occurrences on her 1912 maiden journey from Southampton, to New York City, in the United States.

On the ship was a girl (Rose DeWitt Bukater, acted by Kate Winslet) engaged to a rich man (Caledon) that she never loved. Despite the engagement, Rose comes across a poor young man (Jack, acted by Leonardo DiCarprio) and they fall in love. As they fight with class and Caledon’s opposition, the Titanic hits an iceberg and begins to sink gradually. The striking of the iceberg by the ship leaves the stars of the film (Rose and Jack) struggling for their lives as well as their love.

Most of the film takes place on The Titanic although some takes place in present time with Rose at 86 narrating some of her stories from her time spent on the ship. Many flashbacks are however taken back to April 12 1912. Classed as romance, disaster, drama, historical and epic The Titanic can take the pick of fitting into any of those five genres. But this movie is also for hopeless romantic people who aren’t afraid to shed a tear and have a soft spot for cliché romance. The central plot of this film is between Jack and Rose following their love story which in this case does not happen to be to cliche with a case nothing like this. On the other hand if you’re not a fan of the romance but rather an action packed disaster The Titanic will not disappoint you. Cameron spectacularly uses a lot of great camera work in my opinion and special effects to capture the disaster of the sinking. The ship now faces west on the ocean floor from the disastrous and mournful sinking due to a accidental collision with an iceberg in the early hours of 15 April 1912. It is timeless with positive acting and a unique storyline. It is an exquisite representation of the disaster and is much more than the love of Jack and Rose. Cameron also didn’t fail to make his viewers knowledgeable about how these massive ships operate, it was quite phenomenal to watch the background of the whole ship and not a typical love story where the storyline just focuses on the two main characters. The sound effects in Titanic are very spectacular, the sound effects were very high in the movie at some scenes, and this happened at a location where the ship was sinking. This is what has been created by the sound of crushing metals and a lot of heavy flowing water. There are many voices created to give a sense of the atmosphere and this noise ranges from the waves in the ocean to the submarine calls. I think she gave a real sense to the audience, all the noise that each other had helped give the viewers a sense of the reality of the movie.

During the last hour of the film and a key scene from the film “the sinking scene” beautifully captures the visual and special effects of something so mournful. Being filmed in 1997 these visuals stunned the viewers and critiques with how realistic Cameron made this. Walls crashing down, water flooding the rooms and decks, those only holding a third class ticket locked down in the below decks were the first of many to suffer. In the final moments the ship is half underwater and half on top angling at 180 degrees with Cameron applying a long shot for the audience to see the whole picture. Hopeless passengers are seen jumping off the ship, with diegetic screams being heard where their life would end in the bitter waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. Although there are some negative points about the movie that might be overlooked by some or not. The main one is the controversy of Jack’s death. Jack and Rose are to be seen in their final moments together floating on a door in the ocean therefore reflecting historical inaccuracy. Supposedly with only enough room for one Jack being the true gentleman he gives the space to Rose. The second negative point is the outstretched screenplay. Titanic runs at a hefty three hours and fourteen minutes which fun fact was a very specific time considering it is the exact it took the ship to sink in. And other errors can be considered such as historically poorly written. Overall, James Cameron excellently conveys all the peak points such as his tactical craftsmanship; perfect framing, redacting and choreography of activity ought to be carried out as an instance in film production. He shows off his command of the medium, his elegant production design and his surprising visual outcomes. In this regard, Cameron did a spectacular job of capturing this story and made The Titanic a film everybody will remember.