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HighLlama
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04 May 2022, 3:24 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
HighLlama wrote:
Summer_Twilight wrote:
What does cocain have to do with Titanic?


Cocaine gives people grandiose thoughts, such as, "I'm King of the World!" It was just a joke.


We're going to watch it shortly.
Just preparing some crack.


Don't forget your favorite Icee.



IsabellaLinton
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04 May 2022, 3:26 pm

I'll be sure to write a movie review.
I'll file it with my other critiques.
Shouldn't take more than 2-3 weeks.



HighLlama
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04 May 2022, 3:28 pm

^King of the World: Class, Love, and Cocaine in James Cameron's Titanic.



IsabellaLinton
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05 May 2022, 11:17 am

TLDR warning:

We watched Titanic last night. I hadn't seen it in many years and couldn't really remember it.
I'm a details-oriented person so I spent a lot of the movie looking for things that didn't make sense.


The 1990's scenes:

- If Rose was really 100 and there was a major Titanic recovery happening, she would have known about it rather than stumbling upon it as a news story on her granddaughter's TV. Likewise the researchers would have known about Rose, who at that time would have been one of the last surviving passengers. It seems neither knew about the other. I call BS on that.

- The recovery and preservation of relics: People opening the crate with bare hands in open sea air, touching relics with bare hands, not treating the artefacts with dignity, and not having professional archivists on the scene.

- Inviting Rose to the ship but not having reporters or a proper transcription of her story, apart from a cheap, battery-operated recording device used in open air and wind without microphones.

- The fact Rose had never told her granddaughter this story. I really don't believe that. For one thing, it would confuse the family tree when Rose's name suddenly changed to Dawson. The boarding passengers' names would have been carefully examined against the list of survivors at some point in the last 84 years.


The 1912 scenes:

- A very archetypal story: A fallen woman is slut-shamed, followed immediately by chaos and death.

- "Garden of Eden" meets The Shining: Woman lives in paradise until temptation and sin. Then, in a deranged quest for survival, she runs through long white corridors with an axe. Her similarity to Wendy Torrence made me laugh.

- I also kept thinking about The Paper Bag Princess when Rose had to rescue Jack. Doesn't Hollywood realise women have been saving men and their families for millennia, and this was nothing melodramatic or novel?

- The scenes of the outside of the ship are so clearly fake. I know it was good technology in 1998 but wow -- it's hard to believe we all fell for it once upon a time.

- The water on the boat was far too clear / clean, and never contained floating debris.

- Rose should have been a Maybelline model!!

From the time she had dinner, to shagging the guy, kissing the guy, running through water like a crazy woman, screaming for help, being completely submerged under freezing water, breaking through steel gates, entering two lifeboats and floating on a door in the middle of the Atlantic, her makeup didn't smudge or come off. Her lipstick, eyeliner, and mascara stayed intact. That's one hell of an endorsement.

- She still had her kitten-heeled shoes on after all of this, including running through water hysterically, climbing railings and clinging to the exterior bow of the ship as it submerged, then being in the suction of its undertow.

- It's such a tired trope: A young woman in peril after losing her virginity, running from danger in her pretty little white high-heels (very Friday the Thirteenth).

- And really, that necklace didn't come out of her pocket when the boat sank??? ^

- The iceberg wasn't even visible in the final scenes. How far had they travelled past it?


The Love Story:

- I couldn't have cared less about them. They knew each other for 48 hours, and she only loved him because he symbolised freedom from class oppression. Their "love" was all about what he could do for her, or how he helped her to escape abuse. She loved the concept of emancipation and freedom more than she loved or knew him. To put it bluntly, she loved herself and being herself, more than she loved him. He was just a means to an end.

- Similarly, he only "loved" her because she didn't reject him, and they had a lot of fun together. What else did they really have in common, or know about each other?

- Their love was based on hedonism.

- The true love stories in this film weren't fully developed:

The elderly couple clinging together in their bed, holding each other as the flood waters rose
The impoverished single mother tucking her little ones in bed, knowing their fate
Parents crying for their children as they board life boats
Men trying to be strong for their families
A father telling his daughter "Hold mummy's hand and be a good girl ... " as they are separated forever
The gut-wrenching goodbye embraces of wives forced to leave their men
The priest giving last rites to a hopeful gathering, as people fell into the sea
The quartet playing as a symbol of duty and responsibility
The captain who loved his job and went down with the ship
The lifeboat which returned to look for survivors
When the crew member of the lifeboat said to be careful rowing, so they wouldn't hit the deceased

These ^ scenes meant so much more to me than some horny couple who met just two days prior.
I suppose Hollywood sees lust and sex as being more romantic than heroism, duty, or true commitment? :(


Overall:

I wanted to hate it and I almost did. The cynical part of me wanted to laugh through its drama but by the end I was more emotional than I expected. This had nothing to do with the fictitious and unnecessarily contrived romance between Jack and Rose. I was tearful with respect to the true tragedy: thousands of souls perished, and hundreds surviving with nightmares or trauma for what they'd endured in its wake (no pun intended).

The lifeboats turned away and only one returned.
I think that was the true story here: Do we put our needs ahead of others? What is true altruism?
Rose rescued Jack but that wasn't altruism. She wanted him for herself. It wasn't an act of selflessness.

My favourite character was Kathy Bates -- outspoken, bucking the patriarchy, and caring more for others than she cared for herself. She was far more of a romantic heroine than Rose, who only wanted to escape an abusive relationship.



Last edited by IsabellaLinton on 05 May 2022, 11:42 am, edited 3 times in total.

funeralxempire
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05 May 2022, 11:39 am

HighLlama wrote:
IsabellaLinton wrote:
HighLlama wrote:
Summer_Twilight wrote:
What does cocain have to do with Titanic?


Cocaine gives people grandiose thoughts, such as, "I'm King of the World!" It was just a joke.


We're going to watch it shortly.
Just preparing some crack.


Don't forget your favorite Icee.


It's a good prescription for focus.


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戦争ではなく戦争と戦う


IsabellaLinton
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05 May 2022, 11:53 am

funeralxempire wrote:
HighLlama wrote:
IsabellaLinton wrote:
HighLlama wrote:
Summer_Twilight wrote:
What does cocain have to do with Titanic?


Cocaine gives people grandiose thoughts, such as, "I'm King of the World!" It was just a joke.


We're going to watch it shortly.
Just preparing some crack.


Don't forget your favorite Icee.


It's a good prescription for focus.


Ironically, I forgot to take my ADHD meds yesterday.
I'm surprised I even sat through the film because I was zoning out in the opening scenes.



lostonearth35
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05 May 2022, 12:01 pm

Here in Nova Scotia, Canada, we had a disaster in 1917 known as the Halifax Explosion. It killed about 1,782 people and injured about 9000 more. And it was only a few weeks until Christmas.

I've read that people from Boston in the US donated blankets, medicine and other things to the survivors, and as a way of showing thank you a Christmas tree gets donated from Nova Scotia for Boston's annual tree lighting party.

But I'll bet if the Explosion happened in the US, there would be 10 movies of it by now.



IsabellaLinton
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05 May 2022, 12:31 pm

lostonearth35 wrote:
Here in Nova Scotia, Canada, we had a disaster in 1917 known as the Halifax Explosion. It killed about 1,782 people and injured about 9000 more. And it was only a few weeks until Christmas.

I've read that people from Boston in the US donated blankets, medicine and other things to the survivors, and as a way of showing thank you a Christmas tree gets donated from Nova Scotia for Boston's annual tree lighting party.

But I'll bet if the Explosion happened in the US, there would be 10 movies of it by now.


I agree.
There's also the story of 9/11 planes which were diverted to Gander.



HighLlama
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05 May 2022, 4:50 pm

IsabellaLinton wrote:
The recovery and preservation of relics: People opening the crate with bare hands in open sea air, touching relics with bare hands, not treating the artefacts with dignity, and not having professional archivists on the scene.


Hollywood...dignity...Hollywood...dignity...

(But, yes, I loved your breakdown. I didn't think you were actually watching it.)



HighLlama
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05 May 2022, 4:56 pm

For anyone interested in an alternative, this song is meant to simulate a recording of The Titanic sinking. Very powerful:



IsabellaLinton
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05 May 2022, 5:17 pm

I wish the theme song had been played during the end credits, over photos of real victims and real heroes.

I was expecting statistics or a dedication or something (anything?) to indicate this was based on a true story.

Many of the background stories were based on real survivors, including the seven-year-old girl whose father said "Hold your mummy's hand and be a good girl ..." She was haunted the rest of her life.


https://www.thecoldwire.com/is-anyone-s ... e-titanic/


Gawd, I hate Hollywood.



klanka
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05 May 2022, 6:09 pm

It was sad when both of them couldn't stay on the floating debris but I have to agree their relationship did seem to be based on lust or class issues mostly, so it didn't excel as a romantic film.



IsabellaLinton
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05 May 2022, 7:55 pm



I'm starting A Night to Remember. It looks better already.


Update: I just finished watching A Night to Remember. It was lightyears ahead of the 1998 version for special effects, historical accuracy and its depiction of love and loss. It's hard to believe the 1998 producers thought it was necessary to fabricate a cheesy 'lust story' to make the true facts romantic, or to create drama given the magnitude of what really happened. In fact Jack and Rose take away from the story and the cinematography with their insipid dribble. In A Night to Remember all the passengers' stories were of equal importance and no relationships were shown as "better" or more heart-wrenching than others. I'd give A Night to Remember about 100 stars out of ten if I could. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Titanic, or seeking an honest depiction of class structure and its effect on human nature.



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10 May 2022, 6:19 pm

I haven't actually watched the whole movie, but I've seen bits of it. It would be better if it was less about romance and more about drama (I know romance is a type of drama but they can be different when it's more focused on the drama than a love story).

Were there any children on the Titanic, or was it a cruise thing for adults only? Usually putting children in a movie makes the movie more exciting for some reason.

Maybe they'll remake it but have it more drama-like.


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funeralxempire
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10 May 2022, 7:00 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Were there any children on the Titanic, or was it a cruise thing for adults only? Usually putting children in a movie makes the movie more exciting for some reason.

Maybe they'll remake it but have it more drama-like.


Think of the Titanic more like a really slow jumbo jet than a cruise ship; they were used for transportation, they weren't the vacation itself. Cruise ships didn't really become a thing until ocean liners were almost out of use.

The Titanic had 109 children on board. Of them, 1 child from first class perished (out of 6), none in second class perished (out of 24) but 52 out of the 79 children in third class were lost.

Women and children in third class along with men of all categories had higher than average rates of perishing.


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13 May 2022, 7:05 pm

It would’ve been better if there were more dinosaurs in it.


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