TotalTelly.co.uk

Devoted to Popular, Cult and Retro TV

Titanic [1998]


RRP: £5.99
Our Price: £3.26 (subject to change)

Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

When the theatrical release of James Cameron's Titanic was delayed from July to December of 1997, media pundits speculated that Cameron's $200 million disaster epic would cause the director's downfall, signal the end of the blockbuster era and sink Paramount Studios as quickly as the ill-fated luxury liner had sunk on that fateful night of April 14, 1912. Some studio executives were confident, others horrified, but the clarity of hindsight turned Cameron into an Oscar-winning genius, a shrewd businessman and one of the most successful directors in the history of motion pictures. Titanic would surpass the $1 billion mark in global box-office receipts (largely due to multiple viewings, the majority by teenage girls), win 11 Academy Awards including best picture and director, produce the bestselling movie soundtrack of all time and make a global superstar of Leonardo DiCaprio. A bona fide pop-cultural phenomenon, the film has all the ingredients of a blockbuster (romance, passion, luxury, grand scale, a snidely villain and an epic, life-threatening crisis), but Cameron's alchemy of these ingredients proved more popular than anyone could have predicted. His stroke of genius was to combine absolute authenticity with a pair of fictional lovers whose tragic fate would draw viewers into the heart-wrenching reality of the Titanic disaster. As starving artist Jack Dawson and soon-to-be-married socialite Rose DeWitt Bukater, DiCaprio and Kate Winslet won the hearts of viewers around the world and their brief but never-forgotten love affair provides the humanity that Cameron needed to turn Titanic into an emotional experience. Present-day framing scenes (featuring Gloria Stuart as the 101-year-old Rose) add additional resonance to the story and, although some viewers proved vehemently immune to Cameron's manipulations, few can deny the production's impressive achievements. Although some of the computer-generated visual effects look artificial, others--such as the sunset silhouette of Titanic during its first evening at sea, or the climactic splitting of the ship's sinking hull--are state-of-the-art marvels. In terms of sets and costumes alone, the film is never less than astounding. More than anything else, however, the film's overwhelming popularity speaks for itself. Titanic is an event film and a monument to Cameron's risk-taking audacity, blending the tragic irony of the Titanic disaster with just enough narrative invention to give the historical event its fullest and most timeless dramatic impact. Titanic is an epic love story on par with Gone with the Wind, and, like that earlier box-office phenomenon, it's a film for the ages. --Jeff Shannon

Editorial
Video Description

DVD Special Features

Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Multiple Language Subtitles
Original Theatrical Trailer
Language: English
Subtitles: Swedish/Norwegian/Danish/Finnish/Iberian Portuguese/Hebrew/Polish/Czech/Hungarian/Icelandic/Dutch/Greek/English for the Hearing Impaired
Ratio: 2.30:1

Editorial
Synopsis

TITANIC, James Cameron's massive blockbuster, stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as young lovers aboard the ill-fated voyage. A mysterious nude sketch found in the wreckage of the Titanic leads to the tale of its subject, the now-elderly Rose DeWitt Bukater (Winslet). As her story begins, Rose is 17 and vacationing aboard the "unsinkable" ship with her unctuous, moneyed fiance (Billy Zane). However, she soon falls for Jack Dawson (DiCaprio), a free-spirited artist and third-class passenger. Their romance moves quickly--until the huge luxury liner slams into an iceberg. Soon Rose, Jack, and everyone onboard the sinking ship are all struggling to stay alive.
TITANIC had the potential to be the biggest bomb in film history, but, as everyone knows, the movie became the highest-grossing motion picture ever and a worldwide phenomenon. Perhaps it's the spectacular special effects or the chemistry of its attractive stars or the romantic heart of the story. Regardless of what makes it work, the film is big budget entertainment with an undeniable appeal for just about anyone.

the heart escapes despite a massive cardiac arrest
Review date: 2008-08-25 Rating: 6 out of 10

well i think it has to be said there is someting charming about this epic despite a magnitude of flaws that can sink another fleet of titanics,just imagine 2 teenagers taking you on a guided tour of the entire bowels and decks of a huge liner and that too in a frenzy of giggling and weeping alternatively without letting go of each other's hands and you can imagine the inadvertent comic affect that ludicrous image evokes while the ship sinks,

in the middle of all this is the evil stockbroker villain who is the ultimate bad materialistic yankee and has enough bullets to chase and shoot the poor boy lover from wisconsin with a heart of gold ,

we also get to see picassos and monets,not to mention, i could spot degas and goghs in the art collection of the poor little bankrupt-miss rose abroad the ship who is being cajoled to marry the evil rich prince in the form of billy zane ,this almost becomes a parody when the 18 year old miss richie rich poses in nude and starts performing acrobatics for the amusement of jack and his friends ,

it almost looks like a snug little soviet commune with a french romantic setting and german waltzes in the background with all social injustice wasted on the magnificent sets which look more opulent than any cruise liner could ever aspire to be till the ice cube strikes .

then mr.cameron kills about a million of the 1500 who actually died as he has to show a lot of people dying in every gruesome manner possible ,i lost count and really the fact that astute miss rose was able to spot very early on , that there were less than half the number of specified life-boats made me envious of this miss know-all who even knew of freud and all his theories and quoted him at dinnertime conversations .

but still there is a sincerity in the leo-kate act which touches you and the ending does arouse some unknown emotion inside you ,it is illogical but it is lovely to look at and it works in the end ,

add the dion number and the movie wins your heart while your mind resists any attempts to like this giant romantic soap opera ,

the sfx and the cinematography are great and so are the young lovers despite their crude and silly antics on the stern and in the atlantic- leo and kate save this from sinking by their class act.

Similar Products

Reviews


The sinking of the Titanic is a metaphor of the 20thC and perhaps the greatest commercial film ever made
Review date: 2008-08-19 Rating: 8 out of 10

For years I have been unable to prevent myself from judging people by their response to this film. It's so easy to discover the pretentious, the mean spirited and the hard hearted, and the people who like to sneer at what they think it's safe to sneer at. And then of course there are those who always try to make jokes about something that almost succeeds in making them feel some strong emotion. And I've never heard any of them come up with an interesting or original criticism, or even a valid one.
They usually concentrate on criticising the dialogue, as if people in real life always had interesting, non-cliched things to say. A complete red herring this in a film of this type, in terms of it's subject matter and it's production values; the script is perfectly adequate to the job it has to do and does not disgrace the characters. But these critics are full of cliches themselves and usually go on to to say that the characters are cardboard, one dimensional etc etc. These are the automatic comments of people who for one reason or another have not been able to respond to the characters who for the rest of us are perfectly likeable (di Caprio), or loveable (Kate Winslet), or detestable (the rich bastard)- which the respective characters certainly are. How deeply into the character of the protagonists do they want to go in an eventfull two hours anyway?. These shallow critics would do better to think a good deal less of what they have got into the habit of calling stereotypes and to start thinking about whether they might not be better off thinking of them in terms of archetypes. Archetypes are in fact the stuff of great fictional art and I seldom recognise a great fiction unless I discern the archetypes. What these 'critics' presumably want are characters who are so rich in arbitrary idiosyncrasies, eccentricities or backstories that they couldn't possibly be an archetype any more than the average person we meet in our daily lives. Well that sort of character may belong in a long running naturalistic soap opera (yes naturalistic they mostly are - what did you think they are?),that is to say a drama of character and situation, or a piece of of social realism, or even any drama of theme - but it's certainly not what this sort of film is all about. This is an opportunity to deal with archetypes, on the level of characters, and on the story level, and to pull out all the deep stops in our psyches. In this sort of drama we do not want to be involved in any details of personal character that are going to distract or confuse us, we just want to identify with them or against them, and we need to be able to project what we need to onto them. This is a drama of story, not a drama of character or dialogue (or the lack of it), or social context, as you would expect from some piece on stage. But it is partly a drama of social situation as all period dramas necessarily are. This provides some of the the ready-made ingredients for the Titanic Myth or Metaphor which would be far less of a great metaphor, if it did not include within it the class divisions that operated on ocean liners at this period. For this you need broad strokes more than you need the sort of characterisation you would expect in a novel by Zola.
I do however have one minor criticism of the film and one bigger one. Firstly I think that the drawings that Jack does are not convincing enough on any level. They look too modern and they have no artistic credibility. But my main criticism is of the ending when the emerald is thrown back in the sea. This merely follows the tedious convention that there has to be some sort of twist at the end of every film albeit a gentle one. Instead of being 'poetic' as intended it just seems like a waste.



The film that made me cry
Review date: 2008-05-08 Rating: 10 out of 10

The following is not my own review but that of a teenage friend of mine.
There are plenty of adult reviewers so let's get the opinions of the young and impressionable.

It was difficult to believe that the ship was not the real thing.
The characters of Jack and Rose were portrayed brilliantly by Leonardo and Kate. I wanted their love to go on and on.
I was truly scared when the ship struck the iceberg. At the time I didn't know what the outcome would be. All the time I was hoping they would survive. I just couldn't believe that Jack was doomed to die and how that made me cry and cry and cry.
The flashbacks from the older Kate were very moving.
A sad film but totally brilliant.

Insensitive
Review date: 2008-04-22 Rating: 2 out of 10

The worst winner of the Best film is TITANIC 1997. I stopped taking the Oscars seriously after that. It's says alot about Hollywood in that it recast a film about one of the greatest disasters of the C20th as an upstairs/downstairs love story.
Imagine the film as a 9/11 climaxing with 2 lovers leaping to their deaths hand in hand from the Twin Towers as Celine Dion squawks away in the background like a Banshee.
Wretched, kitsch and expensively so at £200 million, but it went on to make £1 billion world wide due mainly to young dumb females attending this visual garbage multiple times (eg. my ex-girlfriend Emily).


The Titanic disaster was a very black day in British/American History. Over twelve hundred people died horrible freezing deaths in the middle of the Atlantic, but never fear! I am sure they will be smiling down from their clouds on the fact that their demise has been turned into a cheesy Hollywood love story! Well at least they did not die in vain.



Greastest film ever? not by a long stretch.
Review date: 2008-04-11 Rating: 2 out of 10

Just the other day i was reading the paper and a small article in the bottom corner of one page caught my eye. the article in brief said that a sample of 6000 people voted titanic the greatest film ever made. Im prity sure that my jaw dropped far enough to hit myself in the crotch "Greatest film ever!!!!!" At first i proclaimed the vast majority of the cinema going public complete morons. Titanic was the only film i could remember wishing i hadnt watched, and ive seen LXG and didnt hate it! But eventually i came round to the thought that maybe ive been too hard on this film all these years. At the time i went to see this film with a friend of mine who for some reason wanted to see it because he had a fixation with the titanic i think, but i kind of wish i had gone with a girl at least then i might have gotten some action for my troubles.
Anyways yesturday i gave the film another go and its not as bad as i remembed it being but likes saying a reliant robbin is not as slow as walking, it still one turkey of film.

Story and script: this is probably the worst part of the movie, the real tragedy is pushed to the back to become nothing more then setting, onto witch they piled a nasty ham sandwich of a love story. The lines are terrble as are the jokes based on peoples ignorance "somthing picasso, he'll never amount to anything" (wow thats bad) i cringed so baddly most of the way through this terrible script.

Cast and acting: They assembled a quality cast in fairness but im not sure they really took it seriously (probably saw the script and thought it was a comedy)infact the only decent piece of acting was from the guys in the submarine at the begining which include bill paxton of aliens fame ("the're coming out of the walls man!!" superior stuff).

Set peices and costume design: Fianlly someone did their job right! the sets and costumes are convinsing throughout the cars were a nice token as well (even is they were only as props for the, funniest, most unneccisary sex scene ever filmed).

Special Effects: Pritty good but at the time i remember thinking that there was something wrong with them, something unconvincing, but i have never been able to put my finger on it.

Additional comments: Every trick in the book was pulled out at the end to produce an emotional response and for me at least every one failed. if they had left it with just the parts with the band playing right up to the end and the captain locking himself in the bridge in may have been ok, as these where decent scenes. But the old couple on the bed and the women tucking her children into bed are just underhanded as they have no part in the plot. some people (mostly the ladys) will say that this is because im an insensitive man. Not true; I cried watching Bridge to Terabithia! and im man enough to say that. another thing is the shot of the man falling off the back and hitting the propeller, it could only have been put in to get cheap laughs (which if i remember rightly it did) its still tastless.

In conclusion, is it the worst film ive ever seen, no, that privalige probably falls to Flight of Fury (steven siegal at his worst) but this is still a smoldering turd of a film. It contains some simple lessons for film makers "good special effects a film Duth not make" you start with script, acting and storyline and work your way out. Probably the worst movie per £/$ ever made. 1 star take it out of my sight!

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Bill Paxton
Gloria Stuart
Leonardo DiCaprio
Victor Garber
Kate Winslet

Creators:
Kate Winslet (Primary Contributor)
Bill Paxton (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
EAN: 5039036000147
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Full Screen, PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2004-03-01
Number of discs: 1
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 189 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1997-12-19
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: Portuguese (Subtitled)
Language: Swedish (Subtitled)
Language: Danish (Subtitled)
Language: Hungarian (Subtitled)
Language: Polish (Subtitled)
Language: Icelandic (Subtitled)
Language: Dutch (Subtitled)
Language: Finnish (Subtitled)
Language: Czech (Subtitled)
Language: Greek (Subtitled)

Add to Cart

© 2006 Darren Hester, DesignsByDarren.com, Some Rights Reserved.
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional