Titanic...the movie that just won't sink! Written on March 25, 1998 http://surf.to/joblo
As of March 22, 1998, the movie "Titanic" was unanimously declared the number one biggest money grossing movie of all time! Its domestic ticket sales sailed through the $492 million mark, leading the old box-office champ, Star Wars, to a darker side finish in second place. It just gathered eleven Academy Awards to add to its incredible success, and appears to be headed towards a worldwide box-office gross of close to $1.5 billion worth of ticket sales. So why has this movie turned into the biggest money-making film of all time? Hmmm...let's investigate.
A mere six months ago, Titanic was being nastily compared to another great water-based film that was over-budgeted, ran long and over-rated, Waterworld. That film cost Sony Pictures close to $175 million to produce, with dire financial results across the world. With Titanic's enormous budget cradling the $200 million mark, many studio executives had also begun to shake in their soggy boots, and hope for a miracle from above. And as the movie's shooting schedule continued to go past its original set date, the studio begrudgingly had to settle the film into its late fall release schedule. This was not a decision it wanted to make, as the summer season was without a doubt the greatest money-making season for all Hollywood studios. But the director of this ambitious film, James Cameron, would not succumb to the studio's pressures, and even surrendered his own salary for the project, in return for more time to film the movie that he had intended.
And the rest, as they say...is Hollywood history.
Released on December 18, 1997, Titanic immediately gained the top spot in the box-office ranks of that weekend, and has stayed in that position ever since. It's currently in its 14th week of release, and its prime spot at the head of the charts has yet to be rivaled (Leonardo DiCaprio's other film release, The Man in the Iron Mask, was the closest rival to Titanic last weekend, as it grossed only $300,000 less than Titanic). The Titanic album is also at number one on the music charts, and the Titanic book has consistently remained in the top ten since it embarked on its literary sendoff back in December. Worldwide movie grosses are forecasted to balloon past the $1.5 billion mark by the time the movie ends its run in theaters, and only then, will the home video market begin to cut into its share of the Titanic money pie. Titanic is no longer just a movie, it's a phenomenon.
But as I gathered my facts and figures about this triumphant film, I started to ask myself about the reasons behind this movie's phenomenal success. I personally saw the picture as nothing more than a decent movie with some great special effects and a good love story. But that was all. Why were others going ga-ga over this "big boat movie"? Why had many gone to see all of its 197 minutes over and over and over again? I had to know. The answer ran deeper than I had anticipated.
The nineteen-nineties began with the average budget of a film being shot around the meager $20 million mark, and ended with Titanic's gigantic cost of over $200 million. This rise in budgets led Hollywood into a new genre of film-making that relied more on its special effects, explosions, big name stars, and superb action sequences, rather than the actual plot line of the film. When you look at the highest grossing pictures over the past few years, Men in Black, Independence Day and Jurassic Park, you will notice a singular thread that passes through each of these films.
That thread is firmly tied to the fact that each of those stories lacked any kind of real emotional plot line. The special effects were always good. The sound effects were monstrous. Even the creation of these new and wonderful fantasy worlds left many of us in awe. But the obvious lack of humanistic feelings and values had become openly acceptable, common and regrettably absent.
With Titanic, director James Cameron was able to successfully mesh the two worlds of special effects and human emotion, as to make this picture unique within the sea of heartless big-budget movies that had been propagating themselves over the past few years. People have liked this movie because they liked the special effects, they liked the story, but most of all, they liked the characters of Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet). They liked the love story.
Within the great, big, so-called technological advancement of the 20th century, the Titanic, two socially incompatible people were able to fight all odds, overcome all obstacles, and find one another. And as the end of this century nears, and the dawn of the next millenium creeps up and into our mental horizon, it is obvious that many people have begun wondering about their own places in this highly technological world of ours.
The fast-paced lifestyles of so many North Americans has reached such a mechanical stage at this point, that many have blindly adopted the anti-social tools of this technological age. They've readily accepted the notion of communicating via electronic mail with their friends and family, researching their hobbies and interests in front of a 17-inch computer screen, and even shopping by a click of a button. These events used to exemplify the pinnacle of human and social interaction when our times were simpler, but nowadays...they're just more tasks to add to our Personal Digital Assistants.
Are people happy travelling through this web of technological advancements from year to year? Not according to the APA (American Psychiatrists Association), which has claimed a steady rise in the number of depression cases in the 1990's, and predicts an even higher number as the new millenium approaches.
And when you superimpose the "Titanic" experience with many of the anxieties that people from this decade are currently experiencing, the answer to my original question, becomes a whole lot easier to solve.
People see hope. They see love. They see the need to appreciate every day to its fullest. They see Titanic, and they recognize these factors as the most important things in their daily lives. Forget the daily planners. Forget the emails still sitting in your inbox. Forget the TV show that you felt you "had to" tape. See your family. See your friends. See the love and hope and dreams that inhabit your mind from day to day, and from month to month. Subside your disillusionment of this crazy world we're living...just for a moment.
I believe that director James Cameron's timing was impeccable with this project in regards to the times in which we are now living. People see the future and they are scared. They aren't sure if they are going to sink or stay afloat. The optimistic destiny that falls upon the two main characters in this film, is a fate to which every audience member would love to subscribe. And as the world's day to day operations continue to retract us from the more important aspects of our lives as human beings, this film allows us to breathe a certain air of optimism into the future of our society. The hope and love that's resolved by the characters in this film, allows everybody in the audience to believe in their own chances of survival in this unpredictably, evolving world of ours, and restore some of their own lost faith in humanity.
These lessons are the ones that the next few copycat producers should mimic as they attempt to cash in on similar movies over the next few years. They shouldn't zone in on the Leonardo DiCaprio factor, the gigantic budget, or even the great special effects. The real human emotions is what they should be studying. The lost emotions of an audience that has long been ignored by Hollywood movies. Movies that exemplify hope, love and humanity. Movies that have a meaning to their audience. Movies with a heart...
Just like their audience.
http://surf.to/joblo
© Berge Garabedian 1998
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