Jack and Rose. Rose and Jack. The couple at the heart of what was, until quite recently, the biggest film of all time, whose classes-clashing, chaotic, tragic love story sent legions of teenage girls so giddy that they saw the original 1997 release of Titanic in theaters five, six, twenty times, thus making of a potentially expensive bomb a bona fide cinematic phenomenon.
Now, with Titanic back in theaters this week – and in 3D! – let us visit with them again. Jack Dawson (Leonardo Di Caprio) and Rose Dewitt Bukater (Kate Winslet). The definitive ’90s couple, from way back in 1912. He: scruffy, happy-go-lucky and sincere, with the face of a Raphael. She: spoiled, educated and opinionated, with the face of a Botticelli. He, an itinerant vagabond artist from the Midwest, of no family, no breeding. She, a scion of American Old Money aristocracy, doomed to live a life of refinement and boredom in a marriage her mother, rather than she, desires. They board the good ship Titanic on its maiden voyage, and throughout the meager few days of that fateful, doomed cruise from Southampton to New York, love blossoms amid the ballrooms and the boiler rooms, the beer below decks and the champagne above.
His first sight of her leaves him speechless, as it must surely do us; she is a vision in mint green and burnt orange (I know, I know, but somehow it works) staring wistfully out to sea from the upper deck. A graceless acquaintance, seeing him staring, informs Jack: “Forget it, boyo. You’d as like have angels fly out of your arse as get next to the likes of her." But he does get next to her, and not long later; her first sight of him comes when she contemplates the murky depths of the freezing Atlantic, overcome with the oppressive foregone conclusion of her privileged life and desperate to end it all. He begs her to reconsider the jump, as he really doesn’t want to go over the side to rescue her, and in the space of mere moments her life is suddenly given meaning once more.
Of course, we all know what comes next. She doesn’t jump; he is hailed her rescuer; and then he, a lowly steerage passenger, is granted access to the rarefied heights of First Class, where he shows her how to—ew—spit off the side of the ship. There’s flirting, and the flouting of Rose’s pinch-faced mother and abusive fiancé (Billy Zane). Meanwhile, Rose dons gown after gorgeous gown, eventually disrobing in order to be sketched nude by a clearly discomfited Jack. Then, ooh! Sex in a car! The ship strikes an iceberg! Jack is accused of theft! Then Titanic sinks, and thousands die—among them Jack, whom we all remain certain could easily have fit on that massive floating door alongside Rose with only a little more effort on both their parts. (Indeed, the door looks even bigger in 3D.)
But, hey, at least her heart will go on and on.
Before I comment on Jack and Rose and the movie itself, allow me to take a moment to talk technology. I have to confess that I don’t mind a 3D movie, and while often the post-conversion can be truly terrible and entirely ruin things, in this case I can assure you that this is not so. If ever a movie was ripe for 3D-ization, it is Titanic, its sweeping vistas and its gloriously recreated detail. Admittedly, there is the occasional spot of CGI that the 3D process shows up as shoddy or, at least to modern eyes, somewhat third-rate, but on the whole watching the movie again on the big screen and even with the addition of those ridiculous dark glasses, is really a rewarding visual, no to mention visceral, experience. You can almost feel the water creeping up around your legs as you sit comfortably in the dark munching your popcorn, and being a film from the late ’9’s, this is one 3D movie happily missing any of those “Hey, check us out, we’re 3D!” touches, like stuff being aimed directly at the screen, embarrassing the hell out of anyone caught unawares and reflexively ducking. (Er…y’know. Like I’ve seen happen to, um, other people.)
But several things are notable about the re-release of Titanic in this updated, ticket price-raising format. First of all, I am going to go so far as to call it the first Romantic Drama to be screened in 3D. Sure, in many ways it’s a classic Disaster Movie, and there can be no denying that when the ship goes down, broken in half and flooding spectacularly, random sodden extras dying left and right, one is thinking more “Eeek!” than “Awww.” But the original box office success of the movie was born largely on the backs of young girls’ allowances, who weren’t in it for the Abyss-worthy undersea shots and terrifying plunges to icy death, nor even for the not-quite-searing social commentary, but for Jack and Rose and their bizarrely precipitous True Love. Other 3D features are kid flicks, sci-fi or fantasy epics, horror scare-fests and a truly dizzying array of dance movies and concert spectaculars. Movies re-released so far in 3D have kept to the same formula: Disney, and The Phantom Menace. So the fact that Titanic warranted the expensive, time-consuming conversion process is a big check in the column marked Romance Fan.
The other thing worth mentioning about the rerelease is that the trailers give us the enticing tagline “From the director of Avatar.” Which may not initially seem like a revelation—of course James Cameron directed both paradigm-shattering blockbusters—except that it’s entirely possible many Avatar fans have never seen his earlier epic, since they are young and Titanic is, in several senses of the world, old. Or perhaps because a trip to Pandora is assuredly science fiction, yet passage on a steam ship out of yesteryear is more science fact. But if Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) are Jack and Rose for this millennium, then it is only right that their less-fortunate, less-blue spiritual ancestors be given another chance to shine. And a cinematic reprise of their exploits may be just the way to achieve this end.
So let’s look at Jack and Rose, as they compare to Avatar’s central couple. For her day and class, Rose is presented to us as a remarkably liberated young woman, particularly in regards to sex. She was raised a lady, but considers herself above such petty concerns, and dumps the well-bred husband chosen for her in favor of a less suitable, but more suited, mate. Likewise, Pocahontas Neytiri gives it up to an off-world usurper of whom her father, the Chief, does not approve, dumping stern warrior Tsu’tey and taking Jake to the Tree of Souls. Their romance is far more cross-culture than cross-class, and as a movie—particularly as a 3D movie—Avatar is far more about attacking alien beasties and light-up vegetation than about Forbidden Love. There might be echoes of the former evident in the latter, but I think there would be few who’d argue that Jack’s noble death in the frozen deep is more moving than Jake’s rebirth as a giant blue alien, to live out his days guarding his adoptive planet’s valuable resource, the in-jokily named Unobtainium.
But the big question: is Titanic 3D worth your time, whether you’ve seen the 2D version or not? You know, I really think it is. Admittedly, it had been a good half-decade since last I saw it, so re-watching it was fun anyway, but little did I expect to be so utterly captivated anew by Jack, Rose and the romance of luxury ocean liners. Little details I had forgotten—Bill Paxton, as an ear-ringed modern-day treasure hunter; Victor Garber as Mr. Andrews, ship’s designer; Victor from The Young and the Restless as John Jacob Astor; the artful tousle of Di Caprio’s blonde locks as he draws naked Kate Winslet—all charmed me once again, as did Gloria Stewart as the aged Rose, and the wondrously rendered, if heartbreaking, sinking of the unsinkable ship.
I’ve been watching Downton Abbey scribe Julian Fellowes’s new mini-series dealing with this very same topic, and I have to say, Cameron’s version is not only populated with less horrid characters—um, note to Lady Manton: being upper class means showing class, you unfathomable, improbable bitch—but it also, even fifteen years later and replete as it is with much inaccuracy and anachronism, remains a more fitting memorial in this, the hundredth anniversary year of the tragedy, than any other fictionalized attempt before or since.
Yes, even considering that damned door.
Rachel Hyland is the Editor in Chief of Geek Speak Magazine.
