TITANIC (1997) **** It's nothing short of a religious paradox that a subculture so morally bereft and artistically exhausted and worshipful of nothing but capital...that Hollywood in the late 20th century could produce such a monumental and poetic testimony to love. The visuals are incredible, the textures and shapes and contrasts, the epic scale of mighty ship and sense of height involved throughout. The blue shading is beyond the potentialities of film; the purples, the rich turqoise, the aquas. Beyond that it must also be one of the greatest films in history for blind people, with the groaning engines and the splintering planks, running of feet along the deck, the rush of the water, the fireworks, the rollicking rhythm of a party in third class. The musical cards are beautiful and diverse, revealed spontaneously with a crazy gypsy genius. There's a fair share of Hollywood manipulation sure, but in circumstances of such grandeur these characteristics can only be considered additional virtues. Leonardo DiCaprio is a red-blooded American artist with an extraordinary sense of situational ethics who lives in the heartland of the garden of catalysis. Kate Winslet is nothing less than an existential heroine for the ages-flapping her butterfly wings with Promethean determination against the gravity of a fate more powerful than ten thousand suns. In a film shot on a boat what could happen when the magnetic poles of two such American characters finally touch and spark? Only one thing is possible: they do it in the backseat of a car. James Cameron gives us way too many memorable shots: Victor Garber as the ship's builder striding through the festive dining room, the only man on board aware that the ship is going down....Winslet's materialistic mother silently watching the Titanic go under from her seat on a lifeboat, she can only be wondering what kind of person she is that her daughter would rather go down with the ship than share her safety. Several of the secondary characters are perfect: Garber, Winslet's fiancee' Billy Zane is one of the biggest assholes in history-I know that I would have killed him; Jonathan Evans-Jones the bandleader. Bewitched's Dr. Bombay (Bernard Fox) may be the most sensible and philosophical of them all. As the boat goes under he refuses a life vest, but says he'll take a brandy.
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