Revamp of classic film adds depth without detracting from story
Earlier this year, in my first issue of Simpson’s Cinema, I touched upon a recent trend that is taking the movie industry by storm: releasing classic movies in 3-D. This idea of adding another dimension of visual depth has nothing more than a broken promise, as shown with the classic Disney films rereleased with 3-D effects.
Nearly 15 years after its original release, Cameron brings back the RMS Titanic from its oceanic depths to send it on a different voyage by means of heightening the artistic value by adding 3-D. In doing so, he demonstrates that how this conversion from 2-D to 3-D can be realized with the appropriate amount of skill and determination.
First, let’s take a walk down memory lane and recall the story that won audiences over in 1997. It was a tale of romance that crossed class boundaries, a tale of the rich who want to wish to keep the other “99 percent” in their place.
Leonardo DiCaprio is the young steerage passenger Jack Dawson who meets Rose DeWitt Bukater, played by the great Kate Winslet), a child of privilege arranged to be married to an affluent creep (Billy Zane) to preserve her family’s standing. The meeting between one of our favorite on-screen relationships didn’t happen in the typical cutesy fashion: Rose contemplates suicide by jumping off the back of the ship to escape her arranged marriage, but Jack, the artistic youth, talks her back over the railing.
This romantic screenplay may not have won over the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (it was for 11 Oscars, but not for screenplay), but it certainly won audiences over, due to the fact that their romance is presented as a matter of life and death.
But anyone who has seen the movie would know that the second half of “Titanic” is the most memorable, from the catastrophic sinking of the RMS Titanic to the heartbreaking ending that left audiences in tears. This is where the film lapsed into disaster movie territory and the visuals really took over the film, presenting a splendidly staged set of events that really helped the film take its place in history.
The added visual depth changes the experience of viewing the film, but doesn’t enhance or detract from the nostalgic revisiting the film’s young lead actors in their prime. This additional effect does nothing to make the story any more enjoyable than it was 15 years ago. It’s still the same hackneyed, melodramatic story, along with the nuanced dialogue and cliched characters.
However, in terms of enhancing the film’s already glorious spectacle, Cameron manages to make the images sharper and eliminate the common 3-D annoyance of feeling like you are watching the movie with sunglasses rather than 3-D glasses.
The grandeur of the RMS Titanic can be more easily felt with the added dimension, most noticeably through the sequences where the cinematography provides a visual tour of the inside of the ship. For example, the grand staircase scene where the orchestra is performing “The Blue Danube” is so intense that the audience feels like they moving among the many passengers on the ship.
It’s also during the moments of peril, such as Rose’s attempt at jumping overboard, that Cameron demonstrates his mastery and consideration with 3-D imagery. The climatic sequence where the ship hits the iceberg and the passengers go into sheer panic is more sumptuous to view through the 3-D glasses. All those catastrophic moments which occur afterward (the ship sinking and splitting in half, the blasts of water entering the interior) are all more dramatic in 3-D as audiences witness the horror of passengers falling to their doom.
By being revamped for modern moviegoers, “Titanic 3-D” has become comparable to Cameron’s other award worthy project “Avatar,” as both movies display excellent visuals and a not-so-excellent story. The story may have been an hour too long, but Cameron’s historical interest in the sinking of the actual Titanic and his visual artistry are the key factors that helped “Titanic” thrive.