The A posteriori le cinema series is an opportunity to celebrate the 7e art by revisiting key titles that celebrate important anniversaries.
In 1997, a film title was on everyone’s lips: titanic. The new film by James Cameron, shooting for seven months after years of research and technological advances undertaken by the director always eager to push the limits, was then the most expensive in the history of cinema. Knowing that the said ship had notoriously sunk despite its desire to be unsinkable, some believed in an announced sinking. Especially since the film starred two young performers who were certainly gifted, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, but who had never had to keep a blockbuster afloat. We know the rest. It’s 25 years this month.
In the present, an old lady is brought by helicopter to a ship whose crew hopes to find treasure — the Heart of the Ocean diamond — in the wreckage of the Titanic, which lies dormant below. Her name is Rose, and she was once promised by her mother to a rich but cruel man in order to replenish the family coffers. On board the “Dream Liner”, she met Jack, a penniless artist. Between them, it was mad passion, briefly…
“A woman’s heart is an ocean of secrets,” the 101-year-old whispers. But now you’ll know there was a man named Jack Dawson, and he saved me, any way a person can be saved. I don’t even have a single photo of him. It now only exists in my memory. »
And Rose remembers this crossing that changed her life forever…
Here, we note the presence of a recurring figure in James Cameron’s cinema, that of a fiercely independent woman who has survived incredible events and who, precisely, initially struggles to convince her interlocutors to take her seriously. One thinks here of Ellen Ripley, at the beginning ofAliens (Aliens, the return), and to Sarah Connor, at the beginning of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Terminator 2: Judgment Day).
An intimate show
Cameron also takes up a narrative process which recurs frequently in his work and which consists in opposing the spectacular and the intimate. In fact, many of his films develop human narratives on a small scale; small scale which, by contrast, makes the backdrop seem even more expansive and explosive. Ellen Ripley who develops a maternal attachment and protective instinct towards young Newt in Aliensthe ex Lindsey and Bud who bicker, then reconnect in Abyss (the abyss), Sarah Connor who reunites with her son after years of confinement in T2Harry who is trying to win back his wife Helen in True Lies (real lies)…
The story of Rose and Jack reflects the same bias. As figureheads, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio form one of the most emblematic couples of the 7e art, with Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (Gone with the wind), Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in casablanca…
This explaining that, Winslet and DiCaprio were immediately catapulted into the firmament of stars. Except that for the main interested parties, the shock was violent. In subsequent years, the premiere favored independent productions. As for the second, he confided to Chrissy Iley, of the newspaper The Observerhaving experienced a “post-distress syndrometitanic “: “The kind of glory that makes everyone want to talk to you, but no one wants to listen to you”, summed up the journalist.
The actor has recovered, we will understand.
Hollywood epic
Far, very far from meeting a fate comparable to that of the infamous ocean liner, titanic had crowds racing upon its release and carried most of the reviews. The influential Roger Ebert praised him on TV and gave him top marks in the Chicago Sun-Time “James Cameron’s 194-minute, $200 million film about this tragic journey is in line with great Hollywood epics. It’s perfectly designed, cleverly constructed, packed with strong interpretations, and it’s spellbinding. If its story sticks to traditional formulas for such movies, well, you’re not getting down to the most expensive film ever made in order to reinvent the wheel. »
In the pages of To have to, colleague Odile Tremblay went to a similar verdict. “Leading an army of 1,500 extras, Cameron knew how to polish every element of a real fresco,” she wrote, hailing “the most imposing and best completed Hollywood blockbuster of recent years. »
In the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan was one of the few to sink the film: “Just as the hubris of the stubborn shipbuilders who insisted that the Titanic was unsinkable led to an unprecedented maritime disaster, the hubris of Cameron unnecessarily nearly ruined this project. »
Never mind, titanic drowned the grumpy in its wake and arrived safely, raiding the Oscars: 11 statuettes out of 14 nominations, including best film and best direction, and of course, best song for my heart Will Go On, immortalized by Celine Dion. Note that at the base, Cameron did not want a theme song, but was seduced by the brilliance of the singer, while making the calculation that the prospect of a musical success would reassure the studios.
emotional truth
The film combines attention to detail and a desire to entertain using a proven recipe, which is the play Romeo and Juliet, of Shakespeare, Rose and Jack not being captives of their clans, but of their respective social classes. Transparent, Cameron has never hidden it, either from the fact that he was inspired by the film by A Night to Remember (Atlantic, latitude 41°), from which he took some sequences and replicas.
Speaking of replicas, the one that was the most parodied, because it immediately became part of popular culture, was improvised by the filmmaker. Indeed, the “I am the king of the world!” » (« I’m the king of the world! ), launched by Jack, was suggested by Cameron, much to DiCaprio’s displeasure. DiCaprio who, for the anecdote, almost lost the role, having first refused, then changed his mind, to submit to a camera test in the presence of Winslet, hired before him.
Historically, the reconstruction and the various developments remain impressive, if not always true. But as James Cameron explained to host Charlie Rose at the time, his goal was to create “emotional truth” and a “metaphor for the end of the world”.
However, when the hour of Armageddon strikes, represented by the fatal iceberg, the rich are entitled to the lifeboats on the bridge, while the poor drink the cup on the lower floors. The social commentary is hardly subtle, but who could question its accuracy, 25 years later, in the midst of a climate emergency?
Equal to himself, James Cameron is about to unveil another ambitious bet: the sequel toAvatarallocated a pharaonic budget, and whose original had dethroned titanic as the highest-grossing film of all time. Again, there are fortune tellers to predict failure, but history has proven it is risky to bet against James Cameron. What’s more, the director finds Kate Winslet for the occasion: we bet that it will bring him luck.
The film titanic is available in VOD on most platforms.