A few hours ago, the closing credits and the finishing notes of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ faded across the screen only to be replaced by that inevitable feeling of sadness and questions about the cruelty of existence.
I am aware that Titanic is one of those movies everyone should have seen some time in their life and just knows about, but of course being the cultured person I am, I have never seen it until just before. Actually, that’s not quite true: I remember my parents watching it when I was around eight, and not really understanding anything that was going on except the awkward sketching scene and also the fact that loads of people died at the end.
Seven years later, my interpretation is somewhat completely different.
I think everyone knows the basic plot of the movie (even I did!), but if not, basically there is a huge ship called the Titanic that hits an iceberg and pretty much everyone on it dies. And there’s a person called Rose who is of the upper class and a person called Jack who isn’t, and surprise surprise, they fall in love and to be honest I think it is one of the cutest love stories ever (not that I have seen many.)
And I suppose the fact that Leonardo diCaprio plays one of the main characters doesn’t really hurt.
I’ve seen him in other movies such as Romeo and Juliet and The Great Gatsby, and to be honest my only question is Why does he always have to be cast as the lead male who dies? Why?
I suppose a main idea from this movie is that of the fragility of life, and also the sheer arrogance mankind when everything comes to the worse, but another theme is that of love and what it can make someone do, for bringing out both the good and bad. Do I believe this story could happen in real life? To be honest, I’m not really sure. I mean, the whole people watching their loved ones dying because they placed their trust in others probably happens every single day without us realising it nor caring. But the relationship between Rose and Jack? (As a side note, whenever I think of Rose and Jack I still think Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness. Plus Rose looked so much like Amy Pond in the end scenes.) I like to think that they would’ve had to base the story from real life experiences to do with love. I do like to think that. But the truth is, this is a movie. And if a movie where the majority of characters are fictional can’t even have a happy ending, then what is going to happen in real life?
Something else that really got to me in this movie was how people think of themselves first and fore-mostly. I despise all the people for it, yet I guess if I was placed in a similar situation I would do the same. I would make sure me, my family and my friends were safe before thinking about anyone else in the slightest. And so would everyone, which leads to what happened near the end of the movie. All the security guards annoyed so much, especially how they wouldn’t let the third class passengers up to the deck even though the bottom was slowly becoming submerged. But they were just doing what they had to. They had to keep order or there would be more chaos than before.
You can’t put the blame of the ship sinking onto one person, but what also annoyed me was that the entire thing could have actually been avoided. Unlike earthquakes, tornados, and other natural events, if people actually stopped to consider the fact that maybe not everything would go exactly to plan, and prepare for so then none of it might’ve happened.
On a less serious note, there was a post I saw on Tumblr showing a picture of the iceberg with ‘The Show’ being the tip of the iceberg above the water, and ‘The Fandom’ being the much bigger bottom section below the surface. And the Titanic being the ship that crashes into the iceberg. I have often used the phrase ‘I will go down with this ship’ to describe many of my OTPs, but I guess I do start to get the enormity of those words. The captain never left the ship even though he knew both he and it were going to sink. And neither will I.
‘Winning that ticket, Rose, was the best thing that ever happened to me… it brought me to you. And I’m thankful for that, Rose. I’m thankful. You must do me this honor. Promise me you’ll survive. That you won’t give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless. Promise me now, Rose, and never let go of that promise.’
d r e a m 