>
>Overall, it is a stunning, beautiful, and educationally significant
> film … despite some egregious errors of production/directiion
> judgment.
>
I certainly agree that TITANIC is well worth seeing and, in many ways, is a
very impressive film. I must quibble with Lou on a couple of points, however.

1. Director James Cameron, probably wisely, did not want to make a
“docudrama” and a lot of good history is left out. Kind of funny when you
think about it – what story has more REAL drama than the fate of the
Titanic. Two things bugged me. First, there was not ONE mention of the
CALIFORNIAN – a ship that probably could have been standing by before
Titanic went down had luck been kinder. Carpathian is mentioned but nobody
notes that had it not arrived when it did, those lifeboats might well have
sailed off and casualties been 100%. Even in a lifeboat, hypothermia will
kill quickly.

2. The script was well acted, although not inspired. The vocabulary was NOT,
however, by any stretch of the imagination, true to the spirit of the
Edwardian age. The characters’ dialog sounds as though it comes from a
1990’s TV drama. Cameron obviously did this intentionally. I think he could
have been true to the period without driving away the audiance. Perhaps I am
wrong. Furthermore, although the ship’s “Britishness” is never hidden,
almost all of the major characters are American. One might have concluded
that it was the SS United States that hit the berg.

3. I don’t think the digital age is quite here yet. The limitiations
inherent in digital special effects were never better shown than in Titanic.
They were good, mind you, and far superior to the klutzy efforts in many
older war movies, but when they had wide angle scenes of Titanic cutting
through the Atlantic, I could tell it wasn’t “real.” (Computer graphics are
something I’ve beeing futzing with for a decade: maybe other viewers would
be more charitable.) The special effects that WERE impressive were
traditional. Cameron built a 750 foot model of the Titanic that served as an
numbing backdrop to the scenes of the ship’s sinking. In addition, the
attention given to recreating the interior shots are extremely impressive
and, as I understand it, incredibly expensive. Technically these scenes
could have been done 30 years ago – nobody had the money to try it.

That said, definite thumbs up.
Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930