Titanic Film Review Assignment Sample

Introduction to Titanic Film Review

Titanic is an epic film released in 1997 worldwide with the main theme being romance and tragedy. Itwas written and directed by James Cameroon. James Cameron is known for his genuine film plot and story. The movie had both fictional and historical aspect as it was inspired by the sinking of the ship, RMS Titanic. Titanic stars Lionardo Di Caprio and Actress Kate Winslet as people from different social class who met and fell in love while onboard the ship (Bygre, 2017). With its release in the year 1997, it was a big success, being both in the categories of character and commercial films and received critical acclamation, and was nominated for 14 academy awards (Oscars)and won 11. With the worldwide gross earnings of $1.84 b, it was the first film to reach the billion dollar mark, and remained highest grousing film (inflation adjusted) until Cameroon’s Avatar passed it in 2010. It was the most expensive film of its time with a budget of $200 m, co-produced by 20^th century fox and paramount pictures (Giardina, 2018).

The Acting and Acting Styles

The major actors in titanic were Vicario, a known character artist, Kate Winslet, and Billy Zane. Dicaprio Played a poor boy from a lower social class having their own culture, other actors were able to fit into their roles adapting to the needs of the script (Goodykoontz& Jacobs, 2011). He turns to a realism acting technique to play this character. Realism is the style of acting which appears to be realistic rather than artificial to the viewer. Numerous actors have played the role of a poor social class boy who had a love belonging to a higher class but Dicpaprio puts a stamp on this character which has grown tobecame a prototype for this kind of role. Winslet could also be defined as a character actor with her role in sense and sensibility, and with the role of Rose Dawson, she acquired a star status. Winslet can be said as a wild card actor who has a familiarity with realism since her acting career started.

Wild card actor is one two is a star and is difficult to put into a certain character role, an actor who can play a wide variety of roles. She played a phenomenal role as Rose who is helpless as she was being forced to marry a complex man, which made her a kind of negative character in the movie. Billy Zane is also characterized as a character artist, and can play any role be it a television series or a movie.Zane is also a character actor who had used style acting in this role of Caledon (Giardina, 2018). Character actors are said to be actors who can play a wide variety of roles and are often supporting actors to main lead. However, this movie proved this statement wrong as all the lead actors were actually character actors (Giardina, 2018).Thus, being a commercially successful film, the lead actors selected were basically the character artists who were not famous enough to run the movie on their own.

Special Effects and Lighting Techniques

James Cameroon is a director who is a specialist and enthusiast in special effects which are known to be the demand of the film. As it has been seen in Aliens (1986), he was keen on special effects even when the technology was not there much enough as seen in Piranha (1981), terminator (1984) and Avataar (2009), his special effect enthusiasm can be known by the fact that Avataar could have been released in 1999 but he waited for 10 years to develop the technology simply because the technology was not good enough for Cameroon’s concept of the movie (Elvy, 2019). The ground breaking special effects of titanic was because of the multiple new technologies which were not used hitherto and were developed to meet the needs of the film. The cameras were used for the flyby shots of the ship. Computer generated imaging was used to make the film more realistic which was seen in the raining scene in the aftermath of the ship hitting the iceberg. Extensive special effects were used for the waters surrounding the ship, because its appearance has to constantly vary.

Another special effect technique was mini models which Cameroon invented by his own to minimize the cost of titanic, Cameroon created small scale models to shoot for the scenes which were not possible in the original situations to mimic the actual situations and these models were a successful replacements of the original situations (Courtenay, n.d.) helped by different camera angles and close shots. Green screen technique acted as a background throughout the movie as to reduce the budget (Beonair, n.d.). Green screen shows can be seen in major scenes where Kate and her friends were filmed in a first class lounge, departure time when pedestrians were saying good byes and the million dollars shot on a turntable with green screen deposited later on the edge of the ship (Adel, 2015).The story is narrated in a non-linear fashion which means events didn’t take place in chronological order. Film leaps from one scene to the next, with Rose being young on the titanic to the scene when she is old and telling her story to the crew, this order made the plot of very interesting and when rose started to cry this scene was even more emotional and dramatic. It is estimated that if this film would have followed chronology of events, this would not have been that much interesting. This made the plot more suspenseful and interesting.

Categories and Functions of Sounds

Dialogue in a movie is a part where actors are seen interacting with each other verbally. It seems that the actors are speaking words in person, it is perfectly aligned with their lips but it’s not recorded during the acting time, sound effects in a movie are inserted to make the movie more realistic, as it can be seen in the movie where titanic was breaking into two parts, the sound was extremely realistic. The sound of the wood floor breaking, shattering of the glasses, and the sound of the ship sinking have made the scene so real. As the ship was sinking, a background score was heard, score is a music which is written exclusively for a film, though not always. The scene where the ship was sinking shows a fear of the unknown. The movie is a drama, a drama keeps the suspense altogether, and the scene where Jack tells Rose not to let go off hand, just does that. By music, it can be told that something wrong is there, and more complex sounds can even predict accuracy of the situation. The effects of the sinking scene were very realistic; the sound collaborated with the special effects made the scenes of water coming into the ship, people jumping from ship to save themselves from a sure death.

These sound effects if removed from the movie, the scenes will not look as much believable as they are now. Special effects and the sound makes movie more real. The movie very cleverly used both the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. The band was playing the song and simultaneously the ship was sinking with eerie sound. There are evidences that all the categories of sound have been used in the movie. The orchestrated music displayed different plots of the movie, be it romantic or during the tragedy, the sounds gave a sense of warmth and emotion to the audience. There was some amount of sound impact that established the movie theme also, the movie was inspired by titanic incident, that time there were emotions of chaos, animosity and the feeling of this emotion was put in the title theme and sounds with aggressive dialogues (Marlock, 2015).

Conclusion on Titanic Film Review

The film won 11 Oscars and was directed by a director who has always made movies in revolutionary in some field or other. Titanic is no disastrous movie, which is made by a general formula and be goosed by a big technological inputs, rather technology has been invented and innovated just to suit the plot and needs of the movie and this made the director revolutionary that nowhere in the film he was seen boasting only of the sound effects or the special or visual effects. It is a prototype score of what directors can accomplish. The film examines personal and philosophical depths of the plot of the story usually not found in the period scale movies, which are below their restraint and pyrotechniques, with nothing at the base of the films. Titanic was a special blend of the state of the art special effects put around a central theme and the story. The story is no soulless junk of the technology or wizardry but a complex and emotional tale that presented both man’s destructive egotism and its humble patience. There were a lot of amazing factors which were enough for a viewer for a jaw dropping expression spanning from the catastrophe which was purely technology and sound created to the storyline which was dramatic and very well cinematographed.

References for Titanic Film Review

Adel, M. (2015). Titanic: ground breaking special effects. Retrieved from https://prezi.com/pajgfepzsyme/titanic-special-effects/

Beonair.com (n.d.) how was the titanic filmed? Retrieved from https://beonair.com/how-was-the-titanic-filmed

Bygre, D. (2017) 'Titanic': thr's 1997 Review. Retrieved from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/titanic-review-1997-movie-1069238

Carlson, D. (2012). James Cameron and ‘myth busters’ prove that Jack had to die. Retrieved from https://www.inquisitr.com/331373/james-cameron-and-mythbusters-prove-that-jack-had-to-die/#YXWBT53rvbHBbqfy.99

Courtenay, J. (n.d.) Filming with green screen: everything you need to know. Retrieved from https://infocusfilmschool.com/filming-green-screen-guide/

Levy, C. (2019). Why the first avatar took so long to make. Retrieved from https://screenrant.com/avatar-movie-development-long-reason/

Giardina, C. (2018). 'Titanic' Cinematographer Reveals Secrets Behind Jack and Rose's Iconic Kiss Scene. Retrived from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/titanic-cinematographer-reveals-secrets-behind-jack-roses-iconic-kiss-scene-1084350

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