Titanic

With Titanic, Cameron finally achieved his benchmark in the field of the grandiose chick-flick, and its success then confirmed to him who really makes the decisions here about what’s worth a visit to the cinema.  Except that Titanic is also an insanely polished diamond in this regard, and it is almost irritating how clearly this can be seen in everything. Apart from the main love story, everything feels terribly mechanical, staged, stereotypical, and lifeless. Every character here has only one purpose: Rose's fiancé, for example, is almost comical in his villainy, always safely taking the worst side in every situation. Interestingly, the characters of Jack and Rose don't work on their own either, but thankfully they work perfectly safely together where it's surprisingly believable how Rose takes the initiative over Jack from a certain point onwards, to the point of motherly binding him to her bosom after their romp in the car leaves the boy so moved he's shaking. Unfortunately, the fateful night itself is terribly studio lit, the trick photography has aged a bit, and the whole space of the Titanic feels compromised to the point of theatricality. (11/06/2022)

Romantic drama that breaks hearts with every viewing, subtle jokes that, in the viewer's adulthood, reveal how complex Titanic truly is, and above all, Cameron's life's work. Only with a decent, soon to be twenty-year gap and the fading of the last remnants of the uncontrollable hype from the turn of the century, can the greatness of the entire spectacle be fully appreciated. Unsinkable, unforgettable, and practically flawless. And I have no doubt that it will continue to grow. (04/29/2006)

A über-film where everything is exactly in place and the process of communicative narration reaches almost absolute perfection. In the first half we get all the information and clues needed to make the second half one of the most breathtaking audiovisual passages in film history, not to mention the overwhelming emotional impact and mandatory narrative build-up. Cameron had many ways to depict the destruction of the Titanic, but he chose the best and most human one – through passionate love, taking us into the narrowest corners and the most luxurious suites of the dream ship, whose tragic fate we can follow in the end as her good and sincerely grieving friends. The sunken cinematic heart that set the rhythm of Hollywood cinema for years to come. (04/22/2011)

Perhaps the most famous disaster and romance movie. I don't think it's even possible not to know and like it. The older I get, the more I like it and the more I cry at it. Overall, Titanic stirs something greater in me. Maybe because I was born on April 15 :-)) And Leo and Kate were absolutely amazing... for me Titanic is a timeless movie. (02/11/2011)

I avoided Titanic like a demon a cross, but eventually it caught up with me... And oddly enough, it wasn't a head-on collision, but rather a light miss. The story is sweet and protracted, but as soon as the overgrown steamer began to sink, there was plenty to watch - I finally recognized it as Cameron's work. Surprisingly, I quite liked the unruly Leonardo DiCaprio, but I didn't know much about the bourgeois maiden Kate Winslet. It's just shabby love story that Cameron painted gold. In places the paint is sparse, so rust shines through. Definitely a classic seasonal hit... Edit 2012: beautiful proof of how often a person is wrong. To see this film as a kitsch love story actually hides the essence of what Titanic really is: the product of Cameron's massive fetishism and a metaphorical path to the coveted object that comes to life with the power of the film and allows the filmmaker to lead the viewer through its lost nooks. The director simply captures the feeling that still seizes me today when I look at a dead wreck in the depths - a burning longing to "give faded matter meaning and shape with a story". The result is a film full of contradictions, but above all a film extremely precisely constructed and economically told. All the pleasure from it comes from pure rationality. If Rose says: "It doesn't make sense, that's why I believe it," I say "Everything makes sense here, that's why I believe it (but I do not succumb :-))". (01/25/2004)