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Along with "Brief Encounter", this picture epitomises perhaps the most classic genre of British film: the tearjerker that invokes the most powerful of emotions by means of understatement and restraint. It's an old favourite of the BBC, who trot it out at regular intervals... but somehow it gets me to watch it every time. And every time -- knowing the film, knowing the history, knowing the legend of hubris and disaster entwined around the very name "Titanic", until the word has lost all connotations of size and evokes only the iceberg and the deadly sea -- every time, I find myself willing hopelessly that things can change. Waiting, with heart in mouth, for the warning to be taken or help to arrive, as if any of my wishing could make it so. The iron grip of events is overwhelming.
One of the most impressive things about this film is the almost flawless way in which large amounts of information are conveyed -- and vast numbers of characters introduced -- without any sense of strain or visible exposition. The Titanic's colossal size and provisioning requirements, her status as a national icon of pride, the proportions and variety of her passenger list, all are mentioned naturally and concisely within the first few minutes; the characters on the whole are not established by name, but only by role -- the card sharp, the Polish emigrant girl, the band leader, the man who goes down to his cabin to get drunk -- which in practice is probably a wise choice. We wouldn't remember the names if they were given (various ship's officers get addressed by name, and frankly I didn't remember most of those).
Another very powerful choice is the decision not to manufacture villains. It would have been easy to demonise characters individually or collectively in order to create an easy hate target for the audience: but it would have been a cheap gesture. People were stupid or hidebound that night; people panicked, or failed to understand. But there was no deliberate malice, and that is the tragedy of it. There were individual moments of nobility and unbearable courage, just as there were acts of blindness and seeming petty motivation, and none of them were the perquisite of any particular group.
As a piece of documentary representation, this is in fact remarkably accurate. The central linking role of Second Officer Lightoller has been deliberately amalgamated out of incidents involving several different officers, and other details -- including the launching ceremony -- invented for the purposes of the film, while the depiction of the ship's final plunge is now known to have been erroneous: but a large proportion of events incorporated into the screenplay are based on meticulous research.
But the great art of this film lies in its use of tiny, effective details to conjure atmosphere or to make a point. A toy pig grabbed: a jewellery-box abandoned. A wry line of dialogue: "Anyone who feels like it can pray -- or you can all come and have a cup of tea". A lapping rim of black-scummed water at the foot of the companionway. A hand silently slipping from its death-grip on an upturned keel...
Within its emotional compass, the picture seldom or never puts a foot wrong. Every point is made quietly, by implication, not hammered into the audience, and is all the more telling for that. The mood shifts very gradually from the humour and optimistic warmth of the voyage opening to the clawing terror of the ship's last moments and the icy drained dark of the night; the pacing is almost perfect. The film need not be a moment longer, and could scarcely last a moment less. It draws upon the greatest traditions of British cinema -- the documentary, the intelligent script, the ensemble cast, the emotional intensity -- and in many ways encapsulates them all.
score 10/10
Igenlode Wordsmith 1 September 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1722737/ |
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20-2-2021 00:55:06