This past Saturday I relented and picked up the widescreen edition of James Cameron's Titanic on VHS. I figure I'll give it away once a DVD version sees the light of day.

I've seen Titanic three times now: once upon its release in a small cinema with nice sound; the second time at Ontario Place's IMAX theatre, where it was presented in a special 70mm print--the best way to see this David Lean-lite epic; and thirdly, last Saturday evening, as I hunkered down before the tube to watch the THX'd videocassette. Cameron calls VHS "crap-vision," and no wonder: although this is the best the format has ever looked to me, on Titanic strong blues smeared, there were occassional drop-outs, and there was an overall softness to the image I'm not accustomed to since converting to DVD. The sound was good: well-recorded VHS hi-fi can rival CD sound.

*September 10, 1999|Okay, so now I've seen the DVD (thanks, Paramount!), and it's gorgeous. While "VHS hi-fi can rival CD sound," it sure can't hold a candle to well-mixed Dolby Digital 5.1! Titanic ranks among the very best non-anamorphic DVDs out there; its transfer was downconverted from an HDTV master, unlike last year's analogue tape and LD versions. The boat, the water, Kate Winslet... they've never seemed so present. (In fact, the DVD bests the muted 70MM print I saw in terms of colour.) The opening mountain logo appears a little shoddy, for some reason, and banding occurs when beams of light eminate from the underwater Mir explorers, but that the remainder of this (2.35:1 letterboxed) presentation is so stunning is shocking, given the film's running time. (At 194 minutes, Titanic takes up nearly every millimetre of a dual-layer disc.) The DD 5.1 audio track is an exemplary demonstration of the film's Oscar-winning sound design, particularly during the fiddle and jig number where Jack and Rose hoof it up in steerage, and in any sequence involving the boiler room. (Also note the terrific sidewall imaging when old Rose's helicopter is on its way to the carrier.) I was a little disappointed by the 4-minute trailer, which is in 5.1 but nevertheless sounded more dynamic in moviehouses. Though the animated menus are lovely, it's difficult to discern which piece of voiceover has been layered in from old Rose's narration. IMAGE: A AUDIO: A+ (trailer excepted)

Enough about the goddamn tape; what about the experience of watching Titanic at home? This is the first time I've really felt the movie's length, all 194 minutes of it. Perhaps it was the tape-switch two-thirds in that reinforced its mammoth running time. Or, perhaps, it was my having seen it just a month-and-a-half ago at Ontario Place. The widescreen framing, thankfully, lends it a theatrical feel (even though the image was the size of an envelope); I tried not to pay attention to the lamps or the coffee table or the fireplace, focusing instead on the tried-and-true story, a decidedly old-fashioned tale that gets the twelve year old girl inside me every time. (I'll let her out once the authorities cut a deal.)

Titanic is rather blatant in its depiction of class struggle, but ultimately I think it's about more than just the fact that poor people were screwed at the beginning of the century. Poor people are screwed these days, too. Poor people, in fact, will always be screwed, so let's not look to Titanic for social commentary from the richer-than-God Cameron. The film is an extension of Cameron's nuclear fears: a boat the size of a small power plant fails in the face of human stupidity. It is deeply strange that a man so paranoid of technology relies on special effects--don't build Terminator robots, you'll have wars; don't go cluttering up the sea with submarines and the like, or you'll have wars. And so on.

Titanic is a pretty terrified movie--various characters call the ship unsinkable at regular intervals. It's as if Cameron just wanted to make a three-hour "I told you so." At the same time, one can't even begin to fathom the amount of digital trickery that went into finishing the film. Cameron has bragged in the past of the potential to one day machine-tool an actor who would live in a hard drive and perform exactly how the director would like, resulting in an end to the days of multiple takes and temper tantrums--and practically the only organic element left in movies today: the movie star. Cameron has been threatening to start one project for a while now that would consist of human-looking CGI characters, Avatar. (Imagine a Toy Story of superior realism.)

Meet James Cameron and his self-fulfilling prophecy.

At any rate, Titanic is a wonderful movie. It's the first time I--and many others like me--have felt a kinship with "Tiger Beat" readers. If anything, I hope its success will inspire many to seek out DiCaprio's and Winslet's best films, What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and Jude, respectively. Both are darker motion pictures than Titanic, showcasing talent and range that Titanic only hints at.

Why, oh why, have I spent a total of 582 minutes of my life watching Titanic? This is a question I cannot answer--I'm sure studios cannot, either, but that hasn't stopped them from trying. Their most common response might be: the poster.

You walk into your local multiplex for some relief from the summer heat. You're not in the mood for Titanic, which is still playing, and probably will be into the millennium, but you need a fix: you need something to remind you that your heart will go on, damn it! So you stare at the marquee and see a bunch of familiar titles, and then you consult the line up of "Now Playing" posters. Here's what you see:

WOW! Two brooding people holding each other with cool filler beneath their airbrushed faces. I'll bet that movie's just like Titanic!

A studio can't be faulted for a little subliminal advertising. After all, Batman inspired a number of "symbol" campaigns, such as Dick Tracy's iconic one-sheets. But there is no denying the studios will advertise many a big movie now as a brand of romantic escape (ever see the Armageddon TV campaign?); I'm just glad that James Cameron proved once and for all you can kill off a movie's hero and still reap financial rewards at the box office. (That's why Deep Impact got to end the way it did, and from the looks of things, we're in store for a gloriously unhappy closer with What Dreams May Come, whose ending has been reshot several times, incidentally.)

If, for whatever reason, you haven't seen Titanic yet, I've probably ruined it for you. All cynicism aside, I revelled in its excesses; this is grandiose pop, a spectacle that will no doubt unfurl before you to a chorus of cheers and tear-soaked Kleenexes. Even on my 29" set, it earned resigned applause.