titanic movie analysis essay

Film Analysis of “Titanic” by James Cameron

Introduction, auteur theory and titanic, production techniques in titanic, the film and society.

Titanic (1997) is an epic film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. Titanic is an epic film that shows a love story in a setting of a great disaster. The story involves a seventeen-year-old Rose who falls in love with Jack, who rescues her. The whole story takes place on board the famous ship. The movie describes Rose’s penniless mother forcing her daughter into a marriage with a rich, supercilious snob Cal. Devastated, Rose attempts suicide and is saved by Jack, who is a traveling artist. Later on, Rose and Jack fall in love, despite being from very different social classes. Rose decides to leave Cal and gets together with Jack, and right at that time, the Titanic crashes into an iceberg. The plot then turns into Rose and Jack’s attempts to save themselves from a sinking ship. Overall, Titanic is a cultural phenomenon and will be further analyzed through the auteur theory. Its production techniques and the movie’s connection with society will be discussed over the course of this essay as well.

Auteur theory is a film theory that states that the director is the author of a film and, therefore, their intentions are what shape the film’s narrative. Auteur theory is a way of analyzing films that focuses on the role of the director in shaping all aspects of a film (Morrison, 2018). This includes what the movie looks like, who plays which roles, and how it ends. To some, it is an ultimate goal to achieve total control over every detail in their movies.

James Cameron is an ultimate example of an auteur director, thus making Titanic a perfect film to analyze through the lens of this theory. Cameron not only directed but also wrote the screenplay, produced, and even co-edited Titanic . The three components of auteur theory are technical competence, different personality, and interior meaning (Morrison, 2018). All three components in Titanic fully demonstrate Cameron’s directing talent.

In terms of technical competence, the film is ahead of its time. The special effects from 1997 can match contemporary easily. The ship is demonstrated in great detail and is nearly a perfect copy of the actual ship. That is one of Cameron’s distinctive touches, that attention to detail. The film is one of the most expensive movies ever made. The director not only wrote the screenplay but also helped with montage and editing, as well as casting choices.

Regarding distinguishable personality, Titanic is a historical fiction where fictional characters cross paths with real ones. It is a “Romeo and Juliette” story on the Titanic, and it works because it makes the storyline relatable. The plot has seven fictional characters, and the rest are real people, demonstrating the incredible amount of historical research done for that movie. The film can relate to the modern audience because of the simplicity of the love story in it. James Cameron is famous for this hands-on approach, and Titanic is a testament to his genius. Auteurs make films that have many layers of hidden meaning. Titanic’s basic layer of meaning is that it is a tragic love story. However, when digging deeper, one can see the social drama and tragedy, explore examples of toxic relationships and discover the life purpose of the heroine. The film’s biggest theme is a social drama, showing classism and gender inequality.

There is a number of specific techniques and design elements employed in the film as they contribute to the overarching narrative and theme of the film. They include elements of mise-en-scène (e.g., lighting, sound, the composition of the frame, costuming, etc.) and editing (e.g., cuts and transitions, shots used, angles, etc.).

The production design of Titanic is incredibly specific and accurate to the time; all the little nuances and touches turn the title character, a ship, into an actual one that the audience cares about. In every other scene, the shot demonstrates the ship, which artfully grabs the viewer’s attention to the details of the Titanic. The composition of the frame also reveals the details in the shot. Especially the moment when Rose is presented with a diamond by Cal, and the shot shows them reflected in the mirror, slowly zooming in. The scene shows how desperate and trapped Rose looks, and the exact opposite for Cal. It is a relatively simple shot, but it makes the storytelling incredibly impactful, demonstrating a clear difference and incompatibility between the characters.

Another design element that contributes to the narrative in Titanic is costume design. At the beginning of the scene, Rose is dressed very similarly to her mother. The heroine has agreed to marry for money and is following a path chosen for her. Throughout the movie, her dresses change and become simpler. When Rose and Jack finally get together, she wears a very simple grey dress, seemingly showing her agreement to become a part of his social status (which is much lower than hers). When Rose is rescued, she wears that simple dress and a man’s coat; she is completely stripped of anything that might identify her class. This shows that the heroine has chosen a path for herself to move forward, and she departs from her old life.

The shots and transitions in the sinking scene demonstrate Cameron at his finest. The director shows how every single detail of the entourage on the ship is destroyed. It is followed by the close of the characters, and their emotions make the scene more powerful. Moreover, the story turns the ship from a simple exterior into a character of the film. In the scene where the head engineer apologizes to the main characters, the shot is angled to demonstrate that the boat is sinking. The apology is made for not building a stronger ship, which gives the boat a voice, thus turning it into a character. It is not the engineer apologizing; it is the ship apologizing, which makes the sinking scene much more powerful.

Titanic presents three main issues: classism, sex, and gender inequality. The main characters are from different social classes, which causes the majority of problems. Throughout the story, Titanic skillfully demonstrates classism, where characters from different classes are treated very differently. When saving of upper-class passengers was extremely different from the lower-class ones, to the point where it caused the loss of many lives. Another social problem in the film is gender inequality, where Rose is not allowed to make her own choices and is patronized by Cal. The film raises very deep social questions that are still relevant today.

James Cameron is an example of an auteur director; he directed, wrote the screenplay, produced, and even co-edited Titanic . This gave him an opportunity to fully control the filmmaking process resulting in a masterpiece. One of Cameron’s unique touches is omnipresent attention to detail, which makes the film stand out. The film uses visualization and design techniques that emphasize the characters’ journey. Titanic is a social phenomenon that demonstrates the highest skills in acting and directing and presents contemporary social problems that did not lose their relevance even now.

Morrison, J. (2018). Auteur theory and my son John . Bloomsbury.

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Like a great iron Sphinx on the ocean floor, the Titanic faces still toward the West, interrupted forever on its only voyage. We see it in the opening shots of “Titanic,” encrusted with the silt of 85 years; a remote-controlled TV camera snakes its way inside, down corridors and through doorways, showing us staterooms built for millionaires and inherited by crustaceans.

These shots strike precisely the right note; the ship calls from its grave for its story to be told, and if the story is made of showbiz and hype, smoke and mirrors--well, so was the Titanic. She was “the largest moving work of man in all history,” a character boasts, neatly dismissing the Pyramids and the Great Wall. There is a shot of her, early in the film, sweeping majestically beneath the camera from bow to stern, nearly 900 feet long and “unsinkable,” it was claimed, until an iceberg made an irrefutable reply.

James Cameron's 194-minute, $200 million film of the tragic voyage is in the tradition of the great Hollywood epics. It is flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted and spellbinding. If its story stays well within the traditional formulas for such pictures, well, you don't choose the most expensive film ever made as your opportunity to reinvent the wheel.

We know before the movie begins that certain things must happen. We must see the Titanic sail and sink, and be convinced we are looking at a real ship. There must be a human story--probably a romance--involving a few of the passengers. There must be vignettes involving some of the rest and a subplot involving the arrogance and pride of the ship's builders--and perhaps also their courage and dignity. And there must be a reenactment of the ship's terrible death throes; it took two and a half hours to sink, so that everyone aboard had time to know what was happening, and to consider their actions.

All of those elements are present in Cameron's “Titanic,” weighted and balanced like ballast, so that the film always seems in proportion. The ship was made out of models (large and small), visual effects and computer animation. You know intellectually that you're not looking at a real ocean liner--but the illusion is convincing and seamless. The special effects don't call inappropriate attention to themselves but get the job done.

The human story involves an 17-year-old woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater ( Kate Winslet ) who is sailing to what she sees as her own personal doom: She has been forced by her penniless mother to become engaged to marry a rich, supercilious snob named Cal Hockley ( Billy Zane ), and so bitterly does she hate this prospect that she tries to kill herself by jumping from the ship. She is saved by Jack Dawson ( Leonardo DiCaprio ), a brash kid from steerage, and of course they will fall in love during the brief time left to them.

The screenplay tells their story in a way that unobtrusively shows off the ship. Jack is invited to join Rose's party at dinner in the first class dining room, and later, fleeing from Cal's manservant, Lovejoy ( David Warner ), they find themselves first in the awesome engine room, with pistons as tall as churches, and then at a rousing Irish dance in the crowded steerage. (At one point Rose gives Lovejoy the finger; did young ladies do that in 1912?) Their exploration is intercut with scenes from the command deck, where the captain ( Bernard Hill ) consults with Andrews ( Victor Garber ), the ship's designer and Ismay ( Jonathan Hyde ), the White Star Line's managing director.

Ismay wants the ship to break the trans-Atlantic speed record. He is warned that icebergs may have floated into the hazardous northern crossing but is scornful of danger. The Titanic can easily break the speed record but is too massive to turn quickly at high speed; there is an agonizing sequence that almost seems to play in slow motion, as the ship strains and shudders to turn away from an iceberg in its path--and fails.

We understand exactly what is happening at that moment because of an ingenious story technique by Cameron, who frames and explains the entire voyage in a modern story. The opening shots of the real Titanic, we are told, are obtained during an expedition led by Brock Lovett ( Bill Paxton ), an undersea explorer. He seeks precious jewels but finds a nude drawing of a young girl. Meanwhile, an ancient woman sees the drawing on TV and recognizes herself. This is Rose (Gloria Stuart), still alive at 101. She visits Paxton and shares her memories (“I can still smell the fresh paint”). And he shows her video scenes from his explorations, including a computer simulation of the Titanic's last hours--which doubles as a briefing for the audience. By the time the ship sinks, we already know what is happening and why, and the story can focus on the characters while we effortlessly follow the stages of the Titanic's sinking.

Movies like this are not merely difficult to make at all, but almost impossible to make well. The technical difficulties are so daunting that it's a wonder when the filmmakers are also able to bring the drama and history into proportion. I found myself convinced by both the story and the saga. The setup of the love story is fairly routine, but the payoff--how everyone behaves as the ship is sinking--is wonderfully written, as passengers are forced to make impossible choices. Even the villain, played by Zane, reveals a human element at a crucial moment (despite everything, damn it all, he does love the girl).

The image from the Titanic that has haunted me, ever since I first read the story of the great ship, involves the moments right after it sank. The night sea was quiet enough so that cries for help carried easily across the water to the lifeboats, which drew prudently away. Still dressed up in the latest fashions, hundreds froze and drowned. What an extraordinary position to find yourself in after spending all that money for a ticket on an unsinkable ship.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Titanic (1997)

Rated PG-13 For Shipwreck Scenes, Mild Language and Sexuality

194 minutes

Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson

Kate Winslet as Rose Dewitt Bukater

Bill Paxton as Brock Lovett

Kathy Bates as Molly Brown

Billy Zane as Cal Hockley

Written and Directed by

• James Cameron

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• Titanic Summary

The film opens with images of the Titanic ’s departure from Southampton in April, 1912. In the present day, treasure hunter Brock Lovett leads a team of submersibles down into the Titanic’s wreck. He finds a safe containing a drawing of a nude woman wearing a necklace he is seeking, called “the Heart of the Ocean.” Brock receives a phone call from a 101-year old woman claiming to be the subject of the drawing, and he flies her out to his research vessel to hear her story.

Named Rose Dewitt Bukater, she explains to Brock and his team that she had boarded the Titanic in Southampton with her fiancé, Cal Hockley , and her mother Ruth. Thus begins the flashback which will be most of the film's narrative. We see Jack Dawson , the penniless artist with whom she will soon fall in love, winning tickets for the Titanic 's voyage in a lucky round of poker in a nearby pub, and he boards the ship at the last minute. Rose describes the Titanic as “slave ship,” given how suffocated and unhappy she feels as Cal’s wife-to-be. After the ship departs from the harbor, Jack and his friend Fabrizio ecstatically rejoice at the ship’s bow. Rose dines in first class with other members of the upper crust, including Molly Brown , the shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, and White Star Line executive J. Bruce Ismay. Rose especially resents her mother and Cal’s controlling natures, and Ismay’s arrogance when describing the Titanic .

That night, Rose is about to commit suicide by hurling herself from the ship’s stern, when Jack happens upon her and convinces her to step back over the railing by saying he will jump in after her. White Star Line officials initially think Jack has attacked her, but Rose improvises a lie to exonerate Jack and conceal the motives behind her own behavior. Rose convinces Cal to invite Jack to dinner the following night. The next day, Rose strolls the deck with Jack, thanking him for his discretion. Initially shocked by his bluntness, Rose warms to Jack, especially impressed by his drawings. Molly lends Jack a tuxedo to wear to dinner in first class, where Jack charms the well-to-do with his carpe diem philosophies—all except for Rose's mother Ruth. After dinner, Jack secretly invites Rose to a raucous party below deck, where she drinks, dances, and feels liberated in the company of regular people.

The following morning at breakfast, after being informed of Rose’s behavior by his valet Lovejoy, Cal furiously scolds Rose. Ruth forbids Rose from seeing Jack again, reminding her that her marriage to Cal is crucial for remedying their family's precarious financial state. Jack tries to visit Rose in church, but is restrained by Lovejoy. Later that day, Rose strolls the decks with Thomas Andrews, noting that the ship only has lifeboats for half its passengers. Jack pulls Rose into a gym room and delivers an impassioned speech, worried that marrying Cal will extinguish the “fire” within her, but Rose tells him not to contact her anymore.

Later at sunset, Jack is standing at the bow of the ship when Rose approaches, saying she has changed her mind. Jack lifts her onto the railing, instructing her to close her eyes and spread her arms, and the two kiss. Rose invites Jack back to her first class cabin while Cal is at the smoking lounge, and asks him to draw her wearing only the Heart of the Ocean, which she retrieves from Cal’s safe. Jack draws her, and the two are later interrupted by Lovejoy. Jack and Rose sneak out the back entrance, and Lovejoy pursues them below deck. They run through the boiler room and wind up in a cargo area holding automobiles. They make love in one of the cars, and reemerge laughing on the ship’s deck, just as the ship is about to make contact with an iceberg.

The ship's lookouts ring the captain, and all over the Titanic , crew members work to throw the ship’s engines into reverse, to no avail. The ship collides with the iceberg, and Rose brings Jack with her to notify her mother and Cal about the collision, but Lovejoy and Cal frame Jack for stealing the Heart of the Ocean, and order the master-at-arms to arrest him. Below deck, alarmed third-class passengers see their cabins begin to flood, as above them, first class passengers remain largely oblivious to the severity of the accident. Thomas Andrews explains to Captain Smith, J. Bruce Ismay, and chief officer William Murdoch that the ship will sink in a matter of hours.

Rose shocks Cal and her mother by refusing to board a lifeboat, and instead goes searching for Jack, who has been handcuffed below deck under Lovejoy's charge. Thomas Andrews gives her directions through the crewman's passage to the rapidly flooding D-deck, where Rose finds Jack chained to a pipe. After failing to find a key, Rose runs through C-deck and finds an axe. She miraculously chops through Jack's handcuffs, and the two escape D-deck together. In C-deck, Jack helps the third-class passengers uproot a bench and ram through a gate preventing them from ascending to the upper levels.

Cal retrieves the Heart of the Ocean from his safe and stashes it in his coat. He finds Rose and Jack, and unwittingly gives Rose his coat with the diamond. He and Jack jointly convince Rose to board a lifeboat. Rose watches Jack as she descends, then leaps back aboard the sinking ship. Rose reunites with Jack, telling him, "You jump, I jump, right?" Enraged and jealous, Cal steals Lovejoy's gun and fires at Rose and Jack, sending them fleeing back down into the lower decks. He then realizes that Rose now has the Heart of the Ocean. Below deck again, Jack and Rose find a small child and try to rescue him, before being swept up in a current flooding the ship. They barely manage to escape the depths of the ship after Jack retrieves a pair of keys dropped by a fleeing White Star Line attendant.

Jack and Rose pass Thomas Andrews in the dining area, and he apologizes to Rose for not building a better ship. On deck, the ship's band plays while anarchy breaks loose. Cal finds a small, lost child and cynically uses her to board a lifeboat. William Murdoch, overwhelmed by managing the lifeboat triage, accidentally kills a passenger and then commits suicide. Captain Smith steps into the wheelhouse as it floods, killing him instantly. As the ship sinks by the bow, Jack and Rose run to the stern. The ship eventually snaps in half, and the front half sinks. Jack and Rose cling to the railing of the stern as the back half of the ship rises vertically into the air. Jack tells Rose to hold her breath as they finally go under.

Jack guides Rose to a piece of debris that she can use to stay afloat. Molly tries convincing the other people in her lifeboat to turn around and look for survivors, but is overruled. Jack makes Rose promise she will survive, and dies before the first lifeboat returns. Rose blows on a whistle to call the lifeboat, and is taken with the other survivors aboard the Carpathia the following morning. She registers the next day as "Rose Dawson" upon arriving in the United States. In the present day, Rose explains to Brock and the others that Jack saved her every way a person can be saved, and that Cal killed himself after the stock market crash in 1929. That night, Rose drops the Heart of the Ocean back into the sea. She goes to sleep and dreams she is back on the Titanic , kissing Jack, surrounded by smiling faces.

Titanic Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Titanic is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

how does the main character solve the problem?

Are you referring to Titanic? The problem isn't solved. The ship sinks: main characters die.

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I suggest you use the "Contact Us" button located on the bottom, left-hand side of the page.

What is the central idea of Below Deck: A Titanic Story?

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Study Guide for Titanic

Titanic study guide contains a biography of James Cameron, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Titanic
• Character List
• Director's Influence

Wikipedia Entries for Titanic

• Introduction
• Pre-production

Titanic: a Closer Look – Film Summary and Analysis

This essay will provide a detailed exploration of the Titanic, delving into its history, construction, and the fateful maiden voyage that ended in tragedy. It will examine the factors that led to the sinking, including technological failures, human error, and the ship’s design. The piece will also discuss the cultural and historical impact of the Titanic disaster, as well as its enduring legacy in popular culture and maritime safety reforms. On PapersOwl, there’s also a selection of free essay templates associated with Analysis.

How it works

The Titanic was a film like no other, offering audiences all aspects that they love to watch in one movie. It included a compelling love story based on a historical reference of the sinking of the Titanic.

The Titanic offered a captivating story the was based on the real-life events on the sinking of the Titanic ship. It did all of this while also portraying the story with attractive protagonists that made the story even more appealing because it offered many generations to also see romance, and a love story the audience knew most likely wasn’t going to end well knowing the fate of the Titanic. The film was influenced by audiences need for tragedy and use of a real-life event, that was the sinking of the Titanic. The film influenced other films with its use of making a real-life event into a fiction love story, it made audiences feel that this event could have happened in the real-life event. The film impacted a whole generation with its captivating storyline, use of directorial skills, and character development.

The film accomplished exactly what its generation was looking for, they needed a storyline that made them feel for its characters because of the love story that ends in tragedy. Titanic accomplished its goal of making people feel and then some. Cameron made the feeling of sadness that the movie goers would feel at the end almost addicting to them. Audiences would go watch the film more than once sometimes three to four times, this was also not just in the United States. People in other countries would go watch the film more than once even in countries like France where it was not known for people to go watch films more than once (Ansen, D., Brown, C., Sawhill, R., Yahlin, C., & Takayama, H. ,1998). The films story was an original story with the touch of real life events that was the sinking of the Titanic. The film made audiences fall in love with the characters and the love story and basically took it all away from them at the end. The film touched audience’s emotions in ways that they were not expecting when they first watched the film. Its Audiences enjoyed the feelings that the film made them experience even if it ended in tragedy, that aspect was what was most appealing to the audience because they may have felt like this extravagant love story could have happened aboard the Titanic.

The films story gave audiences hope that people that lived in two completely different worlds such as Jack being the poor guy, and Rose the rich girl could grow to fall in love so deeply regardless of their social status. It made people believe in love at least for the three hours and 14 minutes that the movie lasted. That is a powerful thing for a movie to achieve. It gives the idea that money does not matter and has nothing to do with happiness, but that love is what brings happiness. This especially was attractive to the younger teens that watched the movie countless times after its release. It also related to teens in the sense that they could relate to the rebellion that Rose was demonstrating to her mother and her finance. Rose’s mother did not want Rose to lose her fiancé because she did not want to lose the money that was in store if Rose did marry. The film made people of all ages believe that there was a thing such as true love out there, females especially thought that there might me a Jack for them and guys imagined that there might be a Rose out waiting for them also. Although the movie had great special effects such as the scene of the Titanic actually sinking, the emotions and the love story conveyed on screen is what really impacted the audience. In essence the people aboard the Titanic is what made the film so great, such as when they were all waiting for their death and the scenes that Cameron was able to capture of the passengers in their final moments of life.

The characters in the film also made it possible for audiences to fall in love with the film. James Cameron the director of the film made two great choices in the protagonist of the film with Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack, and Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt. When Leonardo was cast in the role he was still a relatively unknown actor, only starring in a few select films before the Titanic such as Romeo and Juliet. Cameron made sure the he cast Leonardo instead of a more well-known heartthrob knowing that Leonardo was the right man for the job, He also made sure the Jack was portrayed as the man of any woman’s dream with barely any flaws to his personality. Jack lite up the screen every time he was had a scene and that worked out for the film in the end because every girl fell in love with Jack just like Rose did.

James Cameron’s directorial skills is also what made the film what it is and why it made the impact that it did on our society. Cameron was a director that has much passion about the films that he makes. He did not skimp on the amount of money that was spent on the film, just the scene that demonstrates the ship sinking cost the studio $4.5 million. Cameron is a director that does not care whether he makes a profit on a film because he believes in his art which is movie making. He made sure that everything in the film looked as authentic as possible including the costumes that they wore to the most minimal detail that the average movie goer probably didn’t even notice. Cameron could capture the time period that the film was set in perfectly down to the last detail. Cameron was also very hands on with the film and made sure that he always worked as hard as he could on the film. He also worked his actors hard so that the film could look as authentic as possible, especially the scene where Jack and Rose were at the end in the water, since they had to be inside the cold water for hours on end. If anyone else had directed Titanic it would not have had the same impact that it did and still had had in our society. Cameron’s directorial skills took its audience to the movie itself, making its audience experience the movie and not just watch it.

Titanic had a great influence on the films that came after it, but not necessarily on the artistic way, instead making other filmmakers try to strive to gain the $1 billion that Titanic was able to reach worldwide that no other film had done before it. Unlike Cameron that could reach to that point with a love story, other filmmakers reached that point mainly with sequels. They would make already big hits in the box office, for example like the Harry Potter series into an even bigger film with the sequels that followed it (Corliss, R. 2012). A sequel would usually be the film that was able to hit the $1 billion mark at the box office. Cameron was able to achieve this without a sequel and not using the same format the films that followed the Titanic. The films that followed the hero usually prevails at the end while in the Titanic the ship sinks and the hero being Jack dies and the end. James Cameron was able to beat his own box office record with his film Avatar. Titanic changed movies forever in the way that movies now focused more on the money aspect than the story and art aspect of it. Titanic was one of the most expensive films to make, but it ended up paying off in the end since it did reach the $1 billion mark at the box office. Many films following that made tried making their films as big as possible in order to achieve that same goal, which made the films actually lack many of the things that made Titanic great such as the narrative and the originality of the film.

Titanic also had an influence on society because it changed the way that we went to the movies. Before Titanic movie goers did not have the habit of going to see that same movie more than once at the theater. While when Titanic came out in theaters people, especially the younger generation would go see the movie more than once. It made audiences sit through a movie that was more than 3 hours long and enjoy every minute of it. This opened audiences to especially American audiences to broaden their horizons when it comes to long movies because even though they are long it does not mean that they are bad movies, just like Titanic proved.

Titanic has proven to be a film great for all times, with its storyline that kept audiences all around the world entranced to the screen. Its characters on the screen that could perfectly capture the love that they felt towards each other regardless of the odds that they faced because of their social status. It made people believe in love and feel emotions that they were not necessarily expecting when the ship sank and most of the people died, including the hero of the film and Roses true love. James Cameron’s directorial skills and the amount of risk taking that he had on the film was also what made the film be as impactful as it was and still is to this day. He had such great attention to detail and cared so much about his film that he was able to capture the time period and its characters perfectly that really took the audience to the time period and really made them feel the story. He was also able to push his actors in ways that they would act totally authentic in their roles. Titanic also changed the way that people made movies, production studios focused more on the money aspect of movie making then before. Since Titanic was one of the most expensive movies to make, but it was also the highest grossing film in the box office having reach $1billion, they wanted to produce even more films of that magnitude after Titanic.

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Analysis of the Visual Work in the Movie "Titanic" by James Cameron

Analysis of film elements

• Cameron, J. (Director). (1997). Titanic [Motion picture]. United States: Paramount Pictures.
• Janicker, R. (2004). The Sinking of the Titanic: An Iceberg for Cultural Studies. Discourse, 26(2), 99-118.
• Boushel, M. (1999). 'I'll never let go': titanic and the ethics of spectatorship. Camera Obscura, 14(2 42), 60-97.
• Jones, E. (1998). Titanic and the making of James Cameron: the inside story of the three-year adventure that rewrote motion picture history. New York: Newmarket Press.
• Albornoz, L. (2012). James Cameron's Titanic and the myth of the male hero. Revista De Estudios Norteamericanos, 16, 55-67.
• Ingham, R. (2000). Finding a place for Titanic in our film and history classes. Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies, 30(1), 68-74.

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Titanic — Titanic The Titanic Disaster Or Unsinkable

Titanic The Titanic Disaster Or Unsinkable

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Published: Mar 14, 2024

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Social Inequality in the Titanic Movie Essay

Introduction, short synopsis of the movie, the social problems shown in the movie, social inequality according to sociological perspectives, social inequality in titanic according to sociological perspectives.

Movies not only provide entertainment but also often depict situations that show various aspects of the human life. Different social problems, for instance, are vividly present in many films. In this paper, we will scrutinize the movie Titanic , in which the problem of social inequality is rather bright. After that, we will analyze social inequality from two different sociological points of view, namely, the conflict and the interactionist perspectives.

Titanic is an American 1997 movie that tells a fictional story of a young woman and a young man who met on RMS “Titanic,” a historic British ship that sank in the North Atlantic in 1912 after colliding with an iceberg (Cameron & Landau, 1997). The story is told by Rose, an old woman who survived the catastrophe. When she was 17-year-old, Rose DeWitt Bukater boarded “Titanic”; she came from a formerly rich family that was experiencing financial problems.

She was to marry a Cal Hockley, a rich man, to resolve these problems. She did not love Cal, neither did she want to lead a life of a wife of a rich businessman. The old Rose says, “I saw my whole life as if I have already lived it, an endless parade of parties and cotillions… Always the same… people, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared or even noticed” (Cameron & Landau, 1997, 0:34:45-0:35:15).

Rose was going to commit suicide and jump down from the stern, but she was stopped by Jack Dawson, a poor young painter. After communicating with him for a while, Rose fell in love with Jack. She decided to part with Cal and run away from her family together with Jack; she left a mocking note to Cal. When Cal discovered it, he decided to frame Jack for stealing a precious diamond necklace, the Heart of the Ocean. Somewhere at this point, the ship collided with the iceberg, while Jack ended up chained to a pipe on the lower deck.

Instead of using a lifeboat, Rose went down to the lower decks to save Jack. Having fetched him, she went up to the upper deck and boarded the lifeboat. When she was looking at Jack, she understood that there was no lifeboat for him as he previously had claimed (there were too few lifeboats on the ship), and jumped back to the ship. Eventually, they waited together until the ship sank. Later, Rose was picked up by a lifeboat, but Jack died of hypothermia in the ocean. Rose lied about her name and introduced herself as Rose Dawson later on a ship that came to save them, to avoid Cal, as well as her family.

One of the major social problems that are shown in the movie is social inequality. It is vividly depicted in the film. The main characters, Rose and Jack, come from different social groups, and the position and obligations of Rose do not allow her to be with Jack. Even when she rejects the privileges (which she perceives as a burden) that her class offers in order to be with the one she loves, she is eventually separated from him because of the consequences of social inequality.

The fallout of social inequality is also brightly depicted in the movie. The number of lifeboats that are available on the liner is too small; there are only enough to save approximately half of the people on the ship. When Rose says, “Half the people on the ship are going to die,” Cal answers her: “Not the better half” (Cameron & Landau, 1997, 1:51:45-1:52:00), for the boats, are reserved for those who use the first class, the rich and the noble. While they are boarding the lifeboats, the passengers of the economy class are forced to wait on the lower decks, locked so that the rich could board the boats without interruptions (Cameron & Landau, 1997, 1:49:30).

Therefore, the people who could only afford the economy class tickets were forced to stay on the ship and die. This is why Rose jumped back to “Titanic” when she was already in a lifeboat; she understood that Jack, being a poor person who was traveling by the economy class, would not get a place on a boat and that he would most likely die together with the other lower-class passengers. She decided not to abandon him. And still, she lost him when he froze to death while they were waiting for a ship to come and save them.

Social inequality is a situation when resources are distributed unevenly in the society, according to people’s social status. The types of inequality include racial, ethnic, gender, age inequality, etc. One of the most obvious types of social inequality is economic inequality, an uneven distribution of wealth among people, or the representatives of different social groups. Social inequality can be analyzed through the prism of different theories; we will look at it using the conflict and interactionist perspectives.

According to conflict theories, which are most often associated with Karl Marx and Marxian economics, economic inequality is the result of the economic system of the society (Bartos & Wehr, 2002). Today, this economic system is capitalism, which is based on the free-market economy. In such a system, the members of the wealthy class use the members of the working class in order to produce wealth. According to Marx (2004), they hire them as employees but achieve income by accumulating the surplus value (i.e. the value created by workers that is more than what the capitalists pay the workers for their labor) and turning it into capital, which is then used to obtain even more income.

Capitalists possess capital that they can use to produce more wealth by using workers, whereas the workers can only sell their labor to capitalists, and are forced to do so in order to make their living. But, however hard a laborer works, they will not be able to get an equal share of income. It also means that e.g. a worker’s children are extremely unlikely to become rich, for they do not have starting capital, as well as other resources needed to enter the higher class. Also, even if one manages to become a member of the higher classes, the vast majority of people are still forced to sell their labor to the few who possess capital. This means a conflict over valuable resources between the rich and the working classes continuously exists (Marx, 2004).

It should be stressed that possessing great amounts of wealth, large capitalists have enough resources to obtain a share of political power as well. They often use governments to maintain their position, to create subsidies, tax breaks, and other means to help their business. Therefore, the rich not only receive an unevenly large share of money but also have much more power than the others. In addition, it means that they can control or affect the media, the education system, etc.; they use it to spread an ideology which is beneficial to them. For instance, according to such an ideology, the wealth of the rich is a result of their own hard work rather than the structure of the society and their starting position, whereas the poor are poor because they are not hard-working enough, and so on. The wealthy create the image of “self-made men” in order to maintain their position via cultural influence.

On the other hand, according to the interactionist perspective, the position that one has in a society is maintained via the micro-interactions between them and the other members of the society, on a day-to-day level (Ferrante, 2008). This leads to people keeping their social roles prescribed by society (Turner, 2006, p. 217). For instance, when an employee interacts with their employer, the worker will often behave cautiously and very politely; they will attempt not to get on their bad side so as not to get possible penalties this might involve. This maintains the subordinate position of the worker and the superior position of the employer.

Therefore, the social inequality is also maintained via such interactions. The people will usually attempt to act according to their social roles, in order not to lose these roles. These ways of interactions preserve the relations of power that exist between individuals on the micro-level, which eventually leads to sustaining the power structures on the macro-level (Dennis & Martin, 2005, p. 207). In fact, it works in different contexts: members of different social groups interact according to their roles (as was shown in the example with a worker and an employer), members of groups with different political power also interact accordingly (one is likely to behave courteously with the president of their country, whereas if virtually everyone stopped considering them a president and behaving accordingly, the president would stop being one), etc. Therefore, according to the interactionist perspective, the interactions between people on a micro-level should be considered one of the factors that preserve the social inequality.

It is now possible to apply the described sociological perspectives to Titanic. If we use the conflict perspective to analyze the movie, it is easy to see that Rose and Jack come from different classes, which prevents them from being together; even even though they wish to leave their social difference behind, the low status of Jack prevents him from escaping, and he, along with many other lower-class passengers, dies in cold waters of the ocean. On the other hand, according to the interactionist perspective, both main characters do not keep to their social roles; however, they are still interacted with by the others as the carriers of those roles, and this fact eventually seals their fate.

As it was possible to see, the problem of social inequality is presented rather vividly in Titanic . In fact, social inequality is one of the main reasons why the protagonists could not be together. There are some sociological perspectives that can be used to analyze social inequality. According to the conflict perspective, which is closely associated with Marx, social inequality comes from the economic system of society. On the other hand, according to interactionists, it results from daily interactions between people. Both perspectives can be used in order to understand these social phenomena.

Bartos, O. J., & Wehr, P. (2002). Using conflict theory . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Cameron, J. (Producer & Director), & Landau, J. (Producer). (1997). Titanic [Motion picture]. United States: 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, & Lightstorm Entertainment.

Dennis, A., & Martin, P. J. (2005). Symbolic interactionism and the concept of power. British Journal of Sociology, 56 (2), 191-213. Web.

Ferrante, J. (2008). Sociology: A global perspective (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Marx, K. (2004). Capital: A critique of political economy, volume 1 . (B. Fowkes, Trans.). London, UK: Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1867)

Turner, J. H. (Ed.). (2006). Handbook of sociological theory . New York, NY: Springer.

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IvyPanda. (2024, January 12). Social Inequality in the Titanic Movie. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-inequality-in-the-titanic-movie/

"Social Inequality in the Titanic Movie." IvyPanda , 12 Jan. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/social-inequality-in-the-titanic-movie/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Social Inequality in the Titanic Movie'. 12 January.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Social Inequality in the Titanic Movie." January 12, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-inequality-in-the-titanic-movie/.

1. IvyPanda . "Social Inequality in the Titanic Movie." January 12, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-inequality-in-the-titanic-movie/.

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IvyPanda . "Social Inequality in the Titanic Movie." January 12, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-inequality-in-the-titanic-movie/.

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Titanic Movie: A Cinematic Retelling of Tragedy and Love

• Category: Entertainment
• Topic: Film Analysis , Movie Review , Titanic

Pages: 1 (452 words)

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