Fourteen Oscar nominations including eleven Academy awards, Titanic, a chick-flick period piece with a tragic ending rewrites the Hollywood rules. It is the first billion-dollar movie ever released, and one of the most expensive movies ever made. Why are we all sobbing with pleasure?
I am not here discussing the same old question about the unbelievable and yet believable success of Titanic, or the heartbreaking Jack/Rose romance, or the unchained My Heart Will Go On melody, but an odd dilemma. Supposing you are on the sinking Titanic, when death is so close and hope so minimal, will you follow the captain's order of 'Women and children first' while bandoning your family just for the sake of your own life? As a man, will you give this priority to women and die like a hero or just burst into the lifeboats comtepted by others? There is a choice. And it's not just about the sinking boat, supposing when you face a life-changing situation like that...
Like all megahits, Titanic has become a kind of religion. And as with all religions, people don't worship at the altar just once. It draws a 20 percent repeat audience compared with normally 2 percent. Take one of my friends as an example . She has seen the film more than 30 times, and is even able to recite the dialogue, both English and Chinese. She is thrilled by the incredible script framed by the epic sweep of a true historical event, and like many other Titanic addicts, one of her favorite scenes is just about the sinking. Audiences don't always laugh at the same jokes, but they all cry at the same places. It is a vivid saying that if the tears being shed over 'Titanic' could be collected, the Atlantic Ocean would have stiff competition.
Painted in such big, bold, unambiguous brushstrokes, Titanic seems to hold an endlessly refracting mirror up to its audience. It doesn't just speak to teenage girls accompanied by a roll of toilet paper to staunch their sobs. For men, it is a film about male honor, and how men choose their endings. When the ship was sinking, a great number of gentlemen who were fully dressed decided to stay on and go down with the ship. It is needless to say those who wait for their death gracefully are far loftier than those who try to sneak on the lifeboats.
Here we are in the midst of a deeply cynical, post-millennium age, when the world is losing its heart to a movie that is 100 percent cynicism-free. Titanic's archetypes of good and evil, its human morality and human heroism are exactly what we are starved for. The dead hero, this tremendously personable, young man help the star-crossed girl become an authentic whole person, whose main motivation is to save her life-both literally and figuratively-in the sense of saying, you have a right to have your own choice.
All men are to die, but death varies in its significance. You have a right to decide your own, either meaningful of meaningless. And the choice you make determines who you are.
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