Titanic Blu-ray Review
Ever get that sinking feeling?
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, April 18, 2012
Julian Fellowes created one of the most universally esteemed television series currently airing,
Downton Abbey,
a series whose entire labyrinthine plot mechanics were set into motion with the sinking of the Titanic on that icy night a
hundred years ago this April. So of course it only seemed reasonable that Fellowes should craft a drama out of the
Titanic tragedy itself, following in a long tradition that includes everything from
A Night to Remember to the 1953
Fox melodrama
Titanic to, of course, James Cameron's similarly titled box office blockbuster which has just been
repurposed for 3D exhibition and Blu-ray markets. (There are
many other films and television outings which at
least touch tangentially upon the Titanic disaster, including a 1943 German offering also entitled
Titanic and the
musical
The Unsinkable Molly Brown.) What may have seemed like an excellent idea on paper turns out to be
somewhat less satisfying in actuality, perhaps somewhat similar to the doomed ship itself.
Titanic takes a page
out of
Rashomon and (from the sublime to the ridiculous)
Vantage Point, visiting and revisiting several
interlocking stories via different perspectives as the ship sinks into the frigid Atlantic waters. The hundredth
anniversary of the Titanic's sinking has been occasion for all sorts of observances, including yet another television
outing which is scheduled to air on History later this year. Television viewers with long memories will also recall there
was yet
another miniseries about the tragedy, also called
Titanic, which aired in 1996 on CBS.
That offering took a more standard narrative approach to the unfolding disaster, and some who saw it or the
other, more chronological, accounts of Titanic's only voyage may well wish that this
Titanic had followed the
same route, for whatever passing interest is generated in Fellowes' multi-faceted approach is probably dissipated by
the lack of momentum generated by that very structure, not to mention the sheer number of characters to keep track of.
Aside from this gimmicky structural issue, this
Titanic has another major problem which makes it list precariously,
and to understand why it's instructive to take a moment to look at the James Cameron film. While Cameron's
Titanic obviously boasted a
much larger budget and immensely more involving special effects than this
opulent but relatively smaller scale miniseries, there's one thing the Cameron film did
very smartly that Fellowes
takes an absolute opposite tack on. The Cameron film focused largely on only
two characters, Jack (Leonardo
DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet). That decision perhaps more than any other is what immediately hooked audiences
and made the film such a box office phenomenon. Yes, of course there were
other characters milling about, but
a cursory review of the film shows that many (if not in fact
most) of those are quite inherently bound to the main
love story. Cameron perhaps unconsciously understood that a tragedy involving thousands had to be reduced to
understandable terms, and presenting two main characters, especially two who capably showed the class differences
on board the majestic liner, did that quite handily.
Fellowes, on the other hand, wants to give the viewer seemingly as many stories as he can possibly cram into the
miniseries' three hour or so running time, and as a result there are literally scores of supposedly "major" characters that
the viewer needs to be introduced to and, more importantly, care about. It's a losing battle right from the get go, and
something Fellowes certainly should have understood given his ability to weave together large scale pieces that include
large casts (not just
Downton Abbey, but his Oscar winning
Gosford Park as well). This
Titanic
plays like a filmic kaleidoscope where a character is introduced, the lens is twisted, and we're off to a new one. Some
of these characters then return in the "vantage point" gambit with new perspectives granted to the audience, but this
fractured approach means some viewers are going to almost need a notebook handy to jot down reminders to help
keep track of everyone.
Fellowes' teleplay traffics in some well worn tropes that have populated many of the other
Titanic outings through the years,
including a bickering couple that may remind some of Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb in the 1953 Fox film (albeit British versions here),
mismatched lovers who of course will instantly remind viewers of Jack and Rose, and a number of various historical figures who are either
quickly portrayed or alluded to. The performances here are largely exceptional, within the constraints imposed upon them by the episodic
nature of the miniseries. The large cast is filled to the brim with familiar faces, including
Law and Order's Linus Roache (some fans of
that series may be surprised to find out Roache is actually British and performs with his native accent here, rather than the convincing
American
patois he adopted for the long running Dick Wolf saga) and Maria Doyle Kennedy, the despicable Vera Bates from
Fellowes' own
Downton Abbey.
The production design here is relatively sumptuous for a television outing, with especially good costumes. The sets are really rather minimal,
and the entire miniseries is hampered by some less than stellar CGI which casts an unreal pallor on the proceedings and removes some of
the immediacy of the tragedy. Titanic aficionados are already largely on record detailing what they perceive to be the flaws of this version,
and in fact this
Titanic is undeniably lacking in some respects. That said, the overwhelming sense of doom and fate that infuses
any treatment of this story looms large even here and provides some moving moments that may sway some viewers into more of a
sense of appreciation than would otherwise be the case. The problem with this
Titanic is that ultimately there are so many other
versions out there to choose from, several of which probably do a more dramatic job of personalizing the story. A cast of thousands (or in
this case hundreds) may give a project an epic feel, but it also deprives the audience from an immediate sense of the humanity involved,
something that this
Titanic can't save itself from drowning in.