How has James Cameron presented and adapted the true story of Titanic for the cinema?

On the Titanic there is a very big difference between the upper and lower class. The lower class get a small cramped cabin with bunk beds for their rooms whereas the upper class has large apartments with grand furniture and wall hangings. He upper class also has the upper decks which only they were allowed in, unless the lower classes were properly invited. We also see the differences in class in the ship's officers and crew. The officers are in their number 1's (their best and smartest uniform), all prim and proper but then we look at the engineers down in the engine rooms who wear no specific uniform. They just wear dirty, ripped, ragged clothes.

Cameron has merged the truth with the fiction to give a realistic feeling to the fictional story line. He has made the upper and lower class separate and how the ship crashes truthfully, which gives us a very realistic feeling to the film. The separation of the upper and lower class is definitely there, because Cameron made it very clear as to who is who. Nearly all of the lower classes are wearing scruffy clothes, but the upper class are always wearing nice, posh clothes.

The historical narrative is moulded in, in a way it is entwined with the story, between the fictional frames. We have present day scenes at the beginning and at the end of the film which show the contrasting past and the future, the new and the old. We get a sense of the tension in the atmosphere with the music. In the sensual moments the music which will be playing is soft, easy listening music. Whereas in the more tense moments there is racy dramatic music which makes the audience feel that they are actually there going through whatever the characters in the movie are doing. There are a few special effects, especially when the ship starts sinking. One in particular is where there are people sliding down the gangway when the ship is nearly inverted. This stunt would have been a very risky stunt to perform but they achieved it in a way which looks realistic and makes viewers worried about what is going to happen to the characters. The interior of the ship is very pleasing to the eye, the set designers must have worked very hard to get it like that, but some of the visual design was a tad unrealistic, e.g. the night sky. It was more of a Mediterranean sky than an Atlantic sky. The night sky was similar to dot-to-dot, and it seemed to be that there were too many stars and not enough clouds. The dusk and sunset skies were too orange and peaceful, which the water was like too. We would expect the water in the sea to have waves but this sea was just a bit too calm for me.

All of the actors played their characters extremely well. The two different story lines are well balanced, but I would say that the fictional narrative was just a bit too over-powering at times. As an overall though, they do balance.

The colour in the film is very vivid but the light is used very well, especially on the wide angles of the ship when the lights in the ship flicker and when Rose and Cal are having lunch on their personal deck. There is more light on one side which shows that there is a full sun in the sky. If the sea was more realistic the light from the ship would have made the crashing waves look more realistic. It is the same unreal effects on the night and day time skies because they do not look like a sky which would be over the Atlantic.

'Titanic' is a good film because it uses both fiction and factual elements of life in the early 1900's. When we see the underwater footage of the Titanic it gave me a sort of eerie feeling, because it had been undiscovered for so long. The scene where Jack and Rose first meet is another one of those abiding scenes because this is the scene which starts the main fictional part of the movie. When Jack sketches Rose also is a scene which shows that Rose trusts him and that their relationship together is progressing very fast. Towards the end when Rose throws the 'Coeur de la Mer' into the ocean, this is a sort of ending scene which ends Rose's and Jack's physical love, but she is keeping hold of the eternal love within her heart.

Overall I thought that the media affects in the movie were good. There were some parts of it were I thought it wasn't quite right, e.g. the night skies. To a lot of people this movie would have been very fore filling and some what emotional. Although I don't really like this sort of movie, the media techniques in the 'Titanic' made the movie a very interesting movie to watch.

Alex Scully 10LAWR 10M