Titanic

Titanic (1997 film)

Summary:

84 years later a 100-year-old woman named Rose DeWitt Bukator tells the story to her granddaughter Lizzy Calvert, Brock Lovett, Lewis Bodine, Bobby Buell, and Anatoly Mikailavich on the Keldysh about her life set in April 10th 1912, on a ship called Titanic when young Rose boards the departing ship with the upper-class passengers and her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, and her fiancé, Caledon Cal Hockley. Meanwhile, a drifter and artist named Jack Dawson and his best friend Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets to the ship in a game. And she explains the whole story from departure until the death of Titanic on its first and last voyage April 15th, 1912 at 2:20 in the morning.

Analysis:

Problematic Mix of Fixed Attitudes: In this story form, the objective story through line probes fixed mindsets as the arena of conflict. This is evidenced in everything from the Titanic's purported unsinkability, to the snobbery of the upper classes and White Star staff, to the belief that wealthy passengers, especially women and children, have more rights to seats in the lifeboats than lower class passengers. Rose and Cal's impending wedding is one of the story's ongoing examples of this clash in attitudes (women as people v. women as property), and the preconscious responses that arise from this difference in opinions. Ruth is determined to see the wedding through. When she believes Rose is deviating from this course of action, her immediate response is to remind her daughter of their dire financial straits--she resolutely laces up Rose's corset, constricting her literally and figuratively. Observing Cal's patronization of Rose, Molly Brown, not one to politely keep her own counsel, wastes no time speaking her mind. Cal's reflexive responses are violent, he lashes out at Rose for cavorting with the lower classes; when he discovers how far she has taken her relationship with Jack, and he strikes her face. Value versus worth is the thematic conflict illustrated by the luxurious ocean liner that ultimately proves to be unseaworthy. If the fact that the Titanic's seaworthiness was unproven had been taken into account prior to its first ocean voyage, lives may not have been lost.

Rose represents the physics domain--her attentions are on doing. A small but telling scene illustrates this concern as she observes a little girl, her mother admonishing the young lady in training's performance at the tea table. This reflection of her own existence causes Rose to focus on the hunch her life is terribly wrong, and provides the impetus to take the direction of devising a theory in which to cope or change. What has already been proven as her future way of life--the endless repetition of high society rituals--is problematic for Rose. Her solution lies in the untried, as in the spirit of flying machines.

The subjective story through line offers the most support for this story form. The domain is universe--the situation of a first class falling in love with steerage. The progress of their romance is heavily monitored by Ruth, Cal, and his menacing henchman. Rose and Jack play out the thematic conflict of the reality of their different class levels (fact), of which they remain unmindful, versus the fantasy life they fabricate for the future--the benchmark by which they measure how their relationship is developing. The focus of non-accurate and direction of accurate is critical throughout the subjective story, beginning with Jack coaxing Rose off the railing, then hoisting her up after she inadvertently slips overboard. Later, Jack is falsely arrested and shackled. Rose takes an ax to his handcuffs--and after two off the mark practice attempts--the whack is dead on. With love and life at stake, there is no margin for error.

The weakest area of this story form for Titanic is the obstacle character through line. Jack's domain is psychology--he represents a different way of thinking; a different way of life. Ruth exposes his concern of being, when she confronts him at the dinner table. Undaunted, he regales the party with his resume of odd and varied jobs, entertaining all in the company but Cal and Ruth. They do not tolerate the penniless young man without social standing, and they are accurate (the problem that serves as his personal drive) in their assessment of his influence on Rose--which ties into the subjective story catalyst of threat.