'Titanic' at 25: You're wrong, hipsters. James Cameron's romance disaster epic still rules

People love to have contrary opinions, particularly in regard to pop culture. Saying something not in line with what is called "popular opinion" inevitably invites debate, or outrage. To paraphrase a crude saying, opinions are like a certain body orifice, everybody's got one. So yes, people love to spout opinions about things they think they know something about, and in the age of social media, there is a veritable cacophony of differing perspectives. Everybody is certainly entitled to whatever view they hold. The thing I take exception to is when there are hordes of people disliking something simply because it is too popular.

We all have met such people, haven't we? Those hipsters. They just don't sport big, shaggy beards, and wear trendy clothes. They hate popular stuff, and mostly for the very reason that too many people are aware of that popualr stuff. Consider 'Harry Potter', or any of the Marvel or DC superhero movies. They would rather casually slip the names of ridiculously obscure movies/shows/and novels in conversation, usually along the lines of "Oh you like this? Really? It's just okay/it sucks. Have you heard of *insert title*. You should watch/read thatinstead."

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James Cameron's romance-disaster epic 'Titanic', this scribe feels, has been one movie that has long been a victim of this trend. When it released in 1997, it absolutely demolished the box office and made every other film that had come out that year insignificant by the amount of the pre and after-release discourse — positive or negative — it was surrounded by. To make matters worse — for the hipsters, I mean — it swept the Academy Awards with a record-breaking 11 wins (it is currently tied with 'Ben-Hur' and 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' for most Oscars per ceremony).

The film dramatised the 1912 sinking of the HMS Titanic. The passenger liner, the largest afloat ship at the time and said to be unsinkable, collided with an iceberg in North Atlantic Ocean during its maiden voyage from UK's Southampton to New York, and sank. Somewhere between 1400 to 1600 people lost their lives.

For many Indians, at least those I know of, 'Titanic' was the first "English" (an Indianism, meaning a movie in the English language, not one that was produced in Old Blighty) movie they saw.

And now, it has seemingly become too popular to love.

The truth is, 'Titanic' rules. Even after a quarter of a century, unbelievably, it still boasts of a scale that was unrivalled then, and still impresses now. The visual effects and special effects fused seamlessly with practical effects. Cameron, ever an obsessive perfectionist, meticulously and painstakingly recreated the interior and exterior of the doomed HMS Titanic right down to individual wallpaper. Fresh of the success of 'True Lies' and known to be the director of two 'Terminator' movies, Cameron was in demand, to say the least, and the executives at 20th Century Fox concurred.

The attention to detail was, and remains, exquisite. The visuals have not only stood the test of time, but actually feel something out of the 2010s. (I am saying all that as somebody who saw the movie a couple of days ago, so I feel my opinion is not coloured by nostalgia.)

Cameron has many faults, two of them being simplistic storylines and surface-level characterisations, but no filmmaker can rival him when it comes to pure spectacle.

However, it is the central love story between Rose (Kate Winslet) and Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) that makes me return to this movie again and again. Cameron saw the relationship as the heart, the crux of the movie, that will help the audience relate to the century-old tragedy. Otherwise, who cares about the deaths of 1500-odd people a hundred or so years ago? The framing technique had an old Rose recounting the events leading up to the sinking of the ship. This helped give a sense of poignancy and longing to the intervening years after the sinking, and how she first really fell in love.

Betrothed to Billy Zane's Caledon Hockley, a snobbish heir to a steel fortune, Kate yearns for freedom from the stifling mores of the high classes in the early 20th century. Her mother Ruth DeWitt Bukater (Frances Fisher) believes that is best for her daughter, considering how little money her father left them. On Titanic, the greatest of ships, Kate finds not only the true love of her life, a young, poor free-spirited artist who won the ticket to New York in gambling but also her freedom. Of course, the story ends in a tragedy. Cameron, after all, had pitched the movie as "Romeo and Juliet on the Titanic."

There are moments in 'Titanic' that have likely never will lose their impact. Bernard Hill's stoic Captain Edward John Smith, choosing to disappear beneath the waves with his ship rather than face ignominy and failure. A band of musicians joyously book-ending the sinking with a performance of "Nearer, My God, to Thee". Rose casually stripping herself nude before Jack so he could draw a sketch of her, her first taste of sexual freedom. Jack shouting "I'm the king of the world!" at the top of his lungs. And not to mention the scene that launched a thousand pre-wedding shoots, the ‘I’m flying!’ scene in which Jack and Rose share their first kiss.

So hipsters? Lay down your cynicism, please. And actually watch the film. 'Titanic' is still a majestically mounted, romantic, grandiose epic.

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