Last night, I was in kind of a strange, mellow mood. Maybe it was because a date (which I had understood was to be a dinner-date) ended up being a let’s-get-acquainted date (a not unwelcome development), I decided to order in and pop in DVD. Before even rooting through my DVD collection, it seemed I was “supposed” to watch Titanic, a movie I quite liked when it was initially released, but hadn’t seen since I first bought the DVD four or five years ago.
What struck me when I popped it in was visually stunning the film was, even on the small screen, yet how lame the dialogue was. This time, several of the lines really grated. When I first saw the flick, I hadn’t noticed how bad they were. Last night, I wondered how so many talented actors agreed to recite them.
As supreme a visualist and gifted a director as James Cameron is, his writing skills leave much to be desired.
And yet, as a man who once wanted to make screenwriting his career, I had to admit (albeit reluctantly) the lame dialogue hardly compromised my enjoyment of the film. I had watched the full first half of the flick, staying up past midnight when I promised myself I would get to bed earlier (but still only seeing the first half of the movie).
While the dialogue may have been grating, the story lines were smooth, with Cameron able to integrate a classic story about the tension between romantic passion and social position into the story of the ship’s sinking, even into the very structure of the ship itself. He showed us all but the doomed ocean liner’s second-class compartments and introduced many of the famous passengers who took part in its maiden (and final) voyage.
As someone who believes he has a talent for dialogue, it is sometimes frustrating to see stories on the silver screen where the language is flat or contrived. I feel certain I could write better lines than that. After being in Hollywood for several years, I know I’m not the only one; many budding (and some successful) screenwriters have said the same thing. And the thing is, a good number of them probably can.
But, as Titanic shows, bad dialogue does not in and of itself sink a good movie, provided of course there’s a good story and a cast talented enough to keep the focus on the story and their role in it.
I have always thought the writing was for crap, and that LA Confidential SHOULD’VE won the Oscar that year, for best picture, over Titanic. That, and some years earlier, the refusal to award best picture to Pulp Fiction, and, instead, give it to Forest Gump, cemented my boycotting of the award show. Not the FG was a bad movie, but Pulp Fiction was superb, and because it wasn’t some mainstream pile of tripe, it didn’t win.
I like Titanic for its depiction of the horror during the disaster. It may not be that realistic, but you sorta get a sense of what it must have been like and what the people were doing/trying to do to survive. I could have done without the romantic plot and what not.
You know, you’d think that with the millions of dollars spent on special effects, they could throw the screenwriters an extra $50k for plot coherency and good dialog.
Titanic was good for SFX, but you’re right – the screenplay sucked.
Movies are a visual experience. There are those of us out there who love a good dialog, but I think we are in the minority.
So if the action, the sound, the scenery grab the audience – that means a lot more than good dialog and character development. We’re left with foreign and arthouse movies.
I think the only thing that sustains a movie is the dialog. There will always be good eye candy, and every year the eye candy will be better than the year before.
In 10 years the only way your movie is still going to be cherished is if the characters are actually interesting.
I agree with all the above comments.
The SFX were excellent, the dialog marginal. But for all the money spent on the film, it was on the screen.
At a friend’s Oscar watching party, I voted for LA Confidential over Titanic, just for the story and dialog. Had I voted for Titanic, I woulda won the pool. Oh well…
Maybe if it had been a documentary instead. If only we could dub Morgan Freeman or Sam Waterston narration over the dialog.
Oh, I agree so much! Titanic was ALLLLLLL about the sinking! The popularity, the awards — it was ALL for the sinking scene (well, and a little bit for the period costumes, and sets.) That is such a well-known and romanticized moment in history, and they really were able to draw you into it and make you feel like you now know what it was like to have been there. The fact that the rest of the movie wasn’t SO bad that it overwhelmed this scene makes all the difference between a “Titanic” and a “Pearl Harbor”.
“Titanic” did the job in presenting the luxury and the sinking. Besides doing that, it is all fuss and feathers. When you take a well known event and gin it up with a subplot, hardly anyone is going to the movie to see the old crone toss the jewels into the deep. As Daffy Duck famously said: “It is to laugh.”
Hasn’t this been proven with the tiresome regeneration of poor old King Kong? Who cares who the chick is? Bring on the ape.
In the long run you are right, who nowadays watches Titanic? (aside from Dan who is a major movie buff). The classics are always the movies that have good dialog and characters.
Good point Leah, I wonder if Titanic will enjoy the shelf life of the great flicks of yesteryear.