Heidi MacLean – Google

I saw it with my mom when it just came out. I was pretty young because this is before we had a PC so I wasn't any older than ten years old. I unfortunately don't remember paying attention to the rest of the audience's reaction though I'm pretty sure my mom and a lot of other people cried. I never did cry when watching it but the movie was really intense though very classy at the same time. I definitely developed a crush on Leonardo DiCaprio even though I'm a lesbian. My wife also had a crush on him when she was little because of the movie. It's the only movie I saw on the big screen that I thought about a long time after. As time went on, Titanic was not a movie a lot of people wanted to watch or admit to liking because of the subsequent Leo mania as a direct result of the film. However, I torrented it a few years ago and rewatched it for the first time and as an adult and I was blown away, especially having a more nuanced appreciation for the film. I recently bought Titanic on sale and watched it with my wife the other day and was still amazed by it. I consider it a masterpiece of cinema. Titanic has long had a stigma because it is a love story, which it is, but it's much more than that. I think the love story is instrumental in engaging the audience with the event. The relationships with the characters along with the high level of detail made the disaster much more gripping than other media portrayals of the tragedy. Along with other themes of classism and sexism, I think what really makes Titanic so profound is how it evokes an appreciation for humanisn and altruism on a visceral level, which was ultimately James Cameron's goal and is the overarching theme. James Cameron essentially risked his career on Titanic in face of the production costs and initial skepticism from critics. However, as we know, Titanic was a worldwide phenomena and remains one of the highest grossing films. So seeing Titanic in theaters was an unprecedented experience. However, being older and rewatching it more than twenty years later, it is almost a spiritual experience, especially in increasingly uncertain times. Titanic, while a historical event, almost seems like a symbol of uncertain future events, but at the same time, it gives me a sense of hope that even when disaster strikes, there will be selfless heroes who are willing to demonstrate selflessness and heroism, and who will not give up on humanity, and that there will be Jack Dawsons and Harold Lowes (the only officer to go back to search for survivors) even in the most dire times and that others will display the same pinnacle of moral courage and brotherhood.

This is Ridley Scott's magnum opus. Scott builds tension on a foundation of minimalism ever so subtly until it crescendos into a heart pounding climax and recedes into a conclusion crowned with a masterfully placed excerpt from Hanson's "Romantic." My only complaint is that I do not possess a time machine to watch "Alien" on the silver screen when it first premiered just to witness and be a part of the audience's reaction.