Analysis of the Visual Work in the Movie "Titanic" by James Cameron

The film I am going to analyze is Titanic by James Cameron. This is a 1997 American epic romantic disaster movie. The film was a global box office hit because the director provided equal importance to history, fiction, and romance. The movie is about two characters who are from two different total social classes, rich and poor, they end up meeting each other on a ship and fall in love with each other.

But they had to go through some obstacles during their time on the ship because the movie is based on the year 1912 and during this period of time it was no good for a rich girl who came from a wealthy family to marry or fall in love with a poor boy. The girl had already had her life planned out by her parents and had found a rich man, who came from a wealthy family, for her to marry but that wasn’t what she wanted. The movie is also based on the sinking of RMS Titanic.

Analysis of film elements

There were many great things about how this film was made and created. The many elements in this film are why the movie is such a great hit today because the storytelling, acting, cinematography, sound, and editing was so important to the film to tell the story behind the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Also, the director had a huge part in it too because he wanted to switch the plot in the story. He knew that he had to do something to get the viewers attention by not only using the ship sinking as the plot but he threw in the romance-disaster in as a plot to get the audience's attention. Throughout the movie, I think that the opening scene and the flashbacks technique plays an important role in the film because it shows the history of it and what the audience expect from it.

This film had such good pictures and the visuals were important in this film because it had to show the sinking of the ship and the people falling from it, they had to get the angles right to perfect it. The camera angles had to be shown and used to show the bottom of the sea to see the Titanic. The Titanic was shot in widescreen with the 1:78:1 aspect ration. There were many different types of camera angles in the movie but the ones that dominated I would say would be the medium close-up and the pan shots.

The pan shots are used when Jack and Rose are at the edge of the ship as if they were “flying”. The medium close-ups are used in the party scenes and the scenes of the sinking. In some scenes, there are long tracking shots, this gives the film a little action. A low angle is used in the flying scene and is used from the water when the ship is sinking. The high angle is also used in the sinking scene. It shows us that the ship is sinking, going down to the bottom of the ocean, it creates vulnerability. On the editing part of the film, we see that the ship has been hit by the iceberg but then they also cut to Rose trying to release Jack at the same time to escape because the water was rising inside the ship. There is a lot going on outside of the ship and inside of the ship, whether it people trying to get out of the ship or people trying to get off. The sound of the movie is different depending on the scenes.

There is a diegetic sound used in the party scene but there is also the non-diegetic sound in the romantic scenes and panic scenes of the sinking, which increases the tension. The lighting in the film also depended on the type of scene they were shooting. For example, when the ship hits the iceberg is already dark and all the commotion happened late at night making the moon the only light they have, this is lowkey lighting. It is also seen in the beginning when they are in the present-day treasure hunting the RMS Titanic under the sea, they only use a spotlighting to capture some parts of the ship under the sea. After they board the ship and Rose meets Jack we see high key lighting with a hint of yellow lighting as well.

There is only yellow lighting at the highest level of the ship. This created high-culture and high class to the scene. For instance, the part when Jack is at the the lobby of the upper-class level, the high-key lighting is clashing with how we see the lower level that has normal lighting. The audience can feel the difference between the two scenes because in the upper level is represented as high class and the rich and the lower level represents the poor people.

The working place in the ship is using lower-key lighting, conveying that they are at the lowest part of the social class. The climax part of the Titanic is after it had hit the iceberg and is sinking. This scene is used with low-key lighting giving the audience the feeling of the death of the Titanic. This can also be looked at as how the Titanic is being destroyed and people are trying to survive but at the end, they are many deaths.

In conclusion, Titanic is one of the most successful movies in history, in terms of acting and spectacular visual effects. Even though the story is revolved around a love story it still gives the audience the sense of reality and the history of this event.

References

1. Cameron, J. (Director). (1997). Titanic [Motion picture]. United States: Paramount Pictures.
2. Janicker, R. (2004). The Sinking of the Titanic: An Iceberg for Cultural Studies. Discourse, 26(2), 99-118.
3. Boushel, M. (1999). 'I'll never let go': titanic and the ethics of spectatorship. Camera Obscura, 14(2 42), 60-97.
4. Jones, E. (1998). Titanic and the making of James Cameron: the inside story of the three-year adventure that rewrote motion picture history. New York: Newmarket Press.
5. Albornoz, L. (2012). James Cameron's Titanic and the myth of the male hero. Revista De Estudios Norteamericanos, 16, 55-67.
6. Ingham, R. (2000). Finding a place for Titanic in our film and history classes. Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies, 30(1), 68-74.