Titanic will always be one those movies that will be listed as hopelessly romantic. These two scenes from Titanic, I believe, displays two different ways of romance and
love. The first picture displays the usual image thought of when Titanic comes to mind. The fairytale of never-ending love and literally being wrapped in the arms of "love". It constructs the view that being in love should construct of being worry-free, happy, warm and safe, even if you're standing on the edge of the world, you will never fall if you are in love. This scene just about makes any viewer melt wishing it was them. To me this notion is nice and I want to believe it but it's almost too cheesy to bear it anymore. Personally when I think of Titanic the second image usually comes to mind, the moment that Jack is about to die. He's floating in the freezing cold ocean water. I love the idea that when faced with death Jack essentially chose love. He chose to keep Rose on the float, completely forgetting about his well being. He probably knew full well that there was no way he would able to survive in the cold ocean water but at that moment that wasn't important to him as long as Rose was okay. From the Romantic short list, I thought this scene fits the "feeling or emotions over reason or fact". It leaves the audience in awe of the sacrifice that was made and wondering whether they would ever do so for someone else.
I think that sacrifice, while often frustrating and hard to understand, is one of the most romantic gestures. This makes me wonder: why do we find it so romantic that Jack chose to die? Isn't Rose no better off than Jack if she truly loved him? It leads back to the values of our culture, that sacrifice of possessions, lifestyle, or even life itself is something desirable in a lover yet so very impractical. But, I guess, when it all comes down to it I'll believe that cliche romantic paradigm and chalk it all up to love; Love ignores practicality, and feelings or emotions win over reason or fact.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fantastic example of the structure of feeling that we discuss. We cannot help but feel the situation as romantic and full of love, yet at the same time if we stop and really think about the scenario we can easily find one flaw; He could have easily found some other raft or something I'm sure to float on, and swimming would have kept him warm. Yet at the time during the scene and even after, we don't think about anything else but the emotion and getting so caught up in how the characters feel. Fantastic example!
ReplyDeleteI think that this movie is an excellent example how one can dream and imagine his love story to be, regardless that in actuality that ending is not so happy after all. This love story allows for the viewer to escape reality and sort of follow the journey of two young individuals that are in love. This love story is romanticized to such an extent that the viewers fail to see reality, because it is the reality that many try to escape and avoid when viewing such films. The emotions are evoked for this exact reason, while majority realize that their own personal experience will never come near the love story that is in Titanic.
ReplyDelete