Preview: Titanic 3D
The freezing waters of the Atlantic filled with desperate people. Hypothermia everywhere. Death fast approaching. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio cling to each other for dear life, knowing there’s little chance they will both survive the night ahead. James Cameron’s Titanic is a three-hour epic of extreme sentimentality. But this kind of fare has made for some of the most memorable moments cinema goers have ever experienced, and in the case of the film retelling of the most famous ship sinking ever there’s no denying it’s quite an entertaining watch. Just don’t tell anyone we said so.
If you hadn’t already been made aware, the doomed maritime tale is back in UK theatres on April 6th, to coincide with the centenary of the Titanic’s fateful journey. No ordinary re-release, the man who wrote the book on 3D (Avatar having been tipped as the movie for which the format was made) has decided to treat his second highest grossing film of all time to a facelift that will see it literally lifted off the flat screen.
Anyone who has seen a 3D movie knows two things. Some are great (not least Cameron’s aforementioned trophy piece), whilst others are pointless. If one thing is a constant though, all are categorically weaker in terms of dramatic qualities when compared with their 2D counterparts, which likely results from the fact our minds are pre-occupied with the ‘objects coming out of the screen at us’ aspect. This is a shame, as Titanic 3D, more so than Avatar, relies on humanistic elements and our ability not just to empathise with the characters, but to truly imagine ourselves in their shoes.
Previews also began last month for Tim Spring’s documentary Titanic – The Shocking Truth, a non-fiction feature that asks the question “what if the ship never sank?” This slightly ludicrous-sounding premise is made far less laughable by documents taken from both the British and American reports on the incident, eyewitness statements, news reels and the accounts of actual survivors.
Of course there’s definitely something down there, and so a hypothesis is made that the sunken wreck currently lying at the bottom of the ocean is actually the Titanic’s sister-ship, the Olympic. If this were true the whole affair would be a White Line and British government conspiracy to commit fraud. It’s far-fetched stuff, but perhaps no more than an inter-class affair that begins and ends in a few hours on a doomed boat in Cameron’s version.
Depending on which takes your fancy, catch Cameron’s Titanic 3D in cinemas nationwide, whilst those looking for more on Spring’s cover up proposal will need to do some digging to find where and when it’s coming to a screen near them.
