Gone With the Wind on high seas

Titanic is a movie that wentagainst the grain. At a time when aliens (both human and manufactured) have become the stars at the box office, Cameron cast real people. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are not your average movie stars. DiCaprio doesn’t seem to have the kind of physique that an iconic status demands, although only the promised nude centrefold in Playgirl will reveal all. Winslet doesn’t believe in stardom through starvation. And as for 87-year-old Gloria Stuart, as the 101-year-old Rose Dawson, he did his best to get authentic.

Not just that, he also manufactured a real ship (even if it was 10 times smaller than the ship of dreams). The china, the linen, the cutlery, even the furniture, everything seems real, because it is. Perhaps the only thing fake is the Picasso and the Monet that Rose has picked up in Paris. For an industry that has thrived on creating cartoon figures like the President in Independence Day or the outer space creatures in Men in Black, performers who have histories are unusual. Especially when theonly strong characterisations seem to exist in the works of Jane Austen or Henry James.

Not to say that DiCaprio’s Jack, struggling artist who draws one-legged prostitutes for a living, or Winslet’s Rose, who quotes Sigmund Freud at a dinner table, advances the cause of good writing. The rich and poor are drawn in broad and crude brush strokes — the first deck is where all is uptight, as symbolised by Rose’s corset, and the lower deck is where all is free-flowing — booze, hair and spirits.

But this is the zeitgeist of America. An America with a balanced budget. With an unchallenged status as a superpower. With a President who can get away with an over-developed libido. This is a country completely in love with itself, not interested in self-examination or in post mortems. Where The Jerry Springer Show has become the new public confessional. Where Matt Drudge’s Internet reporting has become the new Bible. Where engaging in the supernatural in X-Files has replaced relationships. And where even The NewYork Times is trying to turn its readers into consumers.

What Cameron has understood in particular is that Girl Power is in. In one of the finest examples of a pop culture movie, Cameron, who has always believed in strong women (from Sergeant Ripley in Aliens to Sarah Connor in Terminator) knew that the Madonna role model of the Eighties had been replaced by the Spice Girls symbolism of the Nineties. Women were no longer required to be vamps and tramps but models with muscles.

Whether it is Posh Spice or Sporty Spice, these girls stick up for one another and themselves. When Jack stands at the ship’s railing and shouts to the world — I’m a king of the world — that’s what Rose envies. But she doesn’t just give in to her corseted fate. She lads in America, where everything is possible, and does all the things she dreamt of: riding, flying, painting (seen in a series of photographs).Like a Gone With the Wind (with its wilful Tara) on the high seas, Titanic cashes in on the appeal of Romeo and Juliet. Afterall, except for slasher flicks, who makes date movies any more? Where’s the romance (forget the sex)? Cameron has scored by not treating teenagers like infants. Even if at a price.