`Titanic's' enduring power lies in how it touches our feelings about life, death | Roger Ebert
Jack and Rose began to grow in stature during the scenes recreating what it was like once the Titanic struck the iceberg. Who hasn't wondered what such a situation would be like? I remember today, clearly, the first time I ever had the phrase "women and children first" explained to me, and I realized it meant my father would go down with the ship (I had never seen a ship, but no matter).
Do we believe that today? Would men still stand aside for women and children? What a test of character, in a society where a man will not even give his seat to a woman on the bus.
People on a sinking ship are presented with an ultimate test to determine what they are really made of. I would admire anyone giving up a place so another might live, but I would also understand a person scrambling desperately for the last lifeboat. I would want to behave heroically - but I would also not want to drown. The romance in "Titanic" is inconsequential, but the sacrifice at the end is incredibly moving; by the time the two young lovers are clinging to the floating debris, we are completely and truly inside the film, sharing their experience and identifying with it.
The appeal of "Titanic" is made of many things. It is exciting, glorious to look at, intelligent in the way it explains the tragedy - and one of the best made films in cinema history. But the heart of its appeal, I'm convinced, comes in the power of the sacrifice at the end - which Jack makes for Rose because he loves her. We identify with films. A powerful movie can be an out-of-body experience, in which we are sharing the events on the screen; in a sense they are happening to us. In the clarity of the way "Titanic" prepares us for the ship's sinking, and in the inexorable way the tragedy progresses, the film places us in a situation with fewer and fewer choices, until finally there is only one. Do we identify with Jack or Rose? With both, I argue. With Jack, because we would like to be brave and to sacrifice ourselves for the one we love. And with Rose, because it is a good thing to find true love - to know that someone loved you enough to die for you. That is why the modern story, of Rose when she is 101 years old, is so important. One wants to think that one will be well remembered, and for a long time.
The buried power of "Titanic" comes not because it is a love story or a special effects triumph, but because it touches the deepest human feelings about living, dying, and being cherished. For many viewers, it is their story, if only they were as lucky as Rose - or, yes, as Jack.
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