Never Let Go

There I was in my mom’s bedroom making a costume for my third grade class, when I looked up at the television my mom had just turned on. I saw two figures eating breakfast together and asked my mom what movie it was. She replied with, “Titanic”. Of course my little eight-year-old self could not grasp the idea of death or love or dedication yet, but I thought that the clothes were so pretty and the characters were beautiful. I decided then that I would dedicate myself to loving Leonardo DiCaprio forever, in whatever way an eight-year-old can. Of course throughout the years as I grew up, experienced more and widened my range of contemplating what life means, I realized that Titanic had a huge effect on me.  I watched Titanic everyday one summer when I was eleven, and during that time, my entire view on love, dedication and people in general changed. Of course when I first ever watched Titanic, my little eight-year-old brain couldn’t understand why so many people had to die or how Jack and Rose could be so in love, but regardless, I loved it. Titanic may be known as the greatest love story of all time, making everyone who sees it want a “Jack” or a “Rose” to love endlessly, but it is also a story about society, and its effects on certain classes of people.

Titanic was written and directed in 1996 and 1997. Of course it has been out for fifteen years, but its story lasts forever. However, the way not only the actors, but their characters react to certain situations both in 1912 and 1997 are vastly different. There is a difference of eighty-four/eighty-five years between the movie and the actual event. I read online that while building the grand staircase for the movie, it had to be augmented because the people in 1997 were naturally taller than the people in 1912. Also the diction in the movie had to be changed. In 1912, people in high society were recognized for their amount of education and elegance. The more eloquent they were the more highly thought of they were.

People of high society during the 1910’s were mainly concentrated on how high of an education they could get plus how much money they had. The more money, the more rich people they could correlate with. Today, the same idea continues, appearances are a huger deal to most people and so are how good of a job they have, plus how much their income is. Capitalism at its finest. That one word is what is used to compare this century of time difference. Titanic came out in 1997, a time where DVR’s were over-used and cassette tapes were what the cool kids had. Pop-up blocking was just being introduced and people had massive computers that weren’t easily moved. There weren’t any blu-ray discs or many DVD’s. Cellular phones weren’t that cellular and compact, they were big and bulky. The technology used to shoot Titanic would be exponentially better and more high-tech today than it was fifteen years ago.

One of the many major things that changed between 1997 and 2012 was technology. However if one compared 1912 to 2012, they would find immense amounts of differences. For example, even the clothing people wore in 1912 is vastly different to that of the clothes worn today. Hair-styles and the ways cars were manufactured are completely different. People were more easily separated by class in 1912 than today. But one thing that will always stay constant between 1912, 1997 and 2012 is the fact that love and dedication never really changed. And Titanic is great proof of that.