Titanic: Greatest Movie of All Time

There are several opinions regarding which movie is the greatest of all time. Although every movie has its advantages, nothing compares to the amazing production, Titanic, which is about an aristocrat woman telling her story, 84 years later, of falling in love with a poor man and how the ship sunk to the bottom of the freezing Atlantic Ocean. Titanic is an aesthetically great movie because it rises above socioeconomic status, tackles the topic of mental illness, and creates a love that causes the audience to have colliding emotions.

To begin with, one of the several reasons behind why Titanic is an aesthetically great movie is because it rose above the socioeconomic labels. Because Titanic had the ability to fulfill a cultural function, it follows principle 3, which states “objects are aesthetically valuable if they have the capacity to help bring about social or political change.” The biggest example in the movie was how the poor man, Jack, was able to socialize with the elite first class, who were some of the wealthiest people, during this time period of the early 1900s, in the world. Throughout the movie, it showed the Jack did not want to become like the elites, but instead, wanted to make sure each day counts. He was bold enough to tell them that money is worthless if they were not happy with their lives. After watching this movie, the audience came to a realization that social positions do not define who one is and what they can obtain. Anyone can work their way up from a low-income class to a high-income class or vise versa.

In addition to rising above socioeconomic status, Titanic incorporates the topic of mental illness before it was even politically correct to do so. This applies to the first principle where “objects are aesthetically valuable if they are meaningful or teach one truths.” Towards the beginning of the movie, the aristocrat woman, Rose, tried to commit suicide due to feeling misunderstood, used, and abused by her arranged fiance. Jack saw what she was trying to do, so he spoke to her and was able to bring her back to the ship. This scene enhanced the meaningfulness of this production because it created a sense of vulnerability that needed to be shown. Since this topic is relatable for so many individuals, Titanic taught us that mental health needed to be talked about and could not be ignored. The producer of Titanic boldly tackled the topic of the reality of mental illness, which contributed to why this movie is an aesthetically great movie.

As the movie progressed, the audience felt a surge of emotions through Jack and Rose’s love story, which is the fifth principle about objects being aesthetically valuable if “they have the capacity to produce certain emotions we value.” Love, sadness, anger, and hope are all emotions that we value and they are all they are the emotions that the Titanic was able to bring to life in those who experience it. The audience experienced the feeling of love when they saw that Jack and Rose got together while ignoring their social statuses. The audience experience the feeling of sadness when the ship hit the iceberg and saw that it was going to sink, thinking that Jack and Rose will not survive. The audience experienced the feeling of anger when they saw that Rose couldn’t make room for Jack on the door in the ocean. The audience experienced the feeling of hope when they heard the coast guards looking for survivors. They then experienced sadness again when the audience saw that Jack had died. Since Titanic was able to bring these emotions to life for the audience, it shows that this production is an aesthetically amazing movie.

Throughout the movie, there are several of the principles of aesthetic reasoning being applied. Incorporating the topics of socioeconomic status, mental illness, and love was able to make Titanic into a never before seen production. This is why Titanic held the world record for 12 years of a worldwide total of 1.843 billion dollars. There are obviously other films that are great, but Titanic is the type of movie that people would watch 100 years after its release and that is why it is the greatest movie of all time.

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