'Titanic': the ultimate epic.

• Author: Gehring, Wes D.

Director/writer James Cameron's "Titanic" looks to be the epic film of the 1990s. Cost overruns and his perfectionism originally had critics predicting a "Heaven's Gate" (1980) debacle, Michael Cimino's costly, now-notorious spectacle of a western. As production delays piled up, Cameron detractors had a field day with punning lines like: "`Titanic' still in dry dock"; "The ultimate disaster film already a disaster"; and" `Titanic' has already sunk." However, the director was to have the last laugh.

While a coveted summer release date was missed and the film ultimately became the most expensive on record $200,000,000), the overwhelmingly positive response of critics and public alike now makes it a favorite to win the Academy Award for best picture, as well as a directing statuette for the persevering Cameron. Moreover, it will make a profit! Thus, as Cameron kidded at the Golden Globe Awards (where "Titanic" took the best dramatic picture award), "So does this prove once and for all that size does matter?" It looks to be the case at this year's Oscars.

With the late-1997 release of "Titanic" and such other "big" films as "Amistad" and "The Postman," one frequently hears the term "epic" bantered about. Strictly speaking, the epic movie is not so much a genre as an umbrella category for what often is called "the spectacle film" -- cinema which conjures up images of huge casts and costs, rich costumes, long running times, lavish blockbuster sets and/or backdrops, and a memorable, often violent, historical slant. The prototype for decades has been "Gone with the Wind" (1939). Running nearly four hours, with a cast of thousands, and the Civil War as its historical centerpiece, its $4,250,000 price tag made it the most expensive movie yet produced in America. It quickly established itself as the top box-office film of all time -- a record not usurped until 1965's "The Sound of Music." Both garnered a number of Academy Awards, a trait many epics have emulated.

Despite the aforementioned epic characteristics, a successful picture of this type must pay attention to detail, no small task in all that big-screen production hoopla. Most specifically, this means characters about whom the viewers care. They provide a personal slant on volatile periods in history. Thus, the central figure of "Gone with the Wind," Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh), fascinates audiences with both her independent nature and her melodramatic love life-loved by Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), but ill love with Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard).

Tragic love stories often are at the heart of an epic, be it "Gone with the Wind," Jack and Rose (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) in "Titanic," or the epic romance of three decades ago, director David Lean's "Doctor Zhivago" (1965), with a steamy love triangle set against the Russian Revolution. While the critics generally scorned this particular Lean film, the public made it a huge commercial success.

When love and/or the romantic triangle are not the epic draw, it is often a fascinating real-life figure who drives the production, such as the complex poet/warrior in the Academy Award-winning "Patton" (1970), who believed he was a many times reincarnated soldier. The sometimes religious general, George Patton, could be amusingly profane. When asked by visiting clergy if the Bible by his bedside was read regularly, he responded, "Every God-damn day." (George C. Scott would win, and refuse, an Oscar in the title role.)

Another epic biography of a charismatic historical character is "Evita" (1996), the story of the First Lady of Argentina, Evita Peron. Equally provocative in its casting (Madonna) and presentation -- virtually all-singing -- it successfully meshed a realistic visual decor with a formalistic soundtrack. Sometimes, though, the epic biography draws one in without providing many answers -- the captivating enigma. No better example exists than Lean's Oscar-winning "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962). arguably the director's greatest work. Peter O'Toole is stunning in his role as T.E. Lawrence. the author/soldier who led the Arab revolt against Turkey in World War I.

The examples cited so far might be labeled epic romance, epic war film, epic biography, and/or epic musical. Into what kind of tradition has "Titanic" entered? Not surprisingly, the epic reaches back to the early days of cinema. Its first American auteur also doubled as the country's first celebrated director -- D.W. Griffith.

It bears noting that 87-year-old actress Gloria Stuart, who plays Rose at 101 in the contemporary framing device of "Titanic," is on record a; placing Cameron among the best and most control-orientated directors (epic or otherwise) in Hollywood's history. In more than one interview, she has praised a sense of detail that would find Cameron spending up to an hour rearranging items on a set which seemingly was ready, yet was vastly improved by his efforts. To Stuart, it was a flashback to her early days in the film capital's golden age, nearly 70 years ago. Coupled with this is a tendency by contemporary reviewers to compare Cameron to definitive epic...