Titanic Music Analysis

Film Music Review —Titanic

Titanic is a beautiful love story happening on a sinking ship and an unparalleled success in the cinema, with 11 Oscar rewards won and countless nominations. It is a very expensive film to be made, and the first film to break the billion box office record. As I revisited this film, once again I was truly touched by the star-crossed lovers and the humanity in front of a disaster. Indeed, the world was moved by Titanic. It is considered to be the movie that ‘make men cry’. As Andrew L. Urban of Urban Cinefile said,

You will walk out of Titanic not talking about its blown-out budget or its lengthy running time, but of its enormous emotive power, as big as the engines of the ship itself, as determined as its giant

Cameron originally hired Irish singer Enya to compose for the film music, but she declined. Despite of some issues unsettled between Horner and Cameron, Horner decided to took over. He suggested a vocal to be used at the end of the film. Hence, Celion Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ became legendary. A film is not complete without film music. Some audience reckons film music as the theme song. However, film music refers to the orchestral music accompanying the film from the beginning to the end. Film music speaks much more of the character of a film than the audience think it does. Apart from being the source music of the film, Film music has quite a few functions. Composer Robin Holfmann listed a few functions of film music, including commenting, illustrating movement, creating plot relationships and atmosphere, portray emotions, alternating the perception of time and psychologically uniting the audience. (Holfmann) Good film score helps a director to narrate his/her story and enhance the audience’s

‘Titanic’ was released in December 1997, while Cameron started shooting the footage since 1995. One naturally marvels at the special effects of the shipwreck, especially the crux of the plot, which is the breaking of the ship. As the ship loses its electricity, people who are still on board panic: they are grabbing everything they can to prevent them from falling into the abyss. There are people trying to jump off the board, but end up crushing themselves on the turbine of the ship. The cue accompanying the shipwreck scene is atonal, which adds more chaos to this disastrous scene.

The film music of ‘Titanic’ earns love from the audience and becomes very popular. World-renowned DJs such as Tiesto have made remixes of the soundtrack. However, there are also negative comments on James Horner’s score. Kate Molleson, a Glasgow-based music critic wrote in her personal blog,

Horner’s score was lauded for its diverse influences, but in truth it is ersatz everything: ersatz traditional Irish, ersatz classical strings. It is like Botox on an eyebrow – with this degree of gloss, forget about grit, about risk, about surprise, nuance or authenticity. (Molleson)
Work Cited

Hoffman, Robin. What is the Function of Film Music? 5 Nov. 2011,