‘Titanic ‘ Letters

Against Him

Ire has turned to amusement at the sheer amount of space The Times is willing to devote to Kenneth Turan’s attacks on “Titanic,” its creator and his screenplay. The latest--the fourth such diatribe, I believe--contains fully 10 withering put-downs of said script and, in case no one noticed, Turan describes himself as “unyielding” and imagines himself as the last bastion of truth in filmmaking.

Turan claims he is not “beating a dead horse,” but he and The Times should note that the nag died months ago.

BOB WRIGHT

Hollywood

Turan makes this statement: “I care too much about words.” This is a justified statement especially when applied to novels, short stories, essays, poetry, etc. In those forms, adjectives tend to rule the roost.

But in a world of film, verbs dictate more because actors cannot act adjectives. (In film, the camera is the adjective-maker.) The challenge of the director and actor is to emotionally involve the audience by finding verbs in the screenplay that will detonate the action that in turn will help provoke movement and feeling. Feeling is what makes the characters and the story infectiously distinctive.

James Cameron, in writing and directing “Titanic,” knew this.

TED POST

Los Angeles

Post is the director of “Go Tell the Spartans,” “Magnum Force” and “Hang ‘em High.”

I’m one of the lowly masses who, according to Turan, has been duped into thinking that “Titanic” is a wonderful movie. I actually waited to see it until last week because, as a writer who loves words just as much as Turan, I saw no point in sitting through 3 1/2 hours of what I’d heard was cliched dialogue. But thinking that I might be missing something, I went and was truly touched. I can’t remember the last time I was affected so deeply by a movie.

Turan forgets that movies are not just words, they’re motion and music and, yes, visual “spectacle.” “Titanic” soared in all these areas. And the script, while certainly not anything to rival Shakespeare, is powerful in its simplicity.

KAREN LINDELL

Sierra Madre

Call me an ingrate, but I much prefer being condescended to by one of James Cameron’s screenplays than by one of Turan’s self-serving diatribes.

GEORGE PAPPAS

Santa Monica

Turan, like most critics, is only a coffee-shop genius. They can’t write, can’t direct, can’t act and can’t produce, but they pretend to know all about it.

If a thousand Kenneth Turans were put on an island and told to write one screenplay as good as the “Titanic” script, within a pico-second they would chop down all the trees, build rafts and get the hell out of there, because all critics secretly know that they are mere eunuchs who freely give advice to parents on how to raise their children.

JESSE LEE VINT

North Hollywood

“Sense & Sensibility” is a glorious film with a rich and intelligent script. But “Titanic” isn’t Shakespeare--and, more importantly, it doesn’t have to be. The bottom line, after all, is entertainment. Turan is missing the point entirely. His reviews are not entertaining--they are boring and irritating. We do deserve better than this, indeed!

KAREN ROOKE

Los Angeles

How dare you condescend to believe that every soul that has felt the passion of “Titanic” is some mere empty vessel nourished on the pap of bread and circuses, and that every fan of this film is loyally prepared to save a place in his heart for the next shallow-scripted FX blockbuster that comes surging along.

EDWARD LOMAX

Los Angeles

What Turan does is what all narcissistically injured, self-righteous critics do when their opinions are rendered ineffective by public response: They put down the piece and the public.

GERARDO PARON

West Hollywood

How can he use “Star Wars” and “Jaws” as examples of great American screenplays? Those films, along with “Titanic,” are examples of why film is a director’s medium. It was the superb direction, casting, special effects, music, editing and production dollars that brought those very cliched scripts to life.

RICHARD P. ROSETTI

Pacific Palisades

If I want brilliant writing, I’ll read Shakespeare. I would have loved “Titanic” if the only words said were “I love you, darling, but why are your shoes wet?”

PATTI LAUNDERS

Nipomo

Advice to Mr. Turan: When you find yourself at the bottom of a deep hole, quit digging!

DAVID TARTAGLIO

Altadena

Mr. Turan, give up. The script for “Titanic,” while not the best, was nonetheless of high quality, the movie itself is a classic and your reviews are no longer to be taken seriously. We, the unwashed, know that now.

JOHN BROWN

Palmdale

These days, when my wife and I decide which movie to go to, I find myself saying, “Ken Turan liked it, but let’s give it a shot anyhow.”

ORSON BEAN

Venice

For Him

Thank you, Kenneth Turan, for so completely and eloquently expressing why I, too, have remained on the dock throughout the “Titanic” phenomenon. In the future, rather than try inartfully to defend my hesitation to get on board, I’ll simply hand my bewildered friends a copy of your commentary.

SUSAN ALLEN

Burbank

I send my mightiest cheers for Turan’s original review of “Titanic” and for his most recent essay about the abyss toward which movies are rushing.

I was elated by both, not only because of their cogent arguments, but because I felt my lonely views of “Titanic” were corroborated by an important voice.

I believe I am the only national television reviewer who has spoken out against “Titanic” from the start, and I have been pelted by hostile letters and calls that seem similar to his.

From the film’s first appearance I have scorned its hackneyed story and its drivel-driven dialogue--a mechanical movie with neither intelligence nor heart.

I salute Turan for his lucid, impressive and persuasive essays. I hope producers and critics will be influenced by him, and will take the thumbs out of their eyes.

GENE SHALIT

West Stockbridge, Mass.

Cameron’s “Titanic” has managed to stay astoundingly afloat, a feat that the unfortunate ship herself was unable to achieve, but the standard of storytelling that has been rapidly deteriorating over the last few years may finally have sunk to an irretrievable depth.

ADRIANNE WOODWARD

Ontario

God bless Turan for having the courage to say what still hasn’t been said enough. “Titanic” is a big film, an expensive film, a film loaded with production value and cleverly engineered to tap into the most elementary and obvious human emotions. By the highest standards of storytelling and cinematic art, however, it is an utter failure and an unqualified embarrassment that no amount of money or Oscars will ever mask.

WADE MAJOR

Malibu

Indeed, “Titanic” has something for everyone: easy-to-understand dialogue for the “I’d rather buy a Hallmark card than formulate my own thought” crowd, and something for highbrows to sneer at. And the compyooter effecks were just swell, and that’s all that matters to contemporary entertainment.

Still, it’s a shame. “Gone With the Wind” was also an effects-driven spectacle and managed to have a witty, intelligent script. But standards are so much lower now.

KEVIN DAWSON

Sunland

Turan should be honored with a statue in front of the Times Mirror building for having the courage to stand alone and defend his most excellent review. As he struggles in a sea of intellectually desensitized movie-goers, his is truly the unsinkable voyage.

ALAN PAINE

Hollywood

As Turan points out, “Titanic” is a dangerous film, for it elevates productions driven by budgets, by special effects, by mechanics and by electronics, and by the death of creative filmmaking values. It puts at peril pure storytelling driven by the passion of the filmmaker who believes that he/she has something of value to say, who sheds light on a character, a situation or a condition, who values the word, not the computer.

I feel that my 45 years of TV and film production and my six years of teaching film at the American Film Institute have been undermined. “Titanic” being named best film of the year is a betrayal of an art form.

MORT ABRAHAMS

Studio City

Turan’s commentary has inspired me to continue resisting the suction of “Titanic.”

In a weak moment, I reached a compromise with my better judgment. I would go see the film, but only the last hour. That way, I could enjoy the special effects of the ship sinking without having to sit through the first two hours of drivel.

Turan’s article brought me back to my senses. I am right. I know I’m right! I will be strong!

MIKE MARTEN

Downey

Wrapping It Up

Turan seems to be unconsciously suggesting that filmgoers may have come full circle in the century since motion pictures were first exhibited publicly.

He states, “. . . audiences tend not to notice feeble writing if they [feel they] get their money’s worth of astonishing sights.” How different is this, really, from audiences who were satisfied--enchanted, even--by images of trains hurtling toward them, six-guns fired into their laps, ponies galloping across the frame left-to-right or right-to-left, or a chaste kiss between a not terribly photogenic couple projected in limelight on a bedsheet in the earliest cinemas and nickelodeons, with no story in sight?

Plus ca change, plus c’est la me^me chose? I certainly hope not. To paraphrase an old maxim: Audiences aren’t as smart as they think they are and aren’t as dumb as they look.

AVIE HERN

Los Angeles

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