After he'd seen the movie Titanic, Peikoff reviewed it on his weekly radio show. The following is a transcript of that review. If you want to read what Peikoff thought of Titanic before he'd even seen the movie, check out Leonard Peikoff Reviews "Titanic" - Part I.
BEGIN PEIKOFF'S REVIEW OF TITANIC
"Titanic. I did my duty. I did what I promised. I went there for three plus hours. I left during the final titles, because I figured I've done my job, that's it, I don't have to watch who's responsible for this, on top of it.
"I have to say that I was disappointed. Because I wasn't even enraged. I went there saying, "Oh, this is going to be a Communist epic." Remember, we quoted Tim Page of The Washington Post saying how they hate the Rich and love the Poor. I thought, "Oh, I'm going to get a really hi-tech Communist piece, and get all excited and enraged," but my dominant emotion throughout was boredom. All the good things that some Objectivists had told me, were untrue, and most of the bad things that people told me, were much too much of a compliment for this meandering, unfocused movie. He didn't have philosophy on his mind, this Cameron guy, when he made the move. He didn't have ANYTHING on his mind.
"I divide the movie into two halves: pre-iceberg and post-iceberg, because that is the star of the show. The part before the iceberg was so boring, so slow; I can't tell you how many times I looked at my watch because there was a meaningless triangle that is so trite; that has been in every opera, let alone in every movie, throughout history. The cartoon rich villain, virtually twirling his mustache. The poor but noble artist, Jack. You know, the little dig that art, of course, was great, and business is awful. But that isn't even the theme. I kept asking my twelve year old daughter, "Why does Rose want to commit suicide?" And then we find out that she's bored by having to go to parties. Poor girl! Such a stultifying life! She would have had such a much better life in Steerage, where they did the folk music, and tossed each other around. And also, she learned how to spit. She would have been way ahead in Steerage. And then we find out that she's really a prostitute. And she's doing all of this because she needs the money. Her mother needs the money. I mean, this is the oldest story in the world!
"Now the iceberg hits, and it was moderately more interesting because it became a hi-tech disaster movie with all kinds of scenes of destruction; some good special effects. Of course, I am a story fiend. I go to the show to see the story. I don't go to see how fantastically you can rip a corridor apart, and smash glass. So the story, so far as it continued after the iceberg, and leaving aside mobs of people milling back and forth in panic, was that the rich guy, the evil villain, cheated his way off the boat, and then we hear committed suicide in the Depression of 1929. The poor noble boy behaved very nobly and heroically, but it didn't help him; he froze in the water at the end. And there was Rosie, left as an old lady all by herself, and her contribution to the end of the whole thing, you know, you see her, was looking for this diamond, and it turns out at the very end of the three plus hours that Rosie had the diamond all along.
And what does Rosie do with this diamond, the cost of which just surpasses the mind? She threw it away! In the last act of the movie, she throws it back! Now I don't know, maybe she's dissociating herself from the evil rich. What the hell is in Rosie's mind? You tell me. I'm going to come back and say more, and I'd like to hear from you. What do you have to say about this best-seller of all time? Why did Rosie throw the diamond away? Why did you like this movie? Did you like this movie? What is the meaning of the public's huge response to it?"
[Station Break]
"Now let me tell you a little bit more about what I think about Titanic. The critics are wild about this movie, but some of the things they are saying about it are unbelievable. Here's Janet Maslin, the lead movie critic at The New York Times:
"Titanic is the first spectacle in decades that honestly invites comparison to Gone With The Wind."The most fantastic thing you could ever imagine; the only sole thing that they have in common, is a triangle. And if that invites comparison to Gone With The Wind, then every triangle (two boys after one girl) in the history of the movies invites comparison.
"Let me just say a few little things about Gone With The Wind. It was a great novel and a terrific movie. There you get an idea of what an artistic triangle would have been, as opposed to this garbage in Titanic. The three characters there all had some tremendous values. Ashley, who represented the pre-Civil War aristocrat. Rhett, the rough, aggressive, up-and-coming capitalist from the North; the post-War type. And Scarlett, the woman of the old order, who loved the man of the old order, but in spite of herself was attracted to the vitality and life of the upcoming capitalist, Rhett. The whole thing is her growth, her conflict between the pre-war and the post-war world. A beautiful integration on Margaret Mitchell, the author's part, to the change of the whole era, tied into the love story between Scarlett, Ashley and Rhett, and how her choice to go from Ashley to Rhett represented Gone With The Wind. The old era is gone. But these characters each were men of tremendous stature; they were all wealthy, and there was something meaningful; a compelling story, not a cartoon rich villain and a poor little artist who can't draw, and this prostitute, Rosie. It was done, too, with a little more dignity. There were no spitting contests. The analogy, if it would have been just like Titanic, would be, if halfway through, with nothing resolved, a car crash had killed the two men. This is not even a story."
Later on while talking to a caller, Peikoff said:
"Don't you think if you're talking about heroic feats, that Harrison Ford movie, where he's the President, and leaps off the airplane, or Face Off with Travolta; they were full of heroic feats from beginning to end, compared to this little kid who picked up the keys underwater."
Later, when a caller suggested that the movie is wildly successful because the American people still have a benevolent sense of life, and that Rose typified the American sense of life, Peikoff muttered:
"God help us."
Then Peikoff said:
"I hope that Robbie is wrong; that this is NOT the American sense of life, because the main thing that I got, in terms of sense of life, was not the love story, which I didn't believe at all, but the movie seemed to come to life in the last half because of the scale of the carnage, the drawn-out destruction. I've seen a lot of movies on the Titanic. This is the first one that stressed the total destruction, the collapse, that went on for so long, the dead, and was so sparse on heroism. Usually, in these Titanic movies, you get an idea of the destruction, but you see continuous heroic acts to buoy you up. But they went out of their way. For instance, the Captain of the ship, the man who's supposed to be the strong presence, was utterly dazed, wandering around helpless. Or the officer who had the initiative to shoot into a rioting mob; that was a heroic thing to do, and in any old movie he would have been proud that he did it. In this movie, filled with angst and self-doubt, he promptly shoots himself in the head for having done it.
"There were exceptions. Leonardo Dicaprio did some heroic things. I think the best, stolen from the old movies, were the violinists who played this beautiful music right to the very end. They were a touch of the Old World. This, to me, was a millennial movie, in the sense that it was the end-of-the-world mentality. It wasn't so much pro-Poor, because even the people in Steerage rioted and panicked like everybody else. The overall view was like the end of the world, breaking up under a disastrous holocaust, and Mankind being helpless, swept by panic and turning into animals. And if that is what the American public responded to; if that's their sense of life, it's a scary, scary thing to me.
"Now I have a lot more I could say about this movie, but I'm going to drop it and leave you with just this one thought. The only truly philosophic line in this movie was Rosie to Jack, when she said, "Our relationship doesn't make any sense. That's why I trust it." Now my friends, figure out the epistemology of that one, and you'll get the real Hollywood mentality."
END PEIKOFF'S REVIEW OF TITANIC
Peikoff thinks that "Leonardo Dicaprio did some heroic things." Apparently Peikoff has forgotten that Jack sacrificed his life to save Rose. When Jack realized that the floating wreckage would not hold both him and Rose, Jack elected to stay in the water, knowing he would die there, so that Rose might live.
Peikoff says that "The only truly philosophic line in this movie was Rosie to Jack, when she said, Our relationship doesn't make any sense. That's why I trust it. Now my friends, figure out the epistemology of that one, and you'll get the real Hollywood mentality."
Actually this tells us the real Peikoff mentality; totally clueless. Rose delivered that line to Jack shortly after they had returned to the deck of the ship, after making love in the car in the hold. Rose tells Jack that when the ship docks in New York, she will be getting off with him. Jack is obviously very pleased, but he reminds Rose that he has nothing. Then she delivers the line about their relationship making no sense.
Now Peikoff takes this line completely out of context. He takes it literally. He believes it epitomizes the "real Hollywood mentality." Actually, it beautifully demonstrates the dramatic conversion Rose has undergone since boarding the Titanic. She had grown up under the control of her mother; doing what her mother wanted her to do. Attending finishing school, marrying a rich man; she had done everything that her mother (and Society) would have approved of, and applauded. She had done everything that Society would have said made sense. Yet she had ended up, poised on the stern of the Titanic, ready to commit suicide.
Now along comes this rebel artist, Jack. He's everything that Rose's mother, and Polite Society, isn't. By everything that Rose has been previously taught, by everything that's supposed to make sense, her rich fiancé should make her happy, and someone like Jack should make her miserable. But in fact, it's just the opposite. She ends up falling in love with Jack. That's why Rose delivers the line that she does. She realizes that what she has been taught to regard as "sensible" is not to be trusted, and that which she has been taught to believe "makes no sense" is to be trusted. Rose is speaking from her own personal context.
Obviously this point was too sophisticated for Peikoff, since it appears to have gone completely over his head. Obviously this entire movie was too sophisticated for Peikoff.
But then, he thought Rose was a prostitute.
I think Leonard Peikoff is a nut case.