Its titanic.In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic searching for a necklace called “the Heart of the Ocean”. They discover a drawing of a young woman reclining nude, wearing the Heart of the Ocean, dated the day the Titanic sank. News of this drawing on television attracts the interest of the woman in question, Rose Dawson Calvert, now 100, who claims to be the nude woman in the drawing. She and her granddaughter Lizzy visit Lovett on his ship, and recalls her memories as 17-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater aboard the Titanic. In 1912, young Rose boards the departing ship with the upper-class passengers and her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, and her fiancé, Caledon Hockley. Distraught and frustrated with her engagement to Cal and controlled life, Rose attempts to commit suicide, but a drifter and artist named Jack Dawson intervenes. They strike up a tentative friendship as he shares stories of his adventures traveling and sketching, and their bond deepens when they leave the first-class formal dinner for a much livelier gathering in third-class.
Cal is informed of her partying in the steerage and forbids Rose to meet Jack again. Eventually, Jack confronts Rose alone, but she is inclined to ignore their growing affection because of her engagement and responsibilities. However, Rose later changes her mind and decides to offer her heart to Jack in a forbidden romance. As a sign of her affection, she asks him to sketch her nude wearing only the "Heart of the Ocean." Afterward the two run away from Hockley's manservant, Spicer Lovejoy, and they go below decks to the cargo hold. They enter a car and have sex, and afterwards escape up to the ship's forward well deck. Rose decides that she will leave the ship with Jack. They then witness the ship's collision with an iceberg. Cal discovers Rose's nude drawing. He plots revenge, deciding to frame Jack for stealing the "Heart of the Ocean", and bribes the master-at-arms to handcuff and trap Jack in a room. Although Rose is at first indecisive, she later runs away from Cal, risking her chances of getting on a lifeboat with her mother, in order to find and rescue Jack.
Rose manages to free Jack with a fire axe, and finds that the third-class passengers are trapped below decks. Frustrated, Jack breaks through a gate, allowing Rose and others to make their way to the boat deck. Cal and Jack manage to persuade Rose to board a lifeboat, but after realizing that she cannot leave Jack, Rose jumps back on the ship and reunites with Jack in the ship's first class staircase. Infuriated, Cal takes Lovejoy's pistol and chases Jack and Rose down the decks and into the first class dining saloon. After running out of ammunition, he angrily shouts at them to die and realizes that he unintentionally gave Rose the diamond. Hockley returns to the boat deck and gets aboard Collapsible A by pretending to look after an abandoned child. This is one of only two lifeboats remaining on the ship. Although Jack and Rose manage to avoid Cal's fury, they find that the lifeboats are gone. With no other options, they decide to head aft and stay on the ship for as long as possible before it sinks completely. Eventually, the ship breaks in half and begins its final descent, washing everyone into the freezing Atlantic waters.
Jack and Rose are separated under the water but shortly reunite. Around them, well over a thousand people are dying painfully from hypothermia. Meanwhile, in Lifeboat 6, Margaret "Molly" Brown tries to convince Quartermaster Robert Hichens to go back and rescue people, as there is plenty of room, but he refuses, thinking the boat will be swamped. Jack manages to grab hold of a wall paneling, and gets Rose to lie on it. While lying on the wall paneling, Jack makes Rose promise that, whatever happens, she must get out alive. When Fifth Officer Harold Lowe returns with an empty Lifeboat 14 to rescue several people from the water, Rose tries to wake Jack, but then realizes that he has died in the freezing water. Upon this realization, she begins to lose hope and wants to stay there to die with Jack, but remembers her promise. She does her best to call out to Lowe, but she's hoarse and he does not hear her and rows away, unknowingly leaving her to die. Still remembering her promise to "never to let go," Rose manages to unclasp Jack's frozen hand from her own, letting his body disappear into the sea. Throwing herself into the water, Rose takes a whistle from a dead Chief Officer Wilde and blows it, and is heard. She is pulled to safety, joining the five other survivors from the water, and is taken on board the RMS Carpathia rescue ship. On the Carpathia's deck, Rose notices Cal looking for her. When he turns in her direction, she covers her head and turns away, not letting him see her face. This is the last time she ever sees Hockley. Upon arrival in New York City, Rose registers her name as "Rose Dawson" and presumably starts life on her own.
The Titanic's bow end plunges underwater.After completing her story, the elderly Rose alone travels to the stern of Lovett's ship. After she steps onto the railing, it is revealed she had the "Heart of the Ocean" all along, as Cal had slipped it into his coat that he gave to her. She then drops the diamond into the water, sending it to join the remains of the single most important event of her life. Rose lies in a bed, next to photographs of her life's achievements, as the shot pans across her into darkness. The film ends with a vision of young Rose reuniting with Jack at the Grand Staircase, surrounded by those who perished with Jack on the ship. They embrace, and the people on the staircase start to applaud. It is left up to the viewer to dictate the meaning of the ending, specifically whether it is truly a vision or Rose reuniting with her love in the afterlife.
[edit] Cast
Main article: List of characters in Titanic (1997 film)
Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater: A first-class socialite, seventeen-year-old Rose is forced to become engaged to Caledon Hockley so she and her mother can maintain their high status after the death of her father. Feeling trapped, Rose becomes suicidal, but she soon discovers a whole new lease on life when she meets Jack Dawson.
Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson: A penniless artist who travels the world, Jack wins tickets to the RMS Titanic in a card game. He is attracted to Rose's beauty and convinces her out of an attempted suicide. His saving of her life brings him into first-class society for a night, and he shows her a carefree way of life of which she had often fantasized but never realized of doing.
Billy Zane as Caledon "Cal" Nathan Hockley: The quintessential arrogant and snobbish first-class man, Rose's fiancé Cal becomes increasingly embarrassed, jealous, and cruel over Rose's friendship with Jack. He gives Rose the diamond The Heart of the Ocean as a reminder of her feelings for him.
Frances Fisher as Ruth DeWitt Bukater: Rose's widowed mother, who is marrying her off to ensure their high-class status. She loves her daughter but believes marriage to Cal is the right thing to do. The epitome of the shallowness and hypocrisies of high-class society, she scorns Jack, even though he saved her daughter's life.
Kathy Bates as Margaret Tobin "Molly" Brown: Brown is depicted as being frowned upon by other first-class women, including Ruth, as "new money" due to her sudden wealth. She is friendly to Jack and gives him a dining-suit when he is invited to dinner in the first-class saloon.
Victor Garber as Thomas Andrews, Jr.: The ship's designer, Andrews is depicted during the sinking of the ship as standing next to the clock in the first class smoking room. He gives Rose a life jacket so she doesn't drown in the icy water, and is last seen looking at his watch and adjusting the clock in the same room, accepting his fate.
Bernard Hill as Captain Edward John Smith: The film depicts the captain of the RMS Titanic as retiring to his quarters when the ships hits the iceberg. He goes into wheelhouse as it sinks, dying when the water bursts through the windows.
Jonathan Hyde as J. Bruce Ismay: Ismay is portrayed as an ignorant first-class rich man, who does not know who Sigmund Freud is. He cowardly takes the opportunity to get into a lifeboat, and looks back, guilt-stricken, as his ship sinks.
David Warner as Spicer Lovejoy: An ex-Pinkerton constable, Lovejoy is Cal's English valet and bodyguard who keeps an eye on Rose and is suspicious of the circumstances of Jack's rescue of her. According to Rose, he was hired by Cal's father to "keep an eye on his little boy." He accompanies Cal, Rose and Ruth on the RMS Titanic and tells the porters where to put their luggage.
Danny Nucci as Fabrizio De Rossi: Jack's Italian best friend who comes aboard the RMS Titanic after winning a card game. He believes that it is his destiny to go to America, and he and Jack befriend Tommy Ryan, an Irish third-class passenger.
Jason Barry as Tommy Ryan: An Irish third-class passenger who befriends Jack and Fabrizio. In the third-class party, he and some new friends from the third-class discuss something and smoke cigaretts.
Bill Paxton as Brock Lovett: A treasure hunter looking for The Heart of the Ocean in the wreck of the RMS Titanic in the present. Time and funding to his expedition is running out.
Gloria Stuart plays the 100-year old Rose Dawson Calvert: She comes to give Lovett information regarding The Heart of the Ocean, after he discovers a nude drawing of her in the wreck of the RMS Titanic. She narrates the story of her time aboard the ship, mentioning Jack for the first time since.
Suzy Amis as Lizzy Calvert: Rose's granddaughter, who accompanies her on her visit to Lovett. In a deleted scene, she angrily confronts Brock and warns him not to browbeat Rose.
Lewis Abernathy as Lewis Bodine: Lovett's geeky friend, who expresses doubt at first whether Rose is telling the truth. He also explains to Rose how the RMS Titanic sank with a 3-D animated fim.
Eric Braeden as Colonel John Jacob Astor IV: A first-class passenger whom Rose calls "the richest man on the ship". The film depicts him and his 19-year-old wife Madeleine as being introduced to Jack by Rose in the first-class saloon.
Bernard Fox as Colonel Archibald Gracie: The film depicts Gracie making a comment to Cal that "women and machinery don't mix," and congratulating Jack for saving Rose from committing suicide.
Ewan Stewart as First Officer William McMaster Murdoch: The film's most controversial depiction, Murdoch shoots and kills men who try to enter a lifeboat under Smith's order of women and children first, before committing suicide out of guilt.
Jonathan Phillips as Second Officer Charles Lightoller: The film depicts him arguing with Captain Smith that it would be difficult to see the icebergs with no breaking water.
Ioan Gruffudd as Fifth Officer Harold Lowe. The only ship's officer who led a lifeboat to retrieve survivors of the sinking. The film depicts him rescuing Rose from the freezing ocean after finding her floating on a door.
Several crew members of the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh appear in the film, including Anatoly Sagalevitch, creator of the Mir submersibles.[2] Anders Falk, who filmed a documentary about the film's sets for the Titanic Historical Society, cameoed in the film as a Swedish immigrant who Jack Dawson meets when he enters his cabin, and Ed and Karen Kamuda, then President and Vice President of the Society, were extras on the film.[3]
[edit] Production
"The story could not have been written better... The juxstaposition of rich and poor, the gender roles played out unto death (women first), the stoicism and nobility of a bygone age, the magnificence of the great ship matched in scale only be the folly of the men who drove her hell-bent through the darkness. And above all the lesson: that life is uncertain, the future unknowable... the unthinkable possible."
— James Cameron[4]
James Cameron was fascinated by shipwrecks, including the RMS Titanic, and wrote a treatment for a film.[5] He described the sinking of the RMS Titanic: as "like a great novel that really happened". Yet over time he felt that the event had become a mere morality tale, and described making the film as putting the audience in an experience of living history. Cameron described a love story as the most engaging part of a story. As the likeable Jack and Rose had their love blossom and eventually destroyed, the audience would mourn the loss. Lastly, Cameron created a modern framing of the romance with an elderly Rose, making the history palpable and poignant.[4] The treasure hunter Brock Lovett is meant to represent those who never connected with the human element of the tragedy.[2]
He met with 20th Century Fox, and convinced them to make a film based on the publicity afforded by shooting the wreck itself[5] and organized a dive to the wreck of the Titanic over two years.[4] The crew shot in the Atlantic Ocean twelve times in 1995, shooting during eleven of those occasions, and actually spent more time with the ship than its passengers. Afterwards, Cameron began writing a screenplay.[5] Cameron asked Claire Danes to play Rose, but she was exhausted after Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, and found Titanic too similar.[6] Billy Crudup and Stephen Dorff were considered for the role of Jack.[7][8]
Harland and Wolff, the RMS Titanic's builders, opened their private archives to the crew, sharing blueprints that were thought lost. For the ship's interiors, production designer Peter Lamont's team looked for artifacts from the era, though the newness of the ship meant every prop had to be made from scratch.[9] Twentieth Century Fox acquired forty acres of waterfront south of Playas de Rosarito, and building of a new studio began on May 31, 1996. A seventeen-million gallon tank was built for the exterior of the reconstructed ship, providing 270 degrees of ocean view. The ship was built to full scale, but Lamont removed redundant sections on the superstructure and forward well deck for the ship to fit in the tank, with the remaining sections filled with digital models. The lifeboats and funnels were shrunk by ten percent. The boat deck and A-deck were working sets, but the rest of the ship was just steel plating. Within was a fifty-feet lifting platform for the ship to tilt during the sinking sequences. Towering above was a 162 feet tall tower crane on 600-feet of railtrack, acting as a combined construction, lighting and camera platform.[2] After shooting the sinking scenes, the ship was then dismantled and sold for scrap metal to cover budgetary costs.[10]
[edit] Filming
The modern day scenes were shot on the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh in July 1996.[2] It was during this shoot that someone sprinkled phencyclidine (PCP) into the crew's dinner, affecting many including Cameron, and sending several dozen of them to the hospital. The person behind the prank was never caught.[11][12] Principal photography for Titanic began in September 1996 at the newly-built Fox Baja Studios.[2] The shot scenes on the poop deck was built on a hinge which could rise from zero to ninety degrees in a few seconds as the ship's stern rose during sinking.[13] For the safety of the stuntmen, many props were made of foam rubber.[14] By November 15, they were shooting the boarding scenes.[13] Cameron chose to build his RMS Titanic on the starboard side as study of weather data showed prevailing north-to-south wind that blew the funnel smoke aft and gave it the look of sailing, but this posed a problem for shooting the ship's departure from Southampton: it was docked on its port side. Writing on props and costumes had to be reversed, and if someone walked to their right in the script, they had to walk left. In post-production the film was flipped to the correct direction.[15]
Filming Titanic was an arduous experience for all involved. The schedule was intended to last 138 days but grew to 160 - twenty days shy of six months. Many cast members came down with colds, flu or kidney infections after spending hours in cold water, including Kate Winslet. Several left and three stuntmen broke their bones, but the Screen Actors Guild decided, following an investigation, that nothing was inherently unsafe about the set. Cameron never apologised for running his sets like a military campaign, although he admitted, "I'm demanding, and I'm demanding on my crew. In terms of being kind of militaresque, I think there's an element of that in dealing with thousands of extras and big logistics and keeping people safe. I think you have to have a fairly strict methodology in dealing with a large number of people." After almost drowning, chipping an elbow bone and getting the flu, Winslet decided she wouldn't work with Cameron again unless she earned "a lot of money." She admitted Cameron was a nice man, but had too much of a temper.[11]
[edit] Effects
An enclosed five-million gallon tank was used for sinking interiors, in which the entire set could be tilted into the water. To sink the Grand Staircase, ninety-thousand gallons of water were dumped into the set as it was lowered into the tank. Unexpectedly, the waterfall ripped the staircase from its steel-reinforced foundations, though no one was hurt. The 744-foot long exterior of the RMS Titanic had its first half lowered into the tank, but being the heaviest part of the ship meant it acted as a shock absorber against the water. To get the set into the water, Cameron had much of the set emptied and even smashed some of the promenade windows himself. After submerging the Dining Saloon, three days were spent shooting Lovett's ROV traversing the wreck in the present.[2] The post-sinking scenes in the freezing Atlantic were shot in a 350,000 gallon tank,[16] where the frozen corpses were created by applying a powder on actors that crystallized when exposed to water, and wax was coated on hair and clothes.[9]
Cameron wanted to push the boundary of special effects with his film, and enlisted Digital Domain to continue the breakthroughs on digital technology the director pioneered on The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Previous films about the RMS Titanic shot water in slow motion, which did not look wholly convincing.[17] He encouraged them to shoot their 45-foot long miniature of the ship as if "we're making a commercial for the White Star Line."[18] Afterward, digital water and smoke were added, as were extras captured on a motion capture stage. Visual effects supervisor Rob Legato scanned the faces of many actors, including himself and his children, for the digital extras and stuntmen. There was also a 65-foot long model of the ship's stern that could break in two repeatedly, the only miniature to be used in water.[17] For scenes set in the ship's engines, footage of the SS Jeremiah O'Brien's engines were composited with miniature support frames and actors shot against greenscreen.[19] To save money, the First Class Lounge was a miniature set incorporated into a greenscreen backdrop.[20]
[edit] Editing
During the first assembly cut, Cameron had a major problem with the original ending. Cameron felt at this point the audience no longer cared about Brock Lovett and cut his resolution out. In this ending, Brock sees Old Rose preparing to drop the necklace into the ocean and assumes she's going to jump. After he and Lizzy stop her, she reveals that she had the Heart of the Ocean diamond all along, but never sold it for money, as it reminded her of Cal too much. She tells him that life is priceless and throws the diamond into the ocean, but she does let him hold it. Accepting that treasure is worthless, he starts to laugh at his stupidity. Lewis Bodine, upset that they almost had the jackpot, yells "That really sucks, lady!" Brock then falls for Lizzy, and Rose goes back to sleep, completing the ending shown in the film. Cameron did not want to disrupt the emotional mood after the Titanic's sinking, and found the resolution too neat and humorous.[21]
During his first test screening, Cameron felt that the preview audience liked the film, but they did not really enjoy a nine minute chase/fight scene written to give the film a bit of suspense and for Jack to give Lovejoy his comeuppance, but the test audiences stated it would be unrealistic to risk one's life for wealth. In this scene, Cal offers to give Lovejoy, his valet, the Heart of the Ocean if he can kill Jack and Rose, and Lovejoy goes after the lovers in the sinking First Class Dining Room. Just as they are about to escape him, Rose drops a plate that alerts him to her, but Jack attacks him and smashes his head against a glass window (explaining where he got the gash on his head), in revenge for framing him for the "theft" of the necklace. Cameron cut this scene for time constraints.[citation needed]
[edit] Historical accuracy
James Cameron wanted to honor the people who died during the sinking, and he spent six months fully researching what happened, creating a timeline of all the Titanic's crew and passengers.[4]
In one controversial scene, First Officer William Murdoch, played by Ewan Stewart, is shown fatally shooting some passengers during the frenzy to get to the lifeboats. Ashamed of what he has done, he commits suicide. When his nephew Scott Murdoch saw the film, he objected to his uncle's portrayal as inaccurate and damaging to Murdoch's heroic reputation, considering that he did try to get a number of passengers off.[22] A few months later, Fox Vice-president Scott Neeson went to Dalbeattie, where Murdoch lived, to deliver a personal apology, and also presented a £5000 donation to Dalbeattie High School to boost the school's William Murdoch Memorial Prize.[23] Cameron apologized on the DVD commentary, but noted that there were officers who fired gunshots to follow the "women and children first" policy.[24]
[edit] Release
Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox financed Titanic, and expected James Cameron to complete the film for a release on July 2, 1997. With production delays, Paramount pushed back the release date to December 19, 1997.[25] The film premiered on November 1, 1997, at the Tokyo International Film Festival,[26] where reaction was described as "tepid" by the New York Times.[27]
[edit] Box office
The film received steady attendance after opening in North America on December 19, 1997. By Sunday that same weekend, theaters were beginning to sell out. The film debuted with $28,638,131. By New Year's Day, Titanic had increased in popularity and theaters continued selling out. After it was released, it stayed at #1 for 15 consecutive weeks in the U.S. box office. By March 1998, it was the first film to earn more than $1 billion worldwide.[28] The movie stayed in theaters for over 8 months. Some theaters in South Africa ran it for longer than a year.
Titanic holds the record for the highest-grossing film of all time in North America, with $600 million. The previous North American record holder, Star Wars (another 20th Century Fox film), earned a total of $461 million.[29] Adjusted for inflation, it is in sixth place.[30]The film also holds the record as the highest-grossing movie of all time, worldwide, with $1.8 billion.[31] The second-place worldwide holder, Return of the King, is over $700 million short of Titanic's record.
There has been word of a re-release of Titanic, due to its successful original run, as well as the advances that could be made in the special effects and digital enhancement presentation. Titanic's director, James Cameron, is said to be considering a re-release of the film in digital 3-D.[32]
[edit] Awards
Titanic began its awards sweep starting with the Golden Globes, winning four, including Best Motion Picture (Drama), Best Director, Best Original Score, and Best Song.[33] Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart, and James Cameron's screenplay were also nominees but lost.[34] It won the ACE "Eddie" Award, ASC Award, Art Directors Guild Award, Cinema Audio Society Award, Screen Actors Guild Awards, (Best Supporting Actress Gloria Stuart), The Directors Guild of America Award, and Broadcast Film Critics Association Award (Best Director James Cameron), and The Producer Guild of America Awards. It was also nominated for ten BAFTA awards, including Best Film and Director.
It tied All About Eve for having the most Oscar nominations in history, with 14. It won Best Picture and Best Director. It also picked up best costume design, visual effects, sound, sound effects, original dramatic score, film editing, song, art direction, and cinematography. Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart and the make-up artists were the three nominees that failed to win. James Cameron's original screenplay and Leonardo DiCaprio were not nominees.[35] It was the second movie to win eleven Academy Awards, after Ben-Hur. Return of the King would also match this record in 2004, with its 11 wins.
The ending credits song also won the Grammy Awards for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television. The film also won Best Male Performance for Leonardo DiCaprio and Best Movie at the MTV Movie Awards. The film was voted as Best Film at the People's Choice Awards. It won various awards outside the United States, including the Awards of the Japanese Academy as the Best Foreign Film of the Year. Titanic eventually won nearly 90 awards and had an additional 47 nominations from various award-giving bodies around the world.[36]