Interesting Facts of Movie Titanic (1997)

Updated on November 28, 2023

Summary of Story of Movie Titanic

84 years later, a 100 year-old woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story to her granddaughter Lizzy Calvert, Brock Lovett, Lewis Bodine, Bobby Buell and Anatoly Mikailavich on the Keldysh about her life set in April 10th 1912, on a ship called Titanic when young Rose boards the departing ship with the upper-class passengers and her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, and her fiancé, Caledon Hockley. Meanwhile, a drifter and artist named Jack Dawson and his best friend Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets to the ship in a game. And she explains the whole story from departure until the death of Titanic on its first and last voyage April 15th, 1912 at 2:20 in the morning.

Interesting Facts of Titanic Movie

The elderly couple seen hugging on the bed while water floods their room were the owners of Macy's department store in New York, Ida and Isidor Straus, both of whom died on the Titanic. Ida was offered a seat on a lifeboat but refused so that she could stay with her husband, saying, "As we have lived together, so we shall die together." There was a scene filmed that depicted this moment but was cut from the final version. It was Mrs Straus who originally said "Where you go, I go" that inspired Rose's same line in the film.
After finding out that she had to be naked in front of Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet decided to break the ice, and when they first met, she flashed him.
The scenes set in 1912, i.e. the whole movie except the present-day scenes and the opening and ending credits, have a total length of two hours and forty minutes, the exact time it took for Titanic to sink. Also, the collision with the iceberg reportedly lasted 37 seconds, which is how long the collision scene is in the movie.
In the scene where the water comes crashing into the Grand Staircase room, the film makers had only one shot at it because the entire set and furnishings were going to be destroyed.
When Jack is preparing to draw Rose, he says to her, "Over on the bed...the couch." The line was scripted "Lie on that couch", but Leonardo DiCaprio made an honest mistake and James Cameron liked it so much he kept it in.
Due to the long theatrical run of the movie, Paramount had to send out replacement reels to theaters that had literally worn out their copies.
Gloria Stuart, being only 86, was aged by makeup to play Rose at age 100. She did not find this a pleasant experience. She died in 2010 at age 100.
James Cameron went on 12 dives to the real Titanic himself, and found it an overwhelming emotional experience to actually see the sunken ship. During his first trip, he was so goal-oriented that he managed to film the shots he wanted, but as soon as he was back on the surface, he broke down in tears after finally realizing the magnitude of the historic tragedy that he had just witnessed. He ended up spending more time with the ship than its living passengers did.
Reportedly, James Cameron spoke to and personally provided each of the extras (at least 150 of them) with names and back stories of Titanic passengers.
The hands seen sketching Rose are not Leonardo DiCaprio's, but director James Cameron's. In post-production, Cameron, who is left-handed, mirror-imaged the sketching shots so the artist would appear to be right-handed, like DiCaprio.
The original carpet manufacturers were persuaded to make an 18,000 square foot reproduction of the original weave that was on the ship.
Many of the "core extras" used for the movie took on characteristics of actual survivors. One scene where two little girls are loaded onto a lifeboat and the man says, "It's only for a little while" is based on testimony from one of the girls who survived. The man also says in the scene, "Hold Mommy's hand and be a good little girl." According to survivor Eva Hart, these were the last words her father said to her before the lifeboat she was in was lowered.
The scene in which Rose meets Jack to thank him for saving her life was improvised by the two actors at James Cameron's request, and the spitting scene was almost all ad-lib. Cameron also credits Kate Winslet with writing the heart-wrenching "This is where we first met" line during the final sinking, as well as suggesting Rose spit in Cal's face rather than (as scripted) jab him with a hairpin. According to Zane they had to do so many retakes, he sort of went numb being spit in the face and Winslet started using lube because her saliva ran out.
Most of the stuntmen in the engine room scenes were only about 5 feet tall to make the engine room look a lot bigger.
With her nomination for Best Supporting Actress at age 87, Gloria Stuart became the oldest person to ever be nominated for an Oscar. Stuart held this record for 19 years until 2018 when Christopher Plummer was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at age 88. Stuart however, stills holds the record for oldest woman nominated in supporting actress.
James Cameron instructed the actors playing the officers to keep order amongst the extras in the sinking scenes. Jonny Phillips ad-libbed the moment when he whips around with the gun and shouts "keep back, or I'll shoot you all like dogs!" After the take, James Cameron ran up to him and told him it was great and to do it again, and Phillips asked "What did I say?", having been too caught up in the moment to realize what he was doing.
At $200 million, the movie cost more than the Titanic itself. The cost to construct the ship in 1910-1912 was £1.5 million, equivalent to $7.5 million at the time and about $120 to $150 million in 1997 dollars.
Rose laughs during the flying scene when Jack sings "Come Josephine in My Flying Machine," as if she recalls the song from before. This is because a deleted scene shows the two characters singing it as they come out of the third-class dance.
When James Cameron decided to include real footage of the Titanic's remains on the seabed, he did not want to simply shoot from inside a submersible as had been done for the IMAX documentary Titanica (1992). To allow filming from outside the sub, Cameron's brother Mike Cameron and Panavision developed a deep-sea camera system capable of withstanding the 400 atmospheres (5878.38 psi) of pressure at that depth.
The post-sinking scenes were shot in a 350,000 gallon tank where the frozen corpses were created by applying a powder on the actors that then crystallized when exposed to water. Wax was applied to hair and clothes to create a wet look.
The scene where Cal and Rose have a coffee and the scene where Cal has a tantrum and flips a table were ad-libbed by Billy Zane, therefore, Kate Winslet's reactions were natural.
The film was released on VHS in the U.S. on September 1, 1998, while it was still playing in theaters. The weekend after the VHS was released, it could still be seen in 447 theaters in North America.
James Cameron was adamant about not including any song in the film, not even over the closing credits, since he often finds that they don't fit tonally. Composer James Horner, however, was struggling to end the movie on a strongly emotional note, and thought a song would be the best way to do it. He secretly arranged with lyricist Will Jennings and singer Céline Dion to write "My Heart Will Go On", using the central musical theme of the movie as a melody. A demo tape was recorded with most of 20th Century Fox top brass in attendance, who loved the song. Horner then presented the recording to Cameron, who responded very favorably, although he had no idea who the singer was (when told it was his fellow Canadian Celine Dion, he responded: "Oh, she's big, right?"). He included the song over the closing credits, and it went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
In the scene of Rose looking through the corridors for Jack, the water used was actually from the Pacific Ocean at the Baja California, Mexico set. The water was so cold that when Rose gasps when she first dives into the water, it was actually Kate Winslet's genuine reaction to the frigid ocean.
Approximately 120 tons of water (triple what had been initially planned) were released for Eric Braeden's final scene. Braeden said that he has never been more terrified in his life than when he was preparing for it, as there was obviously no possible physical rehearsal.
When James Cameron was writing the movie, he intended for the main characters Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson to be entirely fictitious. It was only after the script was finished that he discovered that there had been a real "J. Dawson" who died aboard the Titanic. This "J. Dawson" was trimmer Joseph Dawson, who had been born September 1888 in Dublin, Ireland. His body was salvaged and buried at Fairview Lawn cemetery in Nova Scotia with many other Titanic victims. Today, his grave stone (#227) is the most widely visited in the cemetery.
During the lunch scene, the line "Freud? Who is he? Is he a passenger?" was an ad lib by Jonathan Hyde.
A recent investigation showed that if Titanic had hit the iceberg head-on, she would have survived. Though damaged she would not have sunk and would have reached New York -- maybe a day or two late.
The engine master says, "All ahead full," and we hear someone yell, "All ahead full!" in the background. That is actually director James Cameron's voice.
Kate Winslet suffered bruises so impressive that the makeup artists took photos to use for reference later. She also chipped a bone in her elbow.
When the scene where a wall of water bursts through a doorway was first shot, James Cameron said that the 40,000 gallons of water dumped into the corridor set were not enough, and asked for triple that amount. The set had to be rebuilt to stand up under the additional weight of water.
In preference to hiring new extras all the time and repeatedly having to fit them for clothes and coach them in proper 1912 mannerisms, a group of 150 "core extras" was hired who would stay with the picture through the entire production. They and other performers learned proper 1912 behavior in a 3-hour course from Lynne Hockney, who was also the film's choreographer. Hockney also produced a video "Titanic Etiquette: A Time Traveler's Guide", which was then left playing continuously in the wardrobe department.
For the safety of the stuntmen, most of the props were made of foam rubber.
Titanic is the most Oscar-nominated film (with 14 nominations) not to win in any acting categories.
Upon discovering the sketch of young Rose, Brock Lovett says "I'll be goddamned". These were the exact words of Dr. Robert Ballard upon his discovery of the Titanic wreck.
Titanic survivor Millvina Dean was asked if she would like to attend the premiere but she refused, stating that watching A Night to Remember (1958) was painful enough.
Kate Winslet was one of the few actors who was not allowed to wear a wetsuit during the water scenes. As a result, she got hypothermia, and nearly quit the production. However, James Cameron persuaded her to stay.
The movie's line "I'm the king of the world!", which was ad-libbed by Leonardo DiCaprio, was voted as the #4 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007. The same was voted as the #100 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
The first Best Picture Academy Award winner to be produced, directed, written, and edited by the same person (James Cameron).
Gloria Stuart was the only person involved in the production of the film who was actually living in 1912.
On the final night of shooting in Nova Scotia, one or more criminals mixed the dissociative hallucinogen PCP (angel dust) into the clam chowder served to the cast and crew. 80 people were taken ill, and more than 50 were taken to the hospital (87-year-old Gloria Stuart was fortunately spared because she had dined elsewhere). Initially, shellfish poisoning was suspected, but when James Cameron noticed that one crew member was demanding to see a priest, the director of photography was leading a conga line, and the assistant director was talking to Cameron over a walkie-talkie while looking straight at him (she even stabbed him in the cheek with a pen when he brought this up to her), he realized that the chowder had been spiked with hallucinogenic drugs. In absence of a purging agent, he forced himself to vomit before the drug took full effect; his blood-shot eyes afterwards frightened other crew members into thinking that it was another side effect of the drug. Bill Paxton felt listless for two weeks after the incident (although PCP's primary effects only last a few hours, the drug itself can take eight or more days to completely metabolize out of the body). The culprit(s) were never caught; some disgruntled crew members who had been fired were suspected, but Cameron himself always believed that it was an ex-crew member who had had an argument with the caterer, and subsequently poisoned the chowder in an attempt to get the caterer fired as well.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet committed to the film even before the script was written, on the basis of only a 165-page outline James Cameron had written.
Jack has a line during the first-class dinner scene in which he asks Molly Brown which utensils to use for what. Because of the enormous amount of time spent shooting the scene, having to provide different angles and coverage for all the cast members at the table, Leonardo DiCaprio was so worn out towards the end that he picked up a fork and asked Kathy Bates, "Which one of these do I use to lobotomize myself?"
The film contains over 100 speaking parts and over 1000 extras, all of whom needed to be dressed in lavish period costume.
During the part where Rose and Jack are on the bow of the ship and Rose says "I'm flying, Jack," the sunset was real and not computer-generated (CGI). The set had been purposely built at a seaside location to capture natural light, and eight days of filming were available to capture the bow shot kissing scene. For obvious reasons, there were only a few minutes per day to shoot the scene, but every time, something wasn't quite right. The crew resorted to filming rehearsal shots in the hope that conditions would approve the next day. The final day had an overcast sky, so no one expected to get a better shot. But just before the day was about to end, the sky suddenly cleared. James Cameron quickly scrambled the crew together, Kate Winslet was hastily pulled out of make-up, and the scene was finished just before another cloud appeared. Due to all the haste, the shot was slightly out of focus, but Cameron nevertheless considered it the perfect sunset he had been waiting for, and this is the shot that ended up in the movie. Even though Cameron is a huge advocate for computer-generated effects, he admitted that the magic that they captured in camera that day would have been hard, if not impossible to replicate with CGI.
Most of the "ocean" that extras were jumping into was only three feet deep except for a very small area that was much deeper around the set. "Debris" like deck chairs and life jackets were placed in the water to mark exactly where they could safely jump. One they jumped, they'd swim to the shallow section and crouch to give the illusion of deep water.
During the corset scene, it is originally Rose who is supposed to be tightening her mother's corset. However, James Cameron and the actresses felt that the scene had much more of an effect of Rose being in the corset.
Both Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio learned how to dance the polka for the scenes set at the party in the third-class compartments.
Kate Winslet has no aversion to nudity so she performed her nude scene without the use of a body double.
Steven Spielberg was so impressed with the film's 3D conversion, that he hired the same retrofitting company to do the same for Jurassic Park (1993)'s 3D conversion.
The piece of wooden paneling that Rose floated on after the sinking is based upon a genuine artifact that survived the sinking and is on display at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, though it was scaled larger to provide sufficient buoyancy as a life-raft for Rose.
When old Rose is looking at her drawing in the water, her original line was supposed to be "Wasn't I a hot number?", but both James Cameron and Gloria Stuart felt that this line was out of the character for Rose, so it was changed to the one in the final film.
Was #1 at the U.S. box office for a record fifteen consecutive weeks, from 19 December 1997 to 2 April 1998.
The most expensive movie to be filmed in the 20th century with a budget of $200,000,000. This budget is bigger than the building cost of the actual Titanic ship, which cost 150,000,000 1997 dollars to build.
Johnny Depp was offered the role of Jack Dawson, but turned it down, and considers it a big regret.
The studios wanted Matthew McConaughey to play Jack, but James Cameron insisted on Leonardo DiCaprio. McConaughey and DiCaprio went on to co-star in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
Production of the film began in 1995 when James Cameron shot footage of the real wreck of the Titanic. He was able to persuade 20th Century Fox to invest $4 million in the film's marketing upfront, by convincing them that the publicity surrounding a real-life dive to the wreck would be really beneficial to the production; the alternative was shooting models of the ship, which could have been cheaper, but would not nearly generate as much publicity. Studio executive Peter Chernin greenlit the project purely on Cameron's established reputation and sales pitch, as there was no completed script at that time, only a rough story outline; according to insiders, this decision raised more than a few eyebrows at Fox.
In the movie, Jack is a third-class passenger on the Titanic who sneaks his way up to first class with the hopes of never getting caught. In the real disaster in 1912, third-class passenger Hilda Maria Hellström really did sneak up to first class out of curiosity and never got caught, although she was in her third-class cabin when the Titanic hit an iceberg and ended up surviving the sinking by boarding one of the last lifeboats to leave, Collapsible C.
The staircase is not technically accurate, being slightly larger in the film than it was in real life. This is because people in 1997 were a bit taller than in 1912 so they would have looked out of place on a staircase that fit the correct dimensions.
At the TED conference in February 2010, James Cameron stated: "Secretly, what I wanted to do was I wanted to dive to the real wreck of Titanic. And that's why I made the movie". The statement brought laughter and applause.
James Cameron infamously threatened to fire anyone who would dare get out of the tank for a bathroom break while shooting the lifeboat scenes, leading to more than a few actors (including Kate Winslet) relieving themselves in the water.
The most expensive first-class suite on the Titanic cost $4,350, the equivalent of about $75,000 today.
In the film, Molly Brown lends Jack a tuxedo that she has most likely purchased in Europe for her son who is supposedly the same size as Jack. (The real Molly Brown did indeed have a son, Larry, who was 24 at the time that the Titanic sank.) The scene is very similar to one in the 1953 film Titanic (1953) when Clifton Webb is standing in front of a mirror in a tailor shop onboard ship admiring the brand new suit made for him (which is also for a grand dinner in first class just like in Jack's case). Cameron's original script contained this shop and had Rose and Jack going there together in order to aquire the latter's appropriate dinner attire. In reality there was no such store on board the Titanic.
The last remaining survivor of the Titanic was Millvina Dean born 2 Feb 1912. She died 31 May 2009 at the age of 97. She never married or had children. She declined an invitation to view the film as having watched the earlier Titanic film A Night to Remember (1958) years before was too emotional of an experience.
When Jack sneaks onto the first-class deck in search of Rose, we see a young boy playing with a top as his father looks on. The father is played by Titanic historian and author Don Lynch, of the Titanic Historical Society, who served as a consultant on the film. The scene is based on a famous photograph taken aboard Titanic during the second leg of the voyage, between Cherbourg and Queenstown (the photographer, Fr. Francis Browne, a Jesuit priest, left the ship when it docked briefly in Ireland). The boy, 6-year-old Robert Douglas Spedden and his father Frederic O. Spedden of Tuxedo Park, NY survived the sinking, but the boy died three years later in an auto accident in Maine, one of the first recorded in the state.
Rose's chiffon dress which she wears for the latter part of the film was designed to look just as good wet as dry. Costume designer Deborah Lynn Scott had about 24 of them made.
This was the first film to be nominated twice for an Academy Award, for the portrayal of the same character: Kate Winslet received a Best Actress nomination for her role as Rose and Gloria Stuart received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her portrayal of the older Rose. The next time this happened was with the movie Iris (2001), which also starred Winslet.
When production costs spiraled out of control, the studio tried to scrap scenes wherever they could. The first-class lounge where Rose has tea with her mother was deemed to be too expensive a set to be built, but fortunately, a miniature of a quarter of the real size was required for the flooding scenes. The actors filmed the lounge scene against a greenscreen, and shots of the miniature were digitally edited into the background.
Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Jason Barry injured themselves while filming the scene in which their characters pull up a bench in third class and use it to smash a gate open. DiCaprio threw out a shoulder, and Barry caught himself in the chin with the bench.
During the sinking scene, the priest reciting a passage from the Bible did exist on the Titanic. He is believed to be Father Byles of second class.
In the scene in the beginning where the captain orders full-speed ahead and the shot moves down into the boiler room, the set was really just about three boilers, but the filmmakers had huge mirrors installed to visualize a great big long room. (In this scene you can see workers shoving in coal, and about 20 feet down the room you can see the mirror image of the workers). This is a trick that production designer Peter Lamont had done on a previous James Cameron film, Aliens (1986), during the scene aboard the Sulaco to make four hypersleep chambers look like twelve.
According to the cast and crew commentary on the Special Edition DVD, the first scene filmed between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet was the nude scene where he draws her; the last shot of the film was the flooding of the captain's wheelhouse. It was a three second sequence that required multiple cameras and safety divers and a stuntman to play Captain Smith.
In 2012, 100 years after Titanic sank, the entire wreck site was mapped for the first time. Until then, only the bow, stern, and areas in between were explored. Upon completing this, Disaster Investigator James R. Chiles virtually and in 3D reassembled Titanic. He concluded that Titanic was not poorly built, was not built of inferior materials, and had no design flaw. In fact she floated longer than her builders expected once she struck the iceberg. Even a modern-day battleship would not survive the sideswipe blow the iceberg gave Titanic that night. Also, he concluded that the stern end likely corkscrewed to the sea floor once under water.
Following her grueling experience on the film, which included a rigorous filming schedule as well as experiencing many hardships and bruises, Kate Winslet said, "You'd have to pay me an awful lot of money to work with James Cameron again" (apparently, her request was granted, because she has been confirmed to appear in Cameron's Avatar 2 (2022)). Leonardo DiCaprio also acknowledged it was a tough shoot, yet he stated that if he would ever do another action movie, he would want Cameron as director.
Initially, Céline Dion didn't want to record "My Heart Will Go On" because she didn't want to sing another film song and she didn't like it when James Horner first played it to her; she disliked Horner's singing abilities. After she was convinced by her husband René Angélil, she stepped in and recorded the song in just one take, so the song that was used over the end credits and later released is actually a demo.
Harland and Wolff, the Belfast shipyard who built the Titanic in 1909, opened up their private archives to the production, sharing blueprints that were long thought lost.
James Cameron forfeited his $8 million upfront director's salary and his percentage of the initial gross when the studio became concerned at how much over budget the movie was running; he would only receive a back-end percentage in case the film would do exceptionally well. He noted that initial compliments over the raw footage became more sparing over time as the costs spiraled out of control, and the studio heads at 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures "acted like they'd been diagnosed with terminal cancer" as the release date drew near. Even Cameron himself was at one point convinced that the film would bomb, and he would never work again; analysts had predicted a total loss of at least $100 million, so he could only hope to at least make a very good film. At one point, he ran into Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch, and told him "I guess that I'm not your most favorite person in the world, but the movie is going to be good". Murdoch simply replied "It better be a damn sight better than 'good'."
Eager to get the role of Rose, Kate Winslet sent James Cameron daily notes from England, went to LA and kept phoning him. "You don't understand! I am Rose! I don't know why you're even seeing anyone else!" When he finally gave her the role, she sent him a rose with the text "From Your Rose".
Christian Bale auditioned for the role of Jack Dawson, but was turned down because James Cameron didn't want two British actors playing the lead roles of two Americans.
The "sinking" coat was a size 8 while the rest of the gowns were a size 4. It was so large to make Rose seem more vulnerable in the sinking scenes.
The opening was originally going to be an Irishman painting the word 'Titanic'. During that same scene, it is not, as believed by some, a real film from her departure in 1912. James Cameron wanted to use actual footage, but at the time there was none. So he attempted to create what he thought took place. However after the movie was released, some actual footage was discovered.
Robert De Niro was offered the role of Captain Smith but turned it down due to a gastrointestinal infection at the time.
As a joke in the edit suite, James Cameron had a razor blade with a label that said "Use only if movie doesn't work."
The film was re-released on April 6, 2012 in 2D, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sailing and sinking of the ship and of the foundation of Paramount Pictures.
James Cameron pitched the film to 20th Century Fox with the single line of "Romeo and Juliet on the Titanic." Leonardo DiCaprio starred in Romeo + Juliet (1996) the year before. In a peculiar twist of fate, it was during the Romeo + Juliet (1996) shoot that Leo was urged to accept the offer of the Titanic lead by co-star Paul Rudd who, though an avid historian of the great ship, had auditioned unsuccessfully for a key role.
In the scene where the lifeboats are rowing to the Carpathia, there is a brief scene that shows Fifth Officer Lowe waving a green flare and shouting something, but for dramatic reasons the diologue is muted. If you were to read his lips, you can tell he is saying "Come on, put your backs into it, men. We've been saved! Row!"
After completing Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), James Cameron got the idea to do the film after watching A Night to Remember (1958). He spent five years doing research on the Titanic and its fate.
Gloria Stuart who was 87 at the time of the film's release, lived to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its release at age 97. She became a real-life centenarian on July 4th, 2010.
A scene was storyboarded in which Rose was to walk off the Carpathia and disappear into the crowds. Since the budget had run so high, however, James Cameron had to cut this scene due to the expense of having almost 1,000 extras brought to New York to film just 30 seconds.
In 2012, Entertainment Weekly reported that when the movie was re-released in 3D, James Cameron didn't update any effects or fix any errors except one. When astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York's Hayden Planetarium, first saw the movie in its original theatrical release, he noticed that the configuration of stars in the night sky during Rose's night in the water bore no resemblance to what the sky really looked like over that place on that night (and, in fact, the same incorrect set of stars had just been duplicated in post-production). Tyson wrote a letter to Cameron explaining the error; several years later, upon meeting Cameron in person, Tyson repeated his complaint; and then at an event that occurred at the Hayden Planetarium, Tyson spoke about it to Cameron a third time. Finally, a post-production technician working on the re-release called Tyson and asked him to provide a picture of what the sky really would have looked like, and Tyson's star image was used to fix that shot. Before the shot was fixed, the stars were arranged to look like the Heart of the Ocean necklace.
River Phoenix was James Cameron's first choice to play Jack Dawson. By the time the movie was made, River Phoenix had died and Leonardo DiCaprio had reached the perfect age. Ironically when Johnny Depp was offered the role of Jack, he turned it down.
The scenes during which Thomas Andrews chastises Second Office Charles Lightoller for sending the boats away without filling them to capacity is the only scene in the entire film in which the actors' breath was not digitally added in later.
In a 2012 interview on MTV News, shortly before the movie was re-released in 3D, Kate Winslet admitted that she strongly dislikes the song "My Heart Will Go On," which was recorded by Céline Dion and prominently included in the film. She said about it, "I wish I could say, 'Oh listen, everybody! It's the Celine Dion song!' But I don't. I just have to sit there, you know, kind of straight-faced with a massive internal eye roll... It haunts me."
Many cast and crew members came down with colds, flu, or kidney infections after spending hours in cold water, including Kate Winslet. Some crew members started out wearing hip waders, but after several incidents where these accidentally filled with water, they quickly switched to wetsuits. Several people left, three stuntmen broke their bones, and both cast and crew got exhausted from all the peril and long days of shooting. Both Winslet and James Cameron admitted that they often woke up on shooting days thinking "Please God, let me die".
Even though the film brought them great fame, both Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are now embarrassed by their performances in this film. Winslet called her American accent "awful" and feels that her acting "could have been better", while DiCaprio called himself a "young punk" in this film.
When the stern of the ship is vertical, Chief Baker Joughin (Liam Tuohy, in white) is drinking from a flask. Joughin was one of few to survive the freezing water, allegedly due to the alcohol (but this is disputed as unlikely since alcohol is known to accelerate hypothermia, not to help resist cold). The scene was added after Liam showed the flask to James Cameron explaining that it was a family heirloom as old as the Titanic itself.
Only the starboard side of the exterior set was completed. In the scenes portraying the ship at the Southampton dock, all shots were reversed to give the appearance of the port side of the ship, as it was actually docked in 1912. This required the painstaking construction of reversed costumes and signage to complete the illusion, which was achieved by reversing the image in post-production. One cast member joked, "I wasn't dyslexic before starting this show. I am now."
James Cameron wrote the role of Lewis Bodine with his friend Lewis Abernathy in mind. When he couldn't find an actor to play the part, he went to Abernathy and asked, essentially, if he would play himself. Abernathy replied, "If you want to fuck up your movie by casting me, buddy, alright."
After filming, the remains of the full-size set were sold as scrap metal.
At the party in steerage, a foreign-speaking man is speaking with Rose and she says "I'm sorry, I can't understand you." The man is Swedish, probably a friend of Sven's, and he's saying to her "Talar fröken svenska?" In English that translates to "Does the miss/lady speak Swedish?" which she obviously doesn't.
In the original script, after Jack, Fabricio and Tommy break down the locked gate, Rose steps through the wreckage, threatens the steward to get him fired, and orders him to escort the steerage passengers to the boat deck immediately. As filming progressed, James Cameron became impressed with Jason Barry's performance in a relatively small role and wanted to give him a stronger scene. With Kate Winslet's blessing, Cameron changed the gate breakdown scene to give Tommy the last word instead of Rose.
Egg white was used for the initial spitting sequence, but petroleum jelly was used in the sequence where Rose spits on Cal.
In 1998 it became the first film since 1966 to win the Oscar for Best Picture but not be nominated for its screenplay (the previous film to hold this "honor" was The Sound of Music (1965). As of 2020, it remains the most recent Best Picture winner to not receive a screenwriting nomination.
The rooms that Caledon Hockley, Rose DeWitt Bukater and Ruth DeWitt Bukater occupied (B52, B54 and B56) were actual rooms on the real Titanic. They were originally booked by J.P. Morgan, but he canceled before the ship sailed. Morgan had a controlling interest in International Mercantile Marine, a conglomerate that owned the White Star Line. It was said that Bruce Ismay booked the rooms following Morgan's cancellation, but this was never proven.
James Cameron originally wanted Enya to compose the score for the film and even went so far as to assemble a rough edit using her music. When Enya declined, Cameron hired James Horner (who had composed the music for Cameron's previous film Aliens (1986)) to write the score. Horner stated that the tensions with Cameron were so high during post-production of "Aliens" that he assumed he and Cameron would never work together again. However, Cameron was so impressed with Horner's score from Braveheart (1995) that he contacted Horner, who was willing to forget the past. According to some accounts, Horner independently decided the film's score should be done in Enya's style. As a result, several pieces of the score sound very similar to some well-known Enya songs, in particular her theme song for Far and Away (1992) (Book of Days).
James Cameron initially claimed that he could make the movie for $80 million, but during development, it quickly became clear that this number was way too conservative. 20th Century Fox's own estimations budgeted the film at $135 million, but set construction soon turned out so costly and time-consuming that the film was already two months behind schedule before any filming was done. This required the aid of a second studio to cope with the costs. Universal Pictures was in the running for a long time, but ultimately passed. Paramount Pictures was finally willing to step in and contribute an additional $65 million in exchange for U.S. distribution rights. This was the full extent of Paramount's contribution, meaning that Fox was still responsible for all future budget overruns (of which there were many), and it would have undoubtedly meant the end of the studio if the film had not been so successful.
Was the most-voted-for film on IMDb that is not on the Top 250 List. However, it was overtaken by James Cameron''s Avatar (2009).
The original release date was July 25, 1997. When Harrison Ford (whose upcoming film Air Force One (1997) was scheduled to be released on the same day) found out, he demanded that Paramount Pictures push the release date to a different time. The studio agreed, having distributed many successful films of Ford's and worrying that he would never do another film for them again. Ford may have had a point, because Titanic was subsequently released on the same date as Kevin Costner's The Postman (1997), which became a massive box office bomb as a consequence.
Even though the actors wore waterproof makeup for the scenes shot in the aftermath of the sinking, they constantly required touch-ups, as chemicals in the pool they shot in would wash the makeup off.
Kate Winslet had to learn how to scuba dive in preparation for her scenes in the water.
Lindsay Lohan auditioned for the role of Cora Cartmell. Lohan, who was then an unknown and was only 8 years old at the time casting took place, was the top choice for the role. However, James Cameron felt that Lohan's fiery red hair would confuse people into thinking she was related to the characters Rose and Ruth, who both had fiery red hair. Alex Owens-Sarno was cast instead.
The second film to win a total of 11 Academy Awards, and thereby tie with the previous record holder, Ben-Hur (1959). The third movie reaching this honor would be The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
Was the highest grossing film in box office history with a worldwide gross of US$1.8 billion until it was surpassed by Avatar (2009). Both films were directed by James Cameron.
The Swedish phrases that Sven and Olaf exchange during the card game translate into the following: Olaf: "Idiot!" Sven: "Shut up!" Olaf: "You damn chicken brain! I can't believe you're betting our tickets!" Sven: "We lost our money, I'm just trying to win them back!"/.../Olaf (when grabbing Jack by the throat): "You damn scoundrel!" Olaf (after punching Sven in the face): "You damn idiot! What the hell are we gonna do?! I'm gonna kill you!"
"Titanic" was presented to a test audience at a theater in the Mall of America, Bloomington, Minneapolis, on July 14, 1997. Tickets to the showing were presented to the audience at the Jodie Foster movie Contact (1997) on its July 11 opening night. Because "Titanic" had been receiving considerable industry buzz (most of it bad, due in part to budget concerns), and not wanting to have press at the test showing, ticket recipients were told that they would be seeing an early version of Great Expectations (1998), starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow. At the test screening, James Cameron and others were in attendance, but the theater maintained the ruse by not mentioning the movie by name, only referring to it as "the movie you are about to see", etc. When the movie started, Cameron anxiously noted that the audience was completely silent for the first 10 minutes, but he later learned that this was because they thought they were only getting to see a new trailer for "Titanic", not yet realizing they were watching the whole movie; when the film transitioned to the 1912 scenes, there was a collective response of joy. Film personnel collected feedback in many ways--including handwritten surveys, post-film interviews, and even stationing personnel in the lobbies and restrooms to listen in on guests' conversations.
In a recently-completed investigation by Tim Maltin, he reveals that the reason the iceberg was not seen was due to a "cold water mirage." This is the opposite of a desert mirage. The multiple layers of cold and warm air cloaked the iceberg. Normally the iceberg could have been seen as far as 12 miles, giving Titanic 30 minutes to avoid. This is revealed in his e-book "Titanic: A Deceiving Night" and his Smithsonian documentary "Titanic's Final Mystery." This also explains why the Californian failed to receive the distress message "Come at once; we are sinking" that crew on Titanic signaled with Morse lamps.
James Cameron wrote the film as a four hour epic. It was cut down to three hours.
The character of Rose is partially based on California artist Beatrice Wood, who died in 1998 at the age of 105.
The detached stern section of the full-size set was moved onto a separate tilting platform which would allow it to be rapidly turned vertical for the final phase of sinking. There were 10 takes, each requiring 100 stunt players to fall from or along the set while 1,000 extras were attached to the railings by safety harnesses.
Jack's portrait of the one-legged prostitute is actually visible for two frames as he turns the page to his sketch of "Madame Bijoux". James Cameron decided not to show the portrait as he thought the audience would imagine something better.
On the set of Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio's pet lizard was run over by a truck, but with some TLC, DiCaprio nursed him to health.
James Cameron's regular Michael Biehn was nearly cast as Cal Hockley and attended numerous meetings with Cameron to discuss the role. Pierce Brosnan, Rupert Everett, Peter Greene, William Hurt, Jason Isaacs, Rob Lowe, Matthew McConaughey, Adrian Paul and Rufus Sewell were also considered, though ultimately the part went to Billy Zane.
Leonardo DiCaprio was initially not convinced about playing Jack, thinking the part to be "a bit light". James Cameron convinced him that this would be the real challenge: to play Jack as a normal person, without looking for something safe to cling to, like exaggerated emotions or an impairment.
At the time of filming, it was believed that the ship broke into two pieces (as shown in the CGI animation at the beginning of the film), but as of 2016, it is now known that the ship broke into three pieces, the famous bow section, the imploded and crumpled stern section, and the middle, double-hull of the ship, which had planed away and accounts for approximately 100' of her total 883' of length and sits far from the wreckage, near the outer rim of the debris field. James Cameron acknowledges this error, but defends his description of the sinking in the film due to the fact that the mid-section was simply not known about at the time. As such, the film is retrospectively historically inaccurate.
James Cameron got production designer Peter Lamont, with whom he had worked on Aliens (1986) and True Lies (1994), out of retirement to work on the film. All the artifacts were created from scratch by Lamont's team to recreate the newness of everything on the ship. Pictures from the RMS Olympic, Titanic's identical sister ship, were used for reference since very few photos of Titanic still exist. At one point, Lamont had four separate art departments working on the film. His efforts earned him the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.
Paul Rudd auditioned for the lead male role because his own father had been an avid Titanic historian. Despite his being able to reel off factual technical stats about the great ship, the casting team remained unimpressed.
Real Beluga caviar was used in the first-class dining room sequence. After sampling it, Jonathan Hyde said he "made an acting decision on the spot that Ismay was a big eater."
Most of the decor on the ship was either reconstructed by or under the supervision of researchers of the White Star Line, the original company which constructed and furnished the Titanic.
To sink the Grand Staircase into the purpose-built 5 million gallon tank, 90,000 gallons of water were dumped through it as it was lowered into the tank. Such was the volume that the staircase was ripped from its steel-reinforced foundations. This is possibly what really happened to the Grand Staircase during the sinking in 1912. When the wreck was searched following its discovery in 1985, nothing remained of the staircase.
In all of recorded maritime history, no ship ever had a sideswipe collision with an iceberg like Titanic suffered. And no ship has had such an accident since. The force of the blow was likened to a C4 explosion something most modern ships would struggle to survive.
Reba McEntire was offered and had accepted the role of Molly Brown, but due to later schedule conflicts, had to turn it down.
The first movie to gross a billion dollars.
James Cameron met his fifth wife, Suzy Amis, on the set of this film. He was technically still married to Linda Hamilton but they had been living apart for some time. Of all his marriages, the one with Amis has lasted the longest.
Shay Duffin, who played the pubkeeper in England, is related to one of the original Irish workers who built the Titanic.
Composer James Horner said in an interview that after he first saw a rough version of the film he went home and wrote all the themes in 20 minutes.
In the movie the original script included scenes of newlywed couple Daniel and Mary Marvin, Daniel being a cameraman and son of Henry Marvin, co-founder of the movie production company American Mutoscope & Biograph. Daniel Marvin died aboard the Titanic, but not without photographing some of the only existing film of the liner. The Marvins were actually featured characters in S.O.S. Titanic (1979) which also starred David Warner (Lovejoy).
Due to enormous budget overruns, 20th Century Fox executives suggested an hour of specific cuts from the three-hour film. They argued the extended length would mean fewer showings, thus less money, even though long epics are more likely to help directors win Oscars. James Cameron refused, telling Fox, "You want to cut my movie? You're going to have to fire me! You want to fire me? You're going to have to kill me!" The executives did not want to start over, because it would mean the loss of their entire investment, but they also initially rejected Cameron's offer of forfeiting his share of the profits as an empty gesture; they felt that profits would be unlikely anyway. One executive who suggested that he also forfeit half his share of his next movie was angrily dismissed from Cameron's house. Amidst all the doubt, Cameron credits Sherry Lansing, head of co-producer Paramount at the time, for her continued support for the movie, even when no one else seemed to believe in it anymore. Cameron even screened a rough version of the film for Lansing on a small monitor at his own home, and her approval and helpful feedback were a turning point for him, confirming that he was on the right track with the movie, and that the three-hour running time was justified. Finally, all doubts held by the studios proved to be moot when the movie returned a giant profit by staying at the top of the box office for weeks, and held the record of highest-grossing film of all time for 12 years (until it was beaten by Cameron's own Avatar (2009)). Despite the huge profit, the studio initially tried to deny Cameron his back-end salary, but since they had rejected his forfeit offer, they were legally obliged to pay him an undisclosed sum.
A number of scenes are arranged and in some cases scripted almost identically to similar sequences in A Night to Remember (1958). This is particularly true of these scenes: - Thomas Andrews telling Capt. Smith the sinking is "a mathematical certainty"; - The Titanic's band preparing to depart at the end, only to turn around and regroup as Hartley begins playing "Nearer My God to Thee" by himself (though a different version of the song is used in the 1958 film). - A shot of Ismay in a lifeboat as the Titanic sinks behind him. - Thomas Andrews looking at a painting as Titanic prepares to sink - Andrews encountering a man by the Grand Staircase and telling him the ship is doomed (in this film, he tells Rose).
Jack Dawson is depicted as both one of the last passengers to board the Titanic as well as one of the last people to go into the ocean when the ship finally sinks.
Before announcing development of this film, director James Cameron boarded the Russian research ship 'Keldysh' that was going off the coast of Nova Scotia under the pretense of shooting footage of icebergs for a film titled "Planet Ice"; in reality, he was making dives to the real Titanic. All was done in extreme secrecy, with only a few studio executives and the crew members of the ship being aware of the famous director's mission.
Ranks first in the Academy Award Most Nominated Films List with 14 nominations, tying with All About Eve (1950) and La La Land (2016). La La Land (2016) is the only out of the three films to not win Best Picture.
In a deleted scene, called Ismay's guilt, it shows the life boats arriving near the Carpathia, and Bruce Ismay gets on and he looks around as the sad theme plays and everyone in the crowd is watching him. In real life he did the same thing. And in later interviews he "couldn't bear the sight of the Titanic sinking" (in the movie, he indeed averts his eyes from the sinking ship). After the Titanic disaster he kept a low profile. On October 17th, 1937, Joseph Bruce Ismay died of a stroke and is buried at Putney Vale London cemetery.
During the sinking of the actual Titanic, there was concern that the davits might not be strong enough to lower the boats fully loaded, although they had in fact been tested under such a weight. The davits in the film, which can be seen flexing under the weight, were made under the same dimensions as originally designed by the White Star Line.
James Cameron actually drew the famous Rose (Kate Winslet) drawing which was filmed and depicted as drawn by Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio).
The deep-sea camera held only 12 minutes' worth of film, but each dive to the real Titanic took about 11 hours to get there. To make the best use of his resources, James Cameron had a 1/33 scale model of the wreck constructed and used it to rehearse each dive, and memorize the ship's layout. The Russian sub operators would walk around the model ship holding model subs in their hands as Cameron explained the shots he wanted.
James Cameron supervised all of the underwater shots of the Titanic himself.
The scale model of the under water wrecked ship was on display in the Titanic museum in Branson, MO for a number of years. In August 2011, it was removed, taken back to Hollywood, and used to film the new Titanic 3-D movie.
The first film James Cameron ever directed that did not include or mention nuclear weapons.
After the ship breaks in half, the bow section sinks rapidly. To film this, the full-size set was in fact divided into sections, but the bow section would not sink fast enough, due to its own buoyancy and the narrow clearance between it and the tank. James Cameron observed that once "God's 10,000,000 kW light" had risen they would have to wait until the next night, and suggested sinking the set, letting the air space between the two decks fill with water, then raising the set again and quickly sinking it before the water ran out. This worked.
One of the Irish passengers, Patrick A. O'Keefe, was a young man who boarded the Titanic when he was 21 years of age. Just days before he entered the Titanic, he had horrific dreams of the ship sinking and nearly canceled his ticket. However he decided to board on the ship anyway. Once the Titanic was sinking, he managed to survive on the "collapsible B" life raft. He died in 1939 in Manhattan from unknown causes at the age of 48.
Jack mentions he is from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. James Cameron grew up in a town called Chippawa, Ontario, Canada, adjacent to Niagara Falls.
The "full-size" ship exterior set was constructed in a brand-new tank on a beach south of Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico. Construction started on the 85th anniversary of the real Titanic's launch - May 31, 1996 (see also A Night to Remember (1958)). To reduce costs, the number of instances of some repeating sections (such as windows in the middle) was reduced (and later added via CGI), and other parts (such as the funnels and lifeboats) were built at 90% scale to produce the correct visual appearance. The set was oriented to face into the prevailing wind so that the smoke from the funnels would blow the right way. Since the studio was also newly built, sets were often constructed at the same time as the studio building around them. Some of the sets were so big that crew members often got lost in them, necessitating the implementation of a zone system so they could find their way back.
Fay Wray was originally offered the role of the older Rose but turned it down, saying, "I think to have done this film would have been a tortuous experience altogether". Hollywood legend Ann Rutherford also turned it down.
Titanic marks the first time that two actors, Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart, were nominated for an Academy Award for playing the same person in the same film. They both played Rose but neither won.
During World War I, Titanic's former Second Officer Charles Lightoller served in the Royal Navy Reserve in multiple vessels (including 3 commands). Despite his distinguished record (he would be decorated twice for valor in combat), he would never command a merchant vessel for White Star or any other shipping line. After leaving merchant service, he owned a small motor yacht for much of the rest of his life. His was one of the many private citizens who helped in the evacuation of British and Allied forces from Dunkirk, France; he and his two sons would be credited for evacuating approximately 130 Allied personnel in the dangerously overloaded vessel.
The crew felt that James Cameron had an evil alter ego, and nicknamed him "Mij" (Jim spelt backwards).
The drawing Jack made entitled "Madame Bijoux" wasn't really just any picture. They got the idea from an old 1933 photograph taken by Brassai called "Bijou".
The "ale" in the below decks party was actually root beer.
Papers released by the Public Records Office showed that third class passengers were not locked below decks.
Mr. Andrews (Victor Garber) angrily notes to Officer Lightoller (Jonny Phillips) that he saw a lifeboat leave with only 12 people aboard, while it could theoretically hold 60 people. This is probably based on a real-life account of a surviving passenger to Walter Lord, who wrote the book "A Night To Remember", where he mentioned that some of the officers ignored the "women and children first" rule. As a result, lifeboat #1 was boarded by Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon and his wife (portrayed in the movie by Martin Jarvis and Rosalind Ayres), her secretary, and two other first-class men, for a total of only 12 passengers.
According to James Cameron, Fox was initially dubious when he pitched the film. "They were like, 'Oooooohkaaaaaay - a three-hour romantic epic? Sure, that's just what we want. Is there a little bit of Terminator in that? Any Harrier jets, shoot-outs, or car chases?' I said, 'No, no, no. It's not like that.'" Although, there is a scene when Cal (Billy Zane) chases the main characters and fires a gun at them.
Jack and Rose officially meet on Friday evening, April 12, 1912.
[June 2008] Ranked #6 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Epic".
The name of the character Caledon Hockley derives from two small towns (Caledon and Hockley) near Orangeville, Ontario, Canada, where James Cameron's aunt and uncle live.
During the third-class party scene, Jack and Rose try to dance the Polka, with neither one really knowing the steps. The Polka is the official state dance of Wisconsin, where Jack is from.
James Horner additionally wrote the song "My Heart Will Go On" in secret with Will Jennings, because James Cameron did not want any songs with singing in such a dramatic film (which he likened to "ending Schindler's List (1993) with a song"). Céline Dion agreed to record a demo with the persuasion of her husband René Angélil. Horner waited until Cameron was in an appropriate mood before presenting him with the song. He liked it during the first playback, and after playing it several times, Cameron declared his approval, although worried that he would be criticized for "going commercial at the end of the movie". Cameron also wanted to appease anxious studio executives and "saw that a hit song from his movie could only be a positive factor in guaranteeing its completion".
Kate Winslet had a few simple rules for Leonardo DiCaprio concerning their kissing scenes: no coffee, no onions, no garlic and no smoking prior to shooting. DiCaprio agreed, but would then proceed to do exactly all those things on purpose. Kate affectionately nicknamed him "Stinky Leo" on set.
To create the drawing of Rose, James Cameron had a photo session with Kate Winslet and took photographs of her sitting in different positions so he could use as reference. Cameron and Winslet didn't know each other well enough at that time for her to pose nude for him, so she posed in a bikini. Cameron had to use his imagination to draw her nude.
The car in which Jack and Rose make love was a Renault owned by the Carter family.
The completed film ignores the freighter Californian, which had stopped for the night due to the ice hazard and was within sight of the Titanic throughout the sinking (the Californian's warning had been received and sent to the bridge but was not placed in the chartroom). An early version of the script included a scene on the Californian, but James Cameron cut out the subplot after filming it to shorten running time. The two actors in the scene on the Californian were Adam Barker as radio operator Cyril Evans and Peter John White as Third Officer Groves.
The line, "I'd rather be his whore than your wife", was originally spoken by Peggy Lipton as Norma Jennings in Twin Peaks (1990). Coincidentally, Billy Zane and David Warner, who played Cal Hockley and Spicer Lovejoy respectively, appeared in that episode.
Was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2017 for being "culturally historically and aesthetically significant".
Early in production, this film's brief "decoy" working title was "Planet Ice".
Jack talks about going ice fishing on Lake Wissota in Chippewa Falls as a child. When the Titanic sank in 1912, the lake had not been created yet. It was created by a dam in 1917.
As is the case with many 20th Century Fox films, the film cans for the advance screening and show prints had a code name. Titanic's was "Baby's Day Out 2."
The schedule was originally meant to last 138 days but grew to 160 - 20 days short of 6 months.
The climactic scene, which features the breakup of the ship directly before it sinks, as well as its final plunge to the bottom of the Atlantic, involved a tilting full-sized set, 150 extras and 100 stunt performers. James Cameron criticized previous Titanic films for depicting the final plunge of the liner as sliding gracefully underwater. He "wanted to depict it as the terrifyingly chaotic event that it really was". When carrying out the sequence, people needed to fall off the increasingly tilting deck, plunging hundreds of feet below and bouncing off of railings and propellers on the way down. Even though the sequence had been rehearsed for weeks, stunt performers were suspended by harnesses and wires and the set had been coated with foam rubber, the actual filming of the scene resulted in one stunt man breaking a leg, and one stunt women fracturing a rib. Cameron halted the more dangerous stunts, and inquired with special effects supervisor Robert Legato if computer-generated people could be used for the more dangerous falls. Legato acknowledged, even though he was still in the initial stages of employing this technique. It finally paid off, although the amount of digital stunt people was purposely limited due to the fact that they didn't always hold up to close scrutiny (clothing textures and faces still looked a bit fake). The shot of Titanic's final moments was featured prominently in the trailer, and Cameron later commented that "that shot alone got our opening weekend audience."
Long shots showing the whole ship's exterior were produced by Digital Domain. A 1/20 scale model was filmed and computer-generated images of people, ocean and smoke were added. For one scene, James Cameron instructed them to "imagine we're making a commercial for White Star Lines and we need beautiful shots sweeping around the ship from a helicopter."
All the scenes with a shot of an exterior sunset were filmed at the Fox Studios south of Playas de Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico. The set was constructed specifically for the film, as no studio was large enough at the time to encompass the almost full-scale replication of the ship. James Cameron actually brought a large model of the Titanic and moved it around the 40-acre lot of recently acquired land to determine which place would have the best natural lighting conditions. When he finally found his preferred spot, he was told that that particular piece of land was not part of the lot. He simply replied "Then we'll need to buy this too".
As the elderly Rose exits the helicopter in her wheelchair, she is holding her pet Pomeranian. This is in tribute to the 12 confirmed dogs on the Titanic. Only three pets survived: two Pomeranians and one Pekinese which, due to their small size, were smuggled onto lifeboats.
Was the highest-grossing film in Japan until Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001) opened.
12 dives were necessary. On the last two dives, shots were taken by sending a remotely operated vehicle into the wreck; James Cameron had intended using this device only as a prop.
There was one "crucial historical fact" James Cameron chose to omit from the film - the ship that was close to the Titanic, but had turned off its radio for the night and did not hear their SOS calls. "Yes, the [SS] Californian. That wasn't a compromise to mainstream filmmaking. That was really more about emphasis, creating an emotional truth to the film," stated Cameron. He said there were aspects of retelling the sinking that seemed important in pre and post-production, but turned out to be less important as the film evolved. "The story of the Californian was in there; we even shot a scene of them switching off their Marconi radio set," said Cameron. "But I took it out. It was a clean cut, because it focuses you back onto that world. If Titanic is powerful as a metaphor, as a microcosm, for the end of the world in a sense, then that world must be self-contained."
Rose says "Jack" 80 times, not counting when she calls him "Mr. Dawson", but counting both Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart. Jack says "Rose" 50 times.
Billy Zane was cast after James Cameron saw him in the film The Phantom (1996).
Initially, James Cameron did not want a pop song for the movie's theme song. However, after hearing "My Heart Will Go On," he changed his mind and decided he liked it.
The wreck of the real Titanic was discovered in 1985 by ocean explorer Robert Ballard. Ballard was officially on a mission to locate the Titanic, but in reality, he had been secretly charged by the US Navy to locate two missing American nuclear submarines with his deep sea robot craft, before they could be found by the Sovjets. After quickly finding the subs, Ballard used the remaining time and resources in a successful search for the Titanic. Ironically, this closely mirrors the premise of The Abyss (1989), one of James Cameron's previous movies. Cameron stated that he was inspired to make The Abyss after seeing a National Geographic film about remote operated vehicles working deep in the North Atlantic Ocean, much the same tools used by Ballard. Cameron's love for deep sea diving which he developed during the making of The Abyss, coupled with his fascination for shipwrecks, finally culminated in the making of Titanic.
The specially constructed Baja water tank cost $40 million alone.
1000 extras were drafted in for the opening scene where the Titanic leaves Southampton.
James Cameron's last film for 12 years as a writer and director until Avatar (2009). Between Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009), James Cameron worked on the TV series Dark Angel (2000), which was canceled after 2 seasons.
A 162-foot crane originally intended for construction and lighting was mounted on railway tracks and used for most high-level exterior shots, rather than expensive helicopters. The camera platform was big enough for a gyro-stabilized Wescam, a Steadicam and a hand-held camera. James Cameron directed atop it to be able to see the entire set.
Gloria Stuart (Old Rose) was actually alive when the Titanic sank, however she would've only been a couple years old.
The name of the band seen playing at the party in 3rd Class is Gaelic Storm.
Jack Dawson's signature is based on the way James Cameron signs his own drawings.
For some wreck interior shots, a set was constructed and submerged.
Several scenes show all four funnels smoking but the smoke from the fourth funnel is fewer and cleaner. The White Star Lines competitors all had four and they did not want to lose face. So the fourth funnel was designed as additional storage space that was used on the first trip for livestock and to provide ventilation.
Bernard Fox appeared as Lookout Frederick Fleet in A Night to Remember (1958) (uncredited) and as Col. Archibald Gracie in this film.
First movie to be nominated in all seven technical categories (Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Costume Design, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects) at the Academy Awards and as of 2016 the only movie to win in all technical categories.
The Screen Actors Guild decided, following an investigation, that nothing was inherently unsafe about the set. Additionally, Leonardo DiCaprio said there was no point when he felt he was in danger during filming.
The filming schedule was intended to last 135 days but grew to 165. Exhaustion became an issue near the end of filming, as long working hours and several all-nighters had to be done to rush the film to completion. Director James Cameron, who had sworn of caffeine because it did not improve his personality, had to take regular vitamin B12 supplements and drank wheat-grass in order to keep up his energy.
When Jack is warning Rose about how cold the water is, he refers to it as 'a thousand knives stabbing you all over your body'. This was an actual quote, told by 2nd Officer Charles Lightoller (played in the film by Jonny Phillips) to the American Inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic.
The scene in which Benjaminen Guggenheim declares that he and his valet "have dressed in their best and are prepared to go down as gentlemen," which he actually said during the sinking, was originally supposed to feature him saying goodbye to John Jacob Astor, who is looking for his dog so that he won't die alone. James Cameron was unsure how to block the scene so that they would be close to each other, so he suggested that he say something else in addition to his line. Michael Ensign then ad-libbed "But we would like a brandy!", though the bit with Astor was ultimately cut.
The man in white, next to Rose and Jack, clutching the railing as the ship went vertical before it finally sank was a real person. He was the Chief Baker for the ship named Charles Joughin. He survived and has one of the most notable survival stories. He was able to stay alive in the water for an extraordinarily long time, a couple hours, treading water and clutching to debris. At daybreak he finally saw a lifeboat (Collapsible B) and swam to it. But it was partially filled with water and there was no room for him. So he clung, half in/half out with his legs dangling in the water until a second lifeboat came by. He swam to that and was pulled in. The only damage he suffered was swollen feet. This was the second time he had survived a shipwreck, also being in aboard the SS Oregon in 1886 (which also only had enough lifeboats for half the people on board.) He died in 1956.
A model was used for the ship in the background during the poker scene so the onlookers are missing.
David Warner, who played Spicer Lovejoy, also played real life survivor Laurence Beesley in the 1987 TV movie S.O.S. Titanic (1979).
Was the last first-run film to have a 70mm release until The Master (2012). James Cameron paid for the 70mm prints himself.
In one of the deleted scenes, Brock's manager Bobby tells him that they're over-budget, the partners depending on them are pissed, and that they're in serious danger of getting shut down. James Cameron later noted that when he was writing this, he had no idea he would be hearing all these things when the production ran into problems.
In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #83 Greatest Movie of All Time. This was one of the newest entries on the list (from films which were released between 1997 and 2005).
Only the starboard side of the set below the superstructure was fully built and riveted. When it came time to film the scenes in Southampton, everything had to be backwards so it could be easily mirrored in post-production, even down to the buttons on people's clothing.
Thomas Andrews was originally supposed to appear during the "King of the World" scene, but was removed because he hadn't yet been introduced.
Papers released by the Public Records Office in 1998 showed that third-class passengers were not locked below-decks.
Bill Paxton's fourth out of five collaborations with director James Cameron, following The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986) and True Lies (1994). They later made Ghosts of the Abyss (2003) together, which became their final collaboration with Paxton's death in February 2017.
This was the first movie to win both the Academy and MTV Movie Award for Best Picture.
The post-sinking scenes in the freezing Atlantic were shot in a 350,000 US gallons (1,300,000 L) tank, 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.
James Cameron admitted the expectations on Avatar (2009) were daunting but that was to be expected after making Titanic (1997).
Bill Paxton, Bernard Hill, and Victor Garber all narrated documentaries on the Titanic after the movie came out. Bernard Hill narrated Titanic: Secrets Revealed (1998), Victor Garber narrated Beyond Titanic (1998), and Bill Paxton narrated and starred in Ghosts of the Abyss (2003), which reunited him with James Cameron and Lewis Abernathy.
At the departure scene the extras were filmed on a green screen in a parking lot.
Although a sizable publicity campaign had already announced the movie's premiere to be July 1997, a lot of elements in post-production (especially the special effects) took longer to complete than anticipated. Halfway 1996, it was already clear that a summer 1997 release of the movie would only be possible with major cuts and compromises to the film. However, after a very successful preview of a rough cut of the movie, James Cameron convinced the studios that they needed to properly finish the film instead of cutting it down. The studio then agreed to delay the release until Christmas 1997. The movie Event Horizon (1997) was quickly rushed into production to fill the summer 1997 timeslot that had become available due to this decision.
The engine room scenes were partially filmed aboard the WWII ship SS Jeremiah O'Brien. Smaller railings and catwalks were installed to make the engines appear bigger.
The highest-grossing film ever to win the Best Picture Academy Award, and one of only two Best Pictures to gross over $1 billion (the other being The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)).
James Cameron considered Jared Leto for the role of Jack Dawson, but he refused to audition.
This was the first time the Best Song Oscar (for Céline Dion's "My Heart Will Go On") was won by a non-musical Best Picture winner. Best Song Oscar had been won by Best Picture winner only twice before (Going My Way (1944) and Gigi (1958), both musicals).
WILHELM SCREAM: After the Titanic hits the iceberg, water splashes inside the ship, hitting the crew members.
The only real decks were the boat deck and A deck, with a facade of plating and lighted portholes completed only on the starboard side. So many lights were required that cinematographer Russell Carpenter commented: "And you walk inside, and 70 miles of one kind of cable and 70 miles of another kind all add up to this Terry Gilliam vision of the telephone company of the 1950s."
A scene was filmed with Rose and a friend briefly looking at Jack in the first-class restaurant, obviously appreciative of how he looks in his (borrowed) tuxedo. Rose's friend looks especially enamoured, but Rose turns to her and says, "He's spoken for." This scene featured in the UK theatrical version on its original release, but was not present in the VHS release or the DVD.
Dolores O'Riordan was asked to both act in and compose music for the movie, but refused both offers due to the birth of her son.
Mädchen Amick, Jennifer Aniston, Vanessa Angel, Gabrielle Anwar, Christina Applegate, Rosanna Arquette, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, Julie Benz, Rose Byrne, Neve Campbell, Gabrielle Carteris, Jennifer Connelly, Holly Marie Combs, Claire Danes, Brittany Daniel, Geena Davis, Amanda Donohoe, Cameron Diaz, Minnie Driver, Eliza Dushku, Claire Forlani, Jodie Foster, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sally Hawkins, Katherine Heigl, Amelia Heinle, Natasha Henstridge, Eva Herzigova, Angelina Jolie, Milla Jovovich, Nicole Kidman, Alison King, Jordan Ladd, Robyn Lively, Carey Lowell, Madonna, Leslie Mann, Sophie Marceau, Penelope Ann Miller, Michelle Monaghan, Emily Mortimer, Thandie Newton, Gwyneth Paltrow, Christina Ricci, Joely Richardson, Keri Russell, Jeri Ryan, Winona Ryder, Nicollette Sheridan, Ione Skye, Tori Spelling, Sharon Stone, Charlize Theron, Uma Thurman, Rachel Weisz, Reese Witherspoon and Alicia Witt and were all considered for the role of Rose.
Mark Lindsay Chapman was fired and rehired twice, and survived an accident where he was struck by a boat and had to be pulled from the water.
Barbra Streisand was considered for the role of Molly Brown.
Jack and Rose have only known each other for just over 48 hours as Jack stopped Rose committing suicide on Friday 12 April 1912 while Titanic sank on Monday 15 April 1912.
The third film about the Titanic to be made by 20th Century Fox, following Cavalcade (1933) [then known as Fox Film] and Titanic (1953).
As of 2018, holds the records for being nominated in the most categories at the Academy Awards with 14. Other films which have 14 nominations were nominated in less categories. All About Eve (1950) had two Best Actress and two Best Supporting Actress nominations, and hence was nominated in 12 categories. La La Land (2016) had two Best Original Song nominations, and was nominated in 13 categories.
Initially, director James Cameron wasn't sold on the idea of casting either Kate Winslet or Leonardo DiCaprio. Winslet was a logical suggestion by the casting department since she had already done quite a lot of period drama (she was nicknamed 'Corset Kate' for that reason), but Cameron actually wanted to avoid typecasting, and look for a fresh face with less cinematic baggage. However, after auditioning Winslet, it was clear that she had both the strength and vulnerability to accurately portray Rose. For Jack, Cameron was equally afraid that DiCaprio's previous portrayal of mentally challenged and antisocial characters might be an obstacle for the audience in accepting him as a regular person. During the audition, DiCaprio got off to a bad start by initially refusing to read for the part, but he reluctantly accepted when Cameron told him that there would be no audition unless he did. Cameron's doubts were immediately gone when DiCaprio instantly turned into Jack as envisioned as soon as he started to read. When Winslet and DiCaprio later did a scene together and showed unmistakable chemistry, the deal was sealed.
When asked about her sex scene in the car with Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet said: "We'd do the most ridiculous things to each other. He'd be tickling me, groping me, winding me up. And I'd be doing the same thing back, sort of grabbing his bum." She also said they had fun making it, too. Their friendship even brought them together to film another movie, Revolutionary Road (2008).
The Titanic Belfast Maritime Museum Ireland opened 31 March 2012, commemorating the centenary of the great ship's demise. Construction began in May 2009 and cost £77 million sterling by completion. The 9 self-guided state-of-the-art interactive galleries are located on the very Harland & Wolff shipyard site where Titanic was originally built.
One of the Swedes in the beginning of the film, Erik Holland, is really Norwegian, and currently works as a doorman at a nightclub in Stavanger, Norway. The other, Jari Kinnunen, is an actor from Finland.
The three actors who play Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton), Lewis Bodine (Lewis Abernathy) and the third-class Chinese pony-tailed passenger (Van Ling) are best friends and frequent collaborators of director James Cameron in real life.
The shot of the water ripping through the lower deck corridors was achieved with a miniature model, which had all its door and wall panels broken apart and then loosely re-assembled with glue, before being blasted by multiple hoses. According to James Cameron, the shot did not look convincing until he tilted the camera angle in post.
The male third-class passenger seen getting his beard checked for lice when Rose, Cal and Ruth boards Titanic is director James Cameron. He also plays the black bearded third-class passenger wearing a bowler hat when Jack and Fabrizio look for their state room.
Came eighth in the UK's Ultimate Film, in which films were placed in order of how many seats they sold at cinemas.
Jack kisses Rose's hand three times during the film. The first time was when they meet at the staircase as to say "hello" before walking into the formal dinner party. The second time was at the end when they are both in the water as to say "goodbye". Additionally he kisses her hand when he slips her the note to meet him at the clock.
The entire set was mounted on hydraulic jacks and could be tilted up to 6° intact within the depth of the tank.
20th Century Fox acquired 40 acres of waterfront south of Playas de Rosarito in Mexico and started building a brand new studio in May 31 1996. A 17 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 production design removed redundant sections on the superstructure and the forward well deck so that it would fit the tank. The remaining sections were filled in digitally. The lifeboats and funnels were shrunk by 10%. While the boat deck and the A-deck were full working sets, the rest of the ship was steel plating. Contained within that was a 50 foot lifting platform for the ship to tilt during the sinking sequences, while towering above that was a 162 feet tall tower crane on 600 feet of railtrack. This was used as a construction, lighting and camera platform.
Of the special effects houses involved, VIFX were responsible for the icy, visible breath of the passengers floating in the water after the ship sank. They also worked on the engine room sequence and a lot of the workers seen therein. POP Film handled digital face replacements and matte paintings, Banned from the Ranch took care of some underwater shots, CIS Hollywood were responsible for sky replacements and bluescreen composites, whilst Digital Domain - James Cameron's own company - dealt with the bulk of the big showcase special effects.
Jennifer Aniston was considered for the role of Rose DeWitt Bukater.
Tom Cruise, Macaulay Culkin, Ethan Hawke and Brad Pitt were considered for the role of Jack Dawson.
James Cameron regular Jenette Goldstein appears in period costume here. Previously she had showed up in period costume at the auditions for Aliens (1986), her first movie with Cameron, thinking it was a period movie.
Caleb Deschanel was the movie's first cinematographer due to his experience with shooting period films. He clashed with James Cameron over the lighting of the film; Cameron wanted to be involved as much as possible, while Deschanel was used to operating on his own. He was eventually replaced by Russell Carpenter, who had also shot Cameron's True Lies (1994) and T2 3-D: Battle Across Time (1996) and was used to the director's way of working. Funny enough, one of the films that Carpenter watched for inspiration was Deschanel's The Natural (1984).
First winner of the Best Picture Academy Award to be converted to the 3D format after its original 2D release.
Interior shots also involved hydraulically tilted sets in tanks (in various studio soundstages).
After the movie was produced, it was discovered that a gravestone from a Titanic passenger who died was marked J. Dawson. James Cameron later stated that he had no idea that that was a real person.
James Cameron described his creative process as "what I'm good at is working with actors to create scenes and then editing their performances to get the absolute best vibrating version of that scene and then share that with the audience. It's an amazing process to go through. Sometimes you think it's not going to work when you get started and then the characters come to life."
The film's initial budget, roughly $135 million, adjusted for inflation in 2017 dollars, is closer to $208 million. The final production budget of $200 million, adjusted for inflation in 2017 dollars, is closer to $309 million.
The history of the fictional Heart of the Ocean diamond is based on the early history of the real life Hope Diamond.
The second film about the Titanic to win the Best Picture Oscar, after Cavalcade (1933).
Hugh Grant was offered the role of Cal, but politely told James Cameron it wasn't his thing.
Tom Wilkinson was considered for the role of Lovejoy, which eventually went to David Warner. Wilkinson went on to do The Full Monty (1997), which became one of Titanic's contenders at the Oscars next year.
Despite being an accomplished scuba diver, Leonardo DiCaprio really hated being in cold water, so much that James Cameron jokingly called him a "Persian cat". However, Kate Winslet needed the water to be cold to help her performance, so DiCaprio just had to get used to the temperature, which usually took a few minutes prior to each scene, and some coaxing by Winslet. He later said that making the film "made a man out of me".
Jack Davenport was deemed too young for the role of Cal. Coincidentally, he would later play a man of nobility who loses his fiancee to a lower-born man in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003).
If measured by ticket sales rather than dollar gross, this would rank as the fifth most attended film of all time domestically, having sold an estimated 128 million tickets in its initial run and another 7 million after its 2012 reissue. It was the most attended film of the 1990s and the most attended film since E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (136 million estimated tickets).
The only film to win both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie.
Became the last Paramount film to premiere on HBO in the United States in April 1999, after the end of a ten-year exclusive contract between the studio and pay cable network. Showtime had begun airing Paramount's films first-run earlier that year.
Stephen Dorff and Billy Crudup both turned down the part of Jack. Dorff later stated that he wasn't very impressed with the movie. He felt that Leonardo DiCaprio would have a hard time matching the success of the movie in his further career, and therefore did not regret his decision.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet both admitted that they were embarrassed by their performances in this film. Winslet thought her American accent sounded horrible and that her acting could've been better while DiCaprio thought he looked like a "young punk" in this film.
To achieve tilt angles beyond 6°, the "underwater" parts of the facade were simply detached from the set and the support structure adjusted accordingly.
Apart from the long, grueling and technically difficult shoot, director James Cameron stated that one of the biggest obstacles he faced was the increasingly negative press coverage. When the industry trade papers got wind of the epic delays, cost overruns, set safety issues and missed delivery dates, they started to relentlessly characterize the production as a waste of money and a sure box office bomb. Cameron suggested to the studios not to go into aggressive defense, but remain silent, in the hope that the press would run out of stories to print before the movie's premiere (or, in his own words, "step back and let them go flying past, and fall because of their own inertia"). Cameron also organized two premieres outside the USA, one in Tokyo and one in the UK (with Prince Charles in attendance), in the hopes that positive word of mouth from the still unbiased foreign press would force the American press to put aside their prejudices. Both strategies worked, as Titanic opened in the USA to rave reviews.
Jeremy Sisto screen tested opposite Kate Winslet for the role of Jack Dawson.
James Cameron said his original pitch for the film consisted of his showing the Fox studio executives a book full of famous Titanic paintings by Ken Marschall and said "This ship... Romeo and Juliet."
The movie lasts 34 minutes longer than actually took the Titanic to sink.
The first and last lines of the film are both spoken by Brock Lovett, played by Bill Paxton. They are "13 meters. You should see it." and "Three Years, I've thought of nothing except Titanic, but I never got it. I never let it in." respectively.
Kate Winslet was 21 during the production of Titanic, though her character Rose was only 17. Leonardo DiCaprio was 22 at the time of filming.
Became a world-wide pop cultural phenomenon upon its release, with an impressive box office result that was largely due to positive word of mouth and an uninterrupted 15-week streak at the no. 1 position. It was considered the breakthrough role of Leonardo DiCaprio, and this "Leomania" undoubtedly contributed to the fact that over 45% of female attendants of 25 years and younger had seen it twice in theaters at one point. The film renewed interest in Titanic itself, with libraries reporting that they couldn't keep books about Titanic on the shelf for weeks at a time. Some books, like the novel "A Night to Remember" and the official inquiry report, had to be re-printed to meet demand. Some restaurants offered Titanic-themed menus, stores made millions by selling authentic-looking Titanic props, and cruise lines did solid business for several years afterwards. They noted that many couples were disappointed to learn that most ships do not allow a recreation of the famous "I'm flying" scene at the bow, for safety reasons; there were also increased inquiries about the number of lifeboats aboard.
A 1/8 scale model of the ship's stern was also used.
When Jack and Fabrizio win their tickets to sail on Titanic. Jack reveals he has a Full House 10's over Aces. Given the fact that Jack only drew 1 card he would've won the hand regardless. Sven's hand was only two pair 8's and 6's.
The first movie to be filmed at Fox Studios Baja.
Christian music artist, Michael W. Smith wrote a song that was in the running to possibly be part of the theme called, In My Arms Again. The tone of the song was a role switch, being something Jack might have sung, if their fates had been reversed.
Despite the fact that this was filmed in Super 35, "Filmed in Panavision" is listed in the end credits.
The 2007 Doctor Who (2005) Christmas Special "Voyage of the Damned" was broadcast a decade after Titanic (1997). In the 2007 Xmas special, The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) arrives aboard the space passenger liner "Titanic" from the planet Sto. Russell T. Davies whom was the show-runner of Doctor Who (2005) had named the characters Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) and Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) after the main protagonists of this film and Russell T. Davies wanted Kate Winslet (Rose) to play River Song, but cast Alex Kingston instead.
The entire set could be tilted hydraulically to simulate the Titanic sinking from the bow, but putting the set in a new angle would take hours. To make up for lost time, in some shots the apparent tilt angle was simulated with various tricks, such as tilting the camera and horizon, and having the actors lean forward.
Old Rose says "it's been 84 years," which would actually make her 101 years old and the year 1996 when she tells her story--a year prior to the movie release. This means that she would have been 17 years old in 1912, and despite this, she was still served alcohol on the ship (at the time, legal drinking age was 18).
An enclosed 5,000,000 US gallons (19,000,000 L) tank was used for sinking interiors, in which the entire set could be tilted into the water. In order to sink the Grand Staircase, 90,000 US gallons (340,000 L) 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, although no one was hurt. The 744-foot (227 m) 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, James 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.
In Titanic's early development James Cameron had River Phoenix in mind for the real of Jack Dawson. But in October of 1993 River Phoenix died in Johnny Depp's club in Los Angeles. So when it came time to make Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio came of age. Ironically Johnny Depp was also offered the role but turned it down.
Chris O'Donnell (Scent of a Woman (1992), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Batman Forever (1995), Mad Love (1995), Vertical Limit (2000)) was considered to play Jack Dawson but the part went to Leonardo DiCaprio, whom Chris took the role of Robin (Batman Forever) away from a few years earlier.
At first, Paramount was about to cast Matthew McConaughey as Jack opposite Kate Winslet, and Kate confessed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (2015) that she even auditioned with him too. But then later Leonardo DiCaprio was cast, as per James Cameron's request.
Titanic was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"
Jack and Rose in a way are based on the famous passengers Isidor and Ida Strauss. Like Isidor Jack persuades Rose to board a boat and like Ida Rose decides to stay on board the ship. Like the couple Jack and Rose go down with the ship but unlike the Strauss's both survived though Jack eventually dies of the freezing temperatures.
20th Century Fox wanted Chris O'Donnell for the part of Jack.
Despite being either minor characters or extras, Helga the Norwegian third-class girl, her family, Jack's room-mates, a Chinese pony-tailed man, a young girl named Cora and her parents, and an Irish mother and her two children are seen several times in the film, especially during the Saturday night party and the sinking of the ship. Many scenes with these characters had been filmed, but most subplots were deleted from the final cut. They can be seen as bonus features on the Special Edition DVD and Bluray.
Michael Ensign who portrays Benjamin Guggenheim was also in the 1980 movie Raise the Titanic (1980).
The initial marketing of the movie was disastrous. Filming had run significantly behind schedule, so when it was time to create a first teaser trailer, no completed special effects shots were available; the best they could manage was a short clip of old Rose narrating about the necklace (which, according to producer Rae Sanchini, made one Fox executive vomit over his own shoes). Later trailers contained the desired money shots, but initial TV spots focused almost exclusively on the action and peril, making the film look more like a standard disaster movie than a romantic drama. Cameron felt that this hugely undersold the movie, so he suggested an alternative campaign that emphasized the drama and love story, to be targeted at female audiences (and to be broadcast during episodes of The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986)). Later TV spots combined elements of both.
Lorcan Cranitch was the first choice for the role of Thomas Andrews after James Cameron was impressed with his performance as DS Jimmy Beck in Cracker (1993). Victor Garber was cast after Cranitch turned the role down.
Of the seven actors who portrayed the ship's officers in the film, Edward Fletcher who starred as 6th Officer Moody was the only one of the group who wasn't of British origin. He was born in Massachusetts.
Gone with the Wind (1939) until the release of Titanic was the highest grossed romance film for 58 years. However Gone with the Wind still remains the highest grossed film of all time when adjusted for inflation.
Madame Bijoux was an elderly woman whom Jack Dawson had met in Paris. He claimed she came each night in the bar wearing all the jewelry she owned while "waiting for her long lost love". He had made a portrait of her and kept it in his sketchbook. Not only is the drawing based on a 1933 photograph called "Bijou" taken by famous photographer Brassaï but, similarly, the older Rose at the beginning of the film is in fact wearing several necklaces, bracelets, and rings and "waiting for her long lost love".
Some of James Horner's score was recycled from his score for Braveheart (1995). For example the music that plays right before the lookouts notice the iceberg is nearly identical to the music that plays right before the Battle of Falkirk.
James Cameron's original script was a notable omission come Oscar time even though it received nominations at the Writers Guild and Golden Globe Awards. Interestingly, the 1953 film, Titanic (1953) not only received an Oscar nod for its original screenplay but was actually victorious in winning the award also.
Billy Zane's character Caledon Hockley is named after two small towns in Ontario where James Cameron often spent summer holidays as a boy.
As the box office receipts for the film grew, so did billing on the poster and print ads. When Titanic first opened in 1997, Gloria Stuart's name was absent from posters and advertising. When she garnered a lot of publicity for being a 1930s Hollywood star returning to the movies, her name was added. Victor Garber's agent also petitioned for him to be added, and he was.
The second film about the Titanic to show the ship splitting in two and First Officer William Murdoch committing suicide, after the 1996 television miniseries, Titanic (1996), directed by Robert Lieberman.
In the 1958 Titanic film A Night to Remember (1958), most of the scenes of the Titanic sinking are seen from the ship's port (left) side. In James Cameron's film, most of the sinking scenes are seen from the ship's starboard (right) side.
The 2008 American Film Institute #100 Top 10 poll consisted of the top ten films in ten different genres. Titanic ranked as the sixth best epic film.
James Cameron wanted to show a reproduction of Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in a scene in which Kate Winslet is seen unpacking it. When the ship goes down, the painting is shown sinking below the waves. The Picasso Administration decided that it could not authorize the inclusion of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in the film "because the painting has been on display at the Museum of Modern Art for well over 60 years and certainly did not go down with the ship when the Titanic sank," said Feder, who, in addition to his work with the Artists Rights Society, is an art historian who has taught at Columbia University and Queens College. "When I viewed the film several weeks after its opening, I was surprised to discover that the scene depicting the submersion of Les Demoiselles was still in it. We negotiated a fee after the fact, which, as one could imagine, included a substantial penalty."
Marguerite Chapman turned down Old Rose due to illness. Ann Rutherford also passed on it, while Frances Dee screen-tested.
During the scene where Jack greets Rose with a kiss on the hand before dinner, Jack, smiling, explains that he saw that move in a nickelodeon, which was an early way to view short films.
The men that Jack and Fabrizio win the tickets from at the beginning were named Olaf and Sven. Frozen (2013) has an Olaf and Sven as well, and both movies deal with freezing temperatures. Both movies were also nominated for Oscars.
Lewis Bodine (Lewis Abernathy) is seen wearing a t-shirt featuring a blood-spotted yellow smiley face design, reminiscent of the iconic bloodied yellow smiley face design associated with the acclaimed 1986-87 comic book limited series "Watchmen" by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (filmed later as Watchmen (2009), directed by Zack Snyder).
The film earned James Cameron three separate Academy Awards: for Best Director, Best Picture (as he was a credited producer) and Best Editing. Although many directors have had the honor of winning three Oscars for the same film, Cameron and Alfonso Cuarón are the only two to have won something other than the Best Picture-Director-Screenplay trio.
James Cameron had been learning about movie editing during his previous movie True Lies (1994), and was a full-fledged part of the editing team on Titanic, together with long-time collaborators Conrad Buff IV and Richard A. Harris. Three editors were needed because almost twice the amount of footage was shot than is normal for a 3-hr epic. Cameron had turned one of the rooms in his home into an editing suite; during the day, he would supervise the special effects, and at night, he would do editing. The three men worked separately on sections of the film, and would then check each other's work, and recut if necessary. They shared the Academy Award for Best Editing for their efforts.
Upon accepting his Best Director Oscar, James Cameron quoted Jack Dawson by saying "I'm King of the World!"
In the film,and several paintings,all the ship's funnels are smoking when in actual fact only the front three were real. The rear one was a dummy.
The line that only 6 people were rescued from the water is not true. Over 40 people were pulled from the water by various lifeboats over the course of the sinking.
The song being sang by the church congregation is "Eternal Father, Strong to Save", which is a song about the dangers of being out to sea, written by William Whiting. The congregation was said to have sang the same song during Sunday Service April 14, the day before the Titanic sank.
Was the highest-box office film in South Korea until Je-kyu Kang's Swiri (1999) opened.
The Mauretania Rose mentions was a real ship that sailed from Southampton to New York; it was launched in 1906 and retired from service in 1936.
This film and Avatar (2009), both directed by James Cameron, were the top two highest grossed films for almost 10 years until Avengers: Endgame (2019) overtook this film as the second-highest grossed film of all time (on its way to eclipsing Avatar for the top spot).
When speaking to Jack, Rose says his name 83 times throughout the movie. When speaking to Rose, Jack says her name 51 times, respectively.
The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year not to be nominated in any of the writing categories. This is in contrast to Titanic (1953), which won only one Oscar: Best Screenplay.
The first Best Picture winner to also win both Sound categories (Best Sound and Best Sound Effects) at the Academy Awards.
The davits on the set were built by the same company that built the davits for the RMS Titanic.
Jack talks about visiting the Santa Monica pier, and one of Rose's photos seen at the end of the film shows her there. At the end of the special edition of James Cameron's previous film The Abyss (1989), a tidal wave is seen approaching the pier.
Danny Nucci (Fabrizio) stated that one of the hardest scenes to film was, ironically, the cheerful "King of the world" scene. The bow section on which the scene takes place was a separate setpiece; the rest of the ship wasn't there, it would be animated in by computer later. This meant that he and Leonardo DiCaprio had to be hoisted up on top of the bow, and were pretty much stuck up there for a long time. They didn't dare to ask to be taken off for lunch or a bathroom break, out of fear of drawing the ire of director James Cameron, so the hard part was acting euphorically all the time while they were feeling hungry and desperately had to urinate between takes.
Caledon is an Irish place-name related to Caledonia, the Latin word for Scotland thought to be derived from the ancient Celtic word for "hard."
The line "Now you may get your headline, Mr. Ismay." is the last phrase in the film before the cut off in the double disc version of the film.
The film is released by Paramount Pictures in the United States, but is distributed by 20th Century Fox in most other countries internationally. Fox was forced to trade the domestic distribution rights with Paramount in exchange for additional budget.
One of the most memorable scenes in James Cameron's Titanic is Kate Winslet's drawing scene. And although the film legitimized her acting career, Winslet sometimes regrets having agreed to that scene. To this day, Winslet claims that people still approach her on the street asking her to sign the film's drawing. "I don't sign that [picture]. It feels very uncomfortable. Why would you do that? People ask me to sign that [picture] a lot... I'm like, 'No! I didn't mean for it to be a photograph that I would end up still seeing 17 years later'."
Five first-class female passagers died on the Titanic, 4 adults and 1 child. The child, 2 year old Helen Allison, was the only child from first and second class to die onboard.
Kate Winslet claimed when she first met Leonardo DiCaprio she thought he was so impossibly attractive that it would be awkward for her acting romantic scenes with him. She claimed that fortunately the two of them developed a close friendship over the shoot that made it comfortable for the two of them to trust each other and be comfortable acting in character during the love scene, and they remained best of friends ever since. Due to that friendship the two of them have always found it amusing when people have asked them if they were really in love or if they regretted not starting a relationship.
David Warner's third time being in a movie about the Titanic: he was also in the TV movie S.O.S. Titanic (1979), and Time Bandits (1981) which had a scene set aboard the Titanic.
There was a novella called Futility written by Morgan Robertson in 1898. The fictional ship was called the Titan, the measurements were very close, and it sank by striking an iceberg. There was an article about it in Time Magazine published on April 14, 2012 written by Heba Hasan.
Victor Garber later had a starring role in the series DC's Legends of Tomorrow (2016) as Martin Stein, a physicist and one half of the time-traveling superhero Firestorm; as an in-joke to his role in the film, in "DC's Legends of Tomorrow: Freakshow (2017)" (which, coincidentally, features a guest appearance by Billy Zane), Stein vehemently refuses to board the Titanic, decrying the ship's architect as one deserving of getting shot.
Despite Sven and Olaf losing a game of poker their defeat was actually luck on their side because had they boarded Titanic they would very likely have died during the sinking.
One of the studios that made this film is Paramount Pictures. Paramount Pictures was founded on May 8, 1912, a month after the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912.
Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.
British newspapers alleged that Michael Caine refused the role of Captain Smith.
The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year to be nominated for Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Costume Design, and Best Makeup, and Best Visual Effects.
Director James Cameron made a total of 12 diving trips with a special submersible to the wreckage of the real Titanic. The third trip (which he later nicknamed "the bottom storm") almost ended in tragedy: while nearing the Titanic, there was a heavy underwater current that swept the sub out off course. Since each dive to the wreckage took nearly 11 hours and cost an estimated $40,000, Cameron wanted to make the most out of it, and started to film footage while the crew tried to keep the sub stable with its thrusters. However, when they wanted to ascend again, this maneuver had severely depleted the engines. The only way to return and escape fatal hypothermia was by periodically stopping and re-starting the engines, and allowing the sub to slowly drift upwards during the shut-downs (while trying to avoid a current that frequently pulled them down again). The return trip actually took much longer than necessary because halfway up, the crew finally remembered to jettison the ballast that they still had in the tanks.
Lighting the immense set was a gargantuan task, so director of photography Russell Carpenter had made a list for thousands of set and prop lights, as well as 40 miles of cabling that he thought he would need. However, the studio balked at the tall order, claiming that he wasn't managing his resources effectively, and sent experts of their own to assess the situation. The experts concluded that the initial estimates had been conservative, and that even more lights and cabling were needed.
During filming Leonardo DiCaprio's pet lizard was run over by a truck on set. The lizard survived.
One of the highest grossing films of all time.
Jack mentions to Astor that he is of the "Chippewa Falls Dawsons". This is the nearest city to Lake Wissota which he mentions earlier, when he is saving Rose, as a lake near his childhood home. His childhood home would most likely be Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, United States.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, whose careers skyrocketed following the film's release, both went on to win their first Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively, for films starting with the the letter "R": DiCaprio won in 2016 for his role in The Revenant (2015); Winslet won in 2009 for her role in The Reader (2008).
In 2007 was included as the #83 Best Film of All Times by the American Film Institute.
The two men Jack and his friend win the tickets off at the start of the film are call Olaf and Sven.
Brothers Sven and Olaf Gunderson's third-class ticket numbers are 92298 and 92302 respectively.
This film, along with Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), hold the record for the most times two characters have repeated each other's names ("Jack!" "Rose!").
At the same time that the Titanic sank The Boston Herald was going to print pictures on the newly built Fenway Park on its front page since the opening day for the Red Sox was to take place a week later on April 20th. However the sinking of the ship replaced those pictures on the ballpark. 105 years later Fenway Park is the oldest ballpark still in use.
Foreshadowing: The first class congregation is singing "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" and a close up of Rose shows her singing the line "for those in peril on the sea".
David Warner and Billy Zane previously appeared together on Twin Peaks (1990).
When the Oscars for "Best Sound Effects Editing" were presented for this film, the oversized envelope was given to category presenter Mike Myers by Bart the Bear, the enormous grizzly who appeared on stage with his owner/trainer Doug Seus (March 23, 1998 / Shrine Auditorium Los Angeles).
Included in Empire's 500 Greatest Films and in the new 2017 list of the 100 Greatest Films of All Times by the same magazine.
James Cameron's final film of the second millennium.
The final shot of the film is similar to the ending of James Cameron's previous film The Abyss (1989) which also ends with a passionate kiss between a couple who are the main characters of the story. Hypothermia and deep sea exploration are also important topics in that film also.
The same year as this film's release, James Cameron's wife at the time Linda Hamilton starred as Rachel Wanda in the volcanic disaster flick Dante's Peak (1997).
Ranked #45 in Hollywood Reporter's Top 100 Movies of All Time
Anthony Higgins turned down a role in this movie to do a play.
Lewis Bodine (Lewis Abernathy) is suspicious of Rose Calvert's (Gloria Stuart) claim to be the long-thought-dead Rose Dewitt Bukater, comparing her to a Russian woman named "Anesthesia". Bodine is referring to Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, who was murdered with the rest of the imperial family by Bolsheviks during the turbulent early years of the Russian Revolution. It was believed by some that Grand Duchess Anastasia had somehow survived her family's execution, and a number of impostors (most famously a Polish woman known as Anna Anderson) turned up in later years, claiming to be the long-lost princess. This historical phenomenon is dealt with differently in various films, including Anastasia (1956) with Ingrid Bergman, Anastasia: The Czar's Last Daughter (1956) with Lilli Palmer, the TV mini-series Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986), and the animated musical Anastasia (1997).
Special effects were originally going to be produced by James Cameron's own company Digital Domain, but after several delays and a postponed premiere, it was clear that the company could not cope with the extreme workload. Seventeen different special effects company were employed to finish in time.
Eric Braeden (JJ Astor IV) and Victor Garber (Thomas Andrews) also starred together in The Young and the Restless (1973).
Rob Lowe had been briefly considered for the role of Cal Hockley ultimately played by Billy Zane.
James Cameron insisted that while he fell in love with Suzy Amis during filming (later marrying her), he kept things professional by not asking her for a date until production officially ended.
Writer/Director James Cameron, Bernard Hill, and Victor Garber are left-handed.
The run time of the film, according to the double disc version of Titanic is 107 minutes for the first disc and 87 minutes for the second disc.
Leonardo DiCaprio's pronounced Californian accent, chiefly his inability to pronounce the letter 'g' on the ends of words, lends an anachronistic shade to his performance, further emphasized by his overwhelmingly modern appearance.
Danny Nucci had previously starred opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser (1996). Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in James Cameron's earlier films The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and True Lies (1994).
The first DVD to sell more than a million units.
Jack gets falsely arrested twice in the film, first for being mistaken as Rose's sexual attacker after saving her from falling into the ocean and secondly for 'stealing' the Heart of the Ocean after being framed by Cal.
We see a priest performing the last rites for some of the passengers during the sinking; we see a priest do the same for Marcus Wright who's awaiting execution in Terminator Salvation (2009), and James Cameron directed the first two Terminator films. Also, John Connor calls Marcus a pretty convincing liar, which paraphrases Cal's line to Jack.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Billy Zane have both starred in the horror franchise "Critters". Zane was in the first installment and DiCaprio was in the third. However Billy Zane's character dies whereas Leonardo DiCaprio's survives.
Leonardo DiCaprio was still living at home with his mother when he made this movie, (though being 23).
Included among the American Film Institute's 2001 list of the Top 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Movies.
The band's final song is 'Nearer, My God, To Thee'.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have been named the most romantic onscreen couple of all time.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were both previously nominated for Oscars for Supporting Roles. DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) and Winslet in Sense and Sensibility (1995).
Rose spits in the face of Cal, she was only able to do this because Jack taught her how to spit earlier in the movie.
The lookout who yells the iconic line, "Iceberg, right ahead" is later seen in lifeboat #6 behind Margaret Brown, also known as The Unsinkable Molly Brown. This was done on purpose for historical accuracy & to depict the actual experience of the Titanic's lookout, Frederick Fleet.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet became extremely close during filming and became lifelong friends. James Cameron and various cast members noted that they would constantly joke with each other and laugh in between scenes and fully depended on each other throughout the intense shoot. Winslet revealed in 2017, that they're such close friends, that they quote Titanic lines back and forth to each other in their text messages.
Frances Fisher's second Best Picture winner of the decade. Her first was Unforgiven (1992), which also starred Morgan Freeman. These two films were the second Best Picture winners for Freeman and Bernard Hill. Both actors have been in a total of three Best Picture winners, one in each of three consecutive decades. Freeman appeared in Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), while Hill appeared in Gandhi (1982) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
It looks like Jack Dawson is wearing a modern behind the ear hearing aid, seen as he turned away from Rose after passing her a note, but is actually just his hair cupping his ear.

Mistakes in the movie Titanic

When Jack prevents Rose from committing suicide, he shares a story about how he once fell into freezing cold water while ice fishing and how "it hits you like a thousand knives stabbing you all over your body." This was an actual quote from a Titanic survivor describing the temperature of the North Atlantic water.
At the end of the movie, when Rose meets Jack on the Grand Staircase, the time displayed on the clock is the same time the ship sank, at 2:20 AM.
As originally scripted, Cal was intended to actually find Rose aboard the Carpathia after the sinking. Rose was to tell him to let her mother know that she died on the Titanic, and that he would leave her alone for the rest of her life.
A 2012 episode of Mythbusters MythBusters: Titanic Survival (2012) tested whether or not Jack could have joined Rose on the floating door without submerging it and therefore survive the story. As it turned out, he could have, particularly if they strapped Rose's life vest underneath the door to add buoyancy. James Cameron, who appeared on the episode, maintained that Jack needed to sacrifice himself for thematic reasons, since his only concern was Rose's survival, not his own. He later said that the hypothermia and short time to come up with this solution would have made any practical implementation virtually impossible. Cameron did concede that he could have used a smaller door to make it more plausible.
Considerable controversy arose when James Cameron depicted the suicide of First Officer Murdoch. While Cameron did apologize to Murdoch's family members for the upset the scene caused them, he still kept the shot in the film, stating simply that while no one could prove that it did happen, neither could anyone prove that it didn't. Murdoch's body was never recovered, but it is generally agreed that he either froze to death in the water or went down with the ship.
Rose, in her old age, owns a Pomeranian. A Pomeranian was one of only three dogs known to have survived the disaster. As the real ship sank, a passenger freed dogs from their kennels.
Danny Nucci (Fabrizio) stated that there were several different versions of his death that were scripted. One of them would have involved him swimming up to Cal's swamped lifeboat and begging to be let aboard, saying it was his destiny to go to America. At that point Cal was supposed to have knocked him unconscious with his oar and tell him "IT'S THAT WAY!" Nucci was later told by director James Cameron that his screentime had been shortened, and that his death scene had to be altered. The shot of him being crushed under the smokestack was shot during re-shoots.
An alternative ending was shot, in which Brock spots old Rose before she throws the diamond into the sea. She shows it to him and allows him to touch it before she throws it anyway. James Cameron didn't use it, because it focused too much on Brock, and took away too much closure for the character of Rose.
The photos Old Rose has on her dresser all show things Jack said she would do with her life. Like riding a horse astride rather than side-saddle.
When Rose is afloat on the wood looking up at the stars, there is a vague image of the necklace. It is outlined by brighter stars shaping the heart loosely, and a few bright stars shaping the chain. This shot is omitted in the 3D re-release, in which it is replaced with a shot of how the stars really looked in 1912.
When we last see Cal's bodyguard Lovejoy in the finished film, he is hanging onto the side rail of the Titanic as it is breaking in half, with the side of his head appearing quite bloody. A scene had been cut that explains how Lovejoy got to look so bloodied and disheveled. The existing scene where Cal chases Jack and Rose down the Grand Staircase, shooting at them and then running out of bullets (prior to realizing he gave his coat with the diamond in the pocket to Rose), was originally longer. Cal hands Lovejoy the gun and tells him that if he can get the diamond from Rose, he may keep it. Lovejoy then loads the gun and goes hunting for them in the dining room. Lovejoy's head gets bloodied when Jack catches him off guard, crashes Lovejoy's head through a glass window and roughs him up a bit before he and Rose run away. On the 3-Disc Special Edition DVD that includes the deleted scene, James Cameron states that preview audiences felt the additional action of the scene was unnecessary, since there was already an elaborate sinking in process. They also didn't buy the fact that Lovejoy turns into a murderous villain trying to get a diamond from Jack and Rose as the ship is sinking (and they're ALL liable to die anyway). Cameron decided to listen to the audience, and took out the scene over the protest of the other editors.
Several main characters are not present in the ending sequence, including Cal Hockley, Rose's mother Ruth, Bruce Ismay and Molly Brown. This is because they survived the sinking. Only the characters who died on the Titanic are present in the dream sequence, because it serves to illustrate Rose being reunited with all the people she lost when it sank, including Jack.
Rose only says "I love you" to Jack once while they are both shivering in the water. Jack never says it, although he mentions what he loves about her (see Quotes).
In Titanic: 20 Years Later with James Cameron (2017) and Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron (2012), director James Cameron and a group of experts researched new facts and evidence concerning the sinking of the Titanic that had become available in the twenty years since the film's release. The object was to see if new information had made the movie retrospectively inaccurate. They discovered that Cameron and his crew had been quite adequate in their designs of the ship's interiors; the small exception was the telegraph room, which had been modeled after Titanic's sister ship, but looked a bit different. Fortunately, scenes that had been shot there had been deleted from the final print. Cameron also found out that the ship's telegraph had broken down a few days to the ship's sinking. The two telegraphers on board had repaired it, in spite of regulations to wait for the ship to reach the mainland. By ignoring this rule, they were able to contact the Carpathia to come and pick up survivors, saving hundreds of lives. There is evidence to believe that an outer door on one of the lower levels was opened to hasten the evacuation; unfortunately, this also sped up the ship's flooding. Eyewitness accounts of what exactly happened after the breaking of the ship vary wildly, so Cameron and his team did several (computer) simulations of the sinking and evacuation of the ship. The movie depicts the ship breaking between the last two smokestacks, while in reality, it probably broke halfway through the middle, just below the waterline. As a result, Titanic's stern section most likely did not drop back into the water after the ship broke in two, as depicted in the movie; it probably got tilted further into the upright position, until it finally sank. Concerning the evacuation, it is unlikely that more passengers would have been saved if Titanic had a full complement of lifeboats; the sinking of the ship went so fast that the crew probably would have been unable to lower more boats in the water than they did. Lastly, there is anecdotal evidence that Molly Brown (played by Kathy Bates) eventually commandeered her boat to go back and pick up survivors, and even threatened to throw off the unwilling crewman if he didn't cooperate.
Cal's snide comments notwithstanding, Rose intuitively has quite an eye for art. She bought herself a canvas considered one of the most influential paintings of the 20th century: Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Ladies of Avignon). During the sinking, it is shown floating in Rose's cabin -but actually it has been on exhibit safe and dry for decades at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (see Goofs).
The bedtime story the Irish mother tells her children is the story of "Oisin and Niamh," a story about a mortal man who falls in love with a goddess and lives with her for 300 years in the land of eternal youth and beauty, Tír Na N'óg, before returning home and dying when he steps off his horse. The choice seems particularly apt when considering that though Jack died, his love story was immortalized with Rose, who lived on.
In order to visit Rose as she's touring the bridge with Thomas Andrews and Cal on the day of the sinking, Jack steals a coat and hat belonging to a first-class passenger named A.L. Ryerson. A.L. Ryerson (Arthur Larned Ryerson) was a real first-class Titanic passenger who boarded in Cherbourg with his wife Mrs. Emily Maria Ryerson and three of their five children including their son John Borie Ryerson. The Ryerson's stayed in staterooms B57, 63, and 66 and the family purchased their tickets from the White Star Line for a total of 262 pounds 7 shillings. The scene in which Jack steal's the coat depicts a famous picture of a father and his young son playing with a top on Titanic's deck. The scene in the movie takes place on April 14, 1912, the day of the sinking. The original photo however was taken on the day of the sailing, and it's generally accepted that it was the Spedden who appear in the picture. Originally from Harford, PA the Ryersons were traveling aboard the Titanic to Cooperstown, NY. Emily and the children were rescued aboard life boat 4, but Arthur perished in the sinking.
When Mr. Ismay is being lowered down in one of the lifeboats, the band is playing Orpheus from the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus descended to Hell to rescue Eurydice, his wife, from a life of misery in the underworld, but just before they escape, she falls back in. Since the camera shows Ismay being lowered at the time, its almost like he's descending into his own personal Hell, because if it weren't for his insistence on speeding up, the Titanic never would have hit the iceberg. So he gets to watch it sink while the lifeboat slowly sails away. There is another interesting analogue to the Orpheus myth in the movie, when Rose descends the lower decks, in order to save Jack from drowning in the submerged parts of the ship; unfortunately, she is not able to save Jack in the end either.
According to James Cameron, the ending is meant to be ambiguous regarding whether or not Rose dies, so as to allow the audience to decide. Many fans claim that Old Rose is simply dreaming, while others claim that she has died and gone to heaven (being a restored Titanic), along with everyone who died when the ship sank. The screenplay confirms this intentional ambiguity: "We PAN OFF the last picture to Rose herself, warm in her bunk. A profile shot. She is very still. She could be sleeping, or maybe something else."
When Tommy Ryan is prevented from getting into a lifeboat by First Officer Murdoch, Tommy yells at him "Will you give us a chance to live, you limey bastard!" Limey is a nickname for an English sailor, referencing the age of sailing ships, when English sailors had to drink lime juice a lot to prevent scurvy.
The line said by Rose to Cal when she runs back to Jack, 'I'd rather be his whore than your wife' was also said in Twin Peaks (1990) six years earlier. The same episode of Twin Peaks starred Billy Zane and David Warner, who also starred in Titanic.
Kate Winslet nearly drowned during the scene where she and Jack are stuck in front of a gate while the water is rising in the hallway around them. Her coat had gotten caught below water by the gate, and she only managed to save herself by wrestling out of her coat. Director James Cameron had no idea what had happened, and asked for another take. Winslet carried on without telling anyone.
Even though it is very debatable whenever old Rose was asleep or dead at the end of the film Rose in her youth is seen 'reunited' with Jack in the grand staircase surrounded by those who died in the sinking including Fabrizo, Tommy Ryan, the ship's band among others. Judging by this it is strongly implied Rose did die of old age as foreshadowed by Jack before he died and the pictures of the things Rose did in her youth suggest she lived her life as Jack said she would. This could also suggest old Rose knew she was ailing and made it her dying wish to rid of the 'Heart of the Ocean' by throwing it into the ocean.
In the original script, Fabrizio had a romance with a blond Norwegian girl called Helga (she is the girl he is seen dancing with in the third class party). Several scenes were filmed but most of this subplot was deleted during editing (some scenes are on the bonus features of the dvd/Blu-ray version). Fabrizio himself wasn't originally killed by the falling smokestack; he managed to avoid it at the last second. During the ship's final moments, he tried to board a lifeboat, but Cal beat him in the head with an oar, cutting open his scalp, and sarcastically tells him to swim to his destination. Fabrizio then sunk in the water and drowned. This death scene was changed during production.
The final scene, in which Rose returns to the Titanic, features every character that died or was presumed to have died in the sinking assembled in the grand hallway of the ship. As Rose ascends the grand staircase and embraces Jack, they applaud. Captain Smith, stood on the balcony overlooking the staircase, does not begin to clap until a few seconds later, signifying the old maritime tradition of the captain going down with the ship. According to James Cameron, this scene can be interpreted in two ways: 1. Rose fell asleep and was dreaming of being back on the ship or; 2. Rose died in her sleep as Jack hoped she would, and her spirit returned to the Titanic reunited with him and all the lost souls on that fateful night.
The scene where Captain Smith (Bernard Hill) is engulfed by the flooding of the cabin was the very last scene to be filmed. It was part of an all-night shoot in order to make up for lost time. Although the stuntman was equipped with a breathing regulator, director James Cameron was in the cabin himself wearing a diving suit during the stunt, in case he had to supply emergency oxygen to the stuntman. All went well, and afterwards, Cameron had a brief wrapping party with the remaining crew members, where he finished half a bottle of tequila. He was finally taken home, and had already fallen asleep in the van before it left the studio.
Rose's dress during the sinking of the Titanic is lavender. Earlier in the movie, during a scene of afternoon tea, Rose's mother can be heard commenting that Rose had chosen lavender as the colour of her to-be bridesmaids' dresses because her mother hates the colour. This could be a metaphor for Rose choosing Jack and rejecting the life chosen for her by her mother.
During the scene where old Rose narrates that the survivors in the lifeboats could do nothing but "wait to die, wait to live, wait for an absolution," her mother Ruth is seen being held by Molly Brown, showing that her mother overcame her prejudice against her.
One of the conditions that 20th Century Fox had for director James Cameron before they would greenlight the expensive and risky project was that the film would have a commercially viable PG-13 rating, in order to give a broad audience access to the movie and increase the chances of recouping the costs. This wasn't a problem, as the violence wouldn't be that excessive, and the only sexually risque element would be Rose posing nude for Jack. A PG-13 rating allows brief nudity in non-sexual contexts only, which explains why Rose could appear partially nude during the drawing scene, but not during the sex scene later in the movie.
Like Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor, the main protagonists of James Cameron's earlier film The Terminator (1984), Jack and Rose fall in love and Jack dies, Rose lives.
Both this and Somewhere in Time(1980) are similar. From the costumes to the doomed romance to the aftermath scene.

FAQ on Titanic Movie

Did Spicer Lovejoy die?

Yes, he died when the ship broke in half. He was right in the section that broke and therefore fell in to the crevice.

Why does Lovejoy have a head wound just before he dies?

This is explained in a deleted scene (which can be seen on the Special Edition DVDs). The scene where Cal chases Jack and Rose originally ran longer. Knowing that Rose is unknowingly carrying the diamond, Cal tells Lovejoy that, if he can get the diamond, he can keep it. Lovejoy enters the flooded part of the ship, as Jack and Rose are trapped by a locked door. Seeing Lovejoy following them, they go and hide behind a table. Jack sneaks up on Lovejoy, and in the ensuing fight, Jack bashes Lovejoy's head through a window and then against a wooden beam. Jack and Rose then break out toward the upper deck, leaving Lovejoy unconscious.

The scene was cut because test audiences didn't like it. No one would put their lives in jeopardy for greed.

Are there any differences between the DVD release and the Blu-ray release?

Several digital alterations were made for the Blu-ray version, e.g. corrected goofs whereby mistakes like visible lighting equipment or tools like threads etc. were removed. The probably most distinct difference is the altered background (sunset) during the famous "I am flying!" scene with Leo and Kate.

Are there any other movies about the sinking of the Titanic?

The sinking of the Titanic is a popular movie subject and has been so ever since the incident. Some of the more memorable movies include Titanic (1943), Titanic (1953), and A Night to Remember (1958)); Herbert Selpin's, the 1943 one, being the first big-budget (and over-budget) feature-length film on the topic. There have also been several TV series featuring the Titanic, such as S.O.S. Titanic (1979), Titanic (1996), and Titanic: Blood and Steel (2012), as well as movies about the aftermath of the Titanic including Raise the Titanic (1980), the animated Titanic - La leggenda continua (2000), and Titanic II (2010).

Does Old Rose ever say what happened to her mother after the Titanic tragedy?

We know that Ruth DeWitt Bukater was on the Carpathia; and Rose explained what happened to Cal in later life, but Old Rose never mentions what happened to her mother. Some assume that Ruth probably went poor and died penniless or married again to a merchant. Many widows of the Titanic disaster did marry again. While the mother was depending on Rose to marry Cal, she could herself have married later, perhaps to a less extravagant but still financially-secure level. Another possibility is that Cal made financial appropriation for her as his mother-in-law. Rose and Cal, as mentioned by Cal in the movie, would have been recognised as man and wife in practice, and Cal would have been very conscious of maintaining a gentleman's status in high society. It would have appeared extremely callous for Cal to cut Rose's mother loose with her daughter presumed dead.

Was there anything wrong with the Titanic's design?

It may have been possible for the Titanic to have been designed better, but there was nothing particularly "wrong" with her design. No ship in the world (at the time) could have survived such a collision, and the Titanic probably remained afloat longer than any other vessel could have. The Titanic's sister ship, the Britannic, also sank but that was after hitting a mine during the Great War. Her other sister ship, the Olympic, had an exemplary career with no problems whatsoever. Miraculously, White Star stewardess Violet Jessop survived the sinking of both the Titanic and Britannic and was also aboard the Olympic when she was badly damaged in a collision but remained afloat.

Could Jack be Lizzy's grandfather?

Some people think that Lizzy Calvert (Suzy Amis) is Jack's granddaughter. Not true. Rose says to Lizzy, "I've never told anyone about Jack before, not even your grandfather". Lizzy's grandfather was a guy named Calvert that Rose married in the 1920s.

If Rose became an actress, wouldn't Cal have recognized her and tried to retrieve the diamond?

Cal committed suicide after the stock market crash in 1929. In a deleted scene, he offers Lovejoy the diamond if he can bring him Rose (or stop Jack from winning her), so he apparently did not know whether or not she survived. If Rose became a noted actress after 1929, Cal would have posed no risk to her. If she was an actress before then, she might have done so without attracting his attention, especially if she performed on stage rather than on film and if she never achieved any real prominence. As she was 17 at the time the ship sank, her appearance would have changed as an adult, and the makeup used in early cinema was very heavy, therefore making her much less recognizable.

What are the myths surrounding the Titanic?

(1) That she was carrying gold bullion; incorrect although there would have been a great deal of precious jewelry and cash kept in the ship's safe for rich passengers during the crossing. (2) That she sank due to the curse of an Egyptian mummy that was being carried in the cargo hold from the British Museum; the British Museum has no record of any such artifact nor does the White Star line. (3) That she was sabotaged by Catholic extremists who were resentful of her makers, Harland and Wolf, employing an overwhelmingly Protestant workforce. The contemporary Home Rule Bill (Britain granting Ireland limited self-government with provision for progressive independence in the same way as Canada, Australia etc) had ratcheted sectarian tensions in Ireland up to a high degree and wild rumours spread as a result. (4) That Lord Ismay took a place in a lifeboat to save himself at the cost of others' lives; Ismay actually played a key role in persuading first-class passengers to enter the lifeboats and helping them aboard. When he himself boarded one, it was half empty with no one else queuing for it. Numerous wild stories spread in the press about his conduct on the night, and he was vilified in the press but the subsequent inquiries disproved them all. (5) That it was the first use of SOS; it had actually been introduced in 1908, but the sinking of the Titanic made it much more famous and popularised its employment.

Why did Rose keep the diamond for so long if it reminded her of Cal?

The movie gives us no explanation. In the alternate ending, she says that she didn't cash in on the diamond because she didn't want to rely on Cal for money. In any case, the Heart of the Ocean was unique and incredibly valuable, so it would be almost impossible to sell without attracting attention. The diamond was also her only tie to her life on the Titanic, so it served as a reminder of her promise to Jack to "Never let go." She throws it into the water at the end of the film because, by that point, she had fulfilled her promise to Jack (to live her life to the fullest) and was ready to move on.

Why was there such horrific loss of life?

The Board of Trade had not changed its safety rules since the days of sailing ships, the number of lifeboats specified in direct ratio to the size of the crew. However modern steam powered liners carried far more passengers and fewer crew meaning there wasn't enough for everyone (the Titanic actually exceeded the recommended number of lifeboats). The White Star line had not trained the crew well enough in evacuation procedures and they let some of the boats go without reaching their maximum capacity. The SS Californian was nearby but did not have a radio operator on watch (it was not legally required at the time) and the Titanic did not respond to her signal lamp, either it was too distant or no one noticed it during the panic of the evacuation. The Titanic fired white communication rockets rather than red which was the official distress signal and fired them at the wrong intervals for a ship requesting assistance. The boat's crews did not return soon enough to rescue the survivors from the water because they feared being swamped by hundreds of people.

How many people were actually rescued from the water by lifeboats?

Rose says six, but accounts vary slightly. The best estimate is that 12 or 13 people were picked up from the water by lifeboats. Of these, at least three died of injuries or exposure. See here for more details.

What happens to Rose at the end of the film?

Cameron really left that up to the audience to provide their own interpretations. Some people think that the very final scene is only a dream. Others are of the opinion that Rose died safe in her bed, just like Jack said she would and that the final scene is of their souls reuniting in the afterlife. Also, the fact that all the people present around the grand staircase are those who perished on the ship and the film fades to white after her and Jack kiss. Those people include the little girl Cora (killed in a deleted scene), whom Rose was unlikely to have known had died that night, in the arms of the father that Rose probably didn't connect with Cora. Also the clock is on 2.20 am, the time of the sinking. These are strong hints that this was her ascent to the afterlife and her becoming an honorary member of the "Titanic Club."

After being rescued from the frigid water and taken aboard the RMS Carpathia, Rose sits on the steerage deck wrapped in a blanket. When she notices Cal walking through the crowd, she turns her head away so that he doesn't see her. The immigration officer asks Rose for her name, and she replies, "Dawson...Rose Dawson." The scene then switches back to Old Rose on the Keldysh as she finishes telling her story to all who are listening, some with tears in their eyes. She finishes her story by telling them that Cal eventually married but lost his millions in the crash of 1929 and put a bullet through his mouth. Later that evening, after the decks have cleared of activity, Old Rose walks out on the aft deck in her nightgown. Climbing up on the rails, she drops the Heart of the Ocean into the dark water. Cal had placed it in his coat pocket and forgot about it when he wrapped his coat around Rose. Rose then goes to bed surrounded by pictures of her life's accomplishments. In the final scene, the robot sub slides down the corridors of the sunken Titanic, when transforms into its elegance where Jack and Rose are reunited.

Whose fault was it that the Titanic sank?

In many ways, everyone's and no one's. The radio room had received warnings of icebergs in the area but were too busy sending private messages for the passengers to pass it on to the bridge. Lord Ismay pressed Captain Smith to travel as fast as he could but this was not unusual for Atlantic liners and he certainly would not have done so if he had received the ice warnings. The lookouts were in the crow's nest rather than at the front of the ship where they would have seen the iceberg sooner and lacked binoculars which were locked in a cabinet for which the key was missing (the crewman in possession of the key had been transferred to another ship forgetting to leave it behind and no one wanted to be responsible for smashing the lock on the cabinet). Upon sighting the iceberg, the crew turned the ship and threw the engines into reverse but this meant that the Titanic struck the iceberg at an angle rather than head-on. Had she struck head-on only the first few compartments would have been flooded and the ship would almost certainly have survived. Striking the iceberg at an angle meant the damage extended down the side of the ship, flooding more compartments and resulting in its loss. Depending upon the maneuverability of the ship, steering without putting the engines in reverse may have allowed her to dodge the iceberg, whereas the catastrophic combination of two approaches were taken as the crew tried to think fast. Meanwhile, the designers of the model to which the ship belonged, the Olympic class, likely had not anticipated any of the ships being damaged in the way this one was, since the compartments were organized into a cell sequence rather than a cell grid (though its worth noting that the latter would have cost more in resources).

Did William Murdoch commit suicide on the Titanic during the real 1912 disaster?

There's a possibility that he did. An officer indeed shot himself on the deck, but no one knows for sure which, and it's most likely no one ever will. The officer who shot himself could have been either 1st Officer William Murdoch (Ewan Stewart), Chief Officer Charles Wilde (Mark Lindsay Chapman), or 6th Officer James Moody (Edward Fletcher), all of whom died that night. Witness testimonies over this matter varied. Some also say it was Captain Smith (Bernard Hill), but due to how recognizable he was, it's doubtful that anyone would confuse him, if he was indeed the man who shot himself. Murdoch could have done so over guilt for crashing the ship, Wilde could have done it because he lost some relatives in a car crash earlier, and Moody could have done it simply due to stress over how awful the situation was. It was most likely Wilde, because the officer who killed himself was in his section of the ship. Both Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller (Jonny Phillips) and Fourth Officer Joseph Groves Boxhall (Simon Crane) said that they hadn't noticed anyone shooting himself on the ship as she sank. Then again, Lightoller also stated that the ship never broke in half even though the wreck speaks for itself. Lightoller also wrote a letter, signed by himself and several other officers that Murdoch did not kill himself. Wireless Operator Harold Bride, who swam from the ship and survived the night on Collapsible B with Lightoller, said that he saw the bodies of both Murdoch and 6th Officer James Moody in the water. Both were dead. Murdoch was clinging to a deck chair and Moody appeared to have a head wound (which Bride said made him wonder if Moody had shot himself). Lightoller's testimony could be questioned, as there is little reason for Bride to lie about seeing Murdoch in the water. Based on this, if an officer committed suicide, it seems less likely that it was Murdoch and more likely it was Moody or Wilde.

When women and children were let on the lifeboats, what was the cut-off age for children?

Women and children meant females of all ages and boys who were 14 or younger. However, the lifeboat boarding policy depended on which officer was controlling the boarding. Second Officer Lightoller had a strict policy of women and children only (he tried to keep Arthur Ryerson's 13-year-old son out, but relented when the father protested. "No more boys," Lightoller grumbled, according to Walter Lord's account in the book A Night To Remember). Other officers allowed any passengers to board the boats. Lifeboat #1 was boarded by Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, his wife, her secretary and two other first-class men, for a total of only 12 passengers in a lifeboat made for about 40 (Mr. Andrews even makes an angry comment about this in the movie).

Why did Cal try to kill Rose and Jack?

He would do anything to prevent Jack from winning Rose. As Cal had said a few moments earlier to Jack as they watched Rose descend in the lifeboat (that she soon jumped out of), "I always win, Jack. One way or another." Once Rose jumped back onto the Titanic and into Jack's arms, Cal saw that he wasn't going to "win" and his thought process was likely "If I can't have her, no one can.", making him homicidal.

Who was the blonde girl that Rose looks at?

That was the Norwegian girl Helga Dahl with whom Fabrizio was dancing in the third-class dance. She was supposed to be Fabrizio's love interest, but all her other scenes were cut from the movie. They are included in the Special Edition DVDs.

Did the band really play "Nearer My God To Thee" as the ship sank?

While a number of film versions show the band playing the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee," it's quite problematic. The major point is that the only ones who know the answer for sure (that is, the band), went down with the ship. However, many of the rumours which sprang up as soon as the survivors of the Titanic reached land said that "Nearer My God To Thee," was indeed the last music that the band played as the Titanic sank. In Walter Lord's book, A Night To Remember, which recounts the specific events from that night, Lord states that the last tune to be played by the band was "Autumn." Wireless Operator Harold Bride, who was one of the last survivors to leave the ship, also said in later interviews that the last piece the band was playing was "Autumn." While that hymn has been ruled out, what's now believed is that Bride was referring to "Songe d'Automne," with which he would undoubtedly have been familiar, and which he would have referred to mistakenly as "Autumn," as it was widely known at the time. If we assume the hymn in question was "Nearer My God To Thee," there's still room for debate, although Eva Hart, a reliable Titanic witness, said she ran out of a church in distress when she heard it played a few months later. This hymn comes in three main versions (and five other alternate versions): the American version ("Bethany"; played in this very movie), the British version ("Horbury," played in A Night to Remember (1958)), and the British Methodist version "Propior Deo," currently not yet played in any Titanic movie to this date). All the members of the Titanic's band, save for one French member, were British. Thus the American version played in this movie is out of the question. The leader of the band, Wallace Hartley, was a Methodist, although he did attend a non-Methodist church around 1912 in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, on a street called Halifax Road (ironically), and so could have been influenced to play "Horbury," the version from "A Night To Remember." And so the possible versions of "Nearer My God To Thee," that could have been played that night are the British and the British Methodist versions, though unfortunately Ms Hart failed to hum the tune for posterity whilst being interviewed. Suggestively, she was evidently a British Catholic and not a Methodist. She also refused to watch Titanic movies so there's no confirmation from that source. The band was playing to keep the passengers calm as the ship was sinking, and playing "Nearer My God to Thee," could have worked against the calm that the band had been working so hard to instill in the passengers that night.

What does the command "hard-a-starboard" mean?

At the time of the Titanic disaster, steering orders were still given in concurrence with an old tradition. Early ships were steered with an oar and then later with a tiller that would control the rudder. In order to turn to starboard you would turn the tiller to port and vice-versa. So if an officer said "hard-a-starboard", that meant "turn the tiller to starboard and the ship would go to port". During the early 18th century, the wheel was introduced. Now turning the wheel to port (as in counterclockwise) would steer the ship to port, but the old orders stayed the same—i.e., if an officer said "hard-a-starboard" (as in the movie), the helmsman would turn to port; in essence the helmsman had to turn in the opposite direction to what the officer had said. Confusing? Yes, but this was finally corrected in the UK on January 1st, 1933, when "hard-to-port" finally meant "turn to port" and "hard-to-starboard" finally meant "turn to starboard".

Why does Rose laugh when Jack sings "Come Josephine" in the "flying" scene?

Rose is laughing because she is remembering the night before when she was with Jack after the steerage party and they sing the song together. This is a deleted scene on the three disk special edition DVD.

What is that song Jack sings to Rose in the "Flying Scene" and when Rose is on the door at the end?

That song was a popular tune back then called "Come Josephine in my Flying Machine." It was first written in 1910 by Fred Fisher and Alfred Bryan, then recorded by Blanche Ring. In 1911 it was recorded again as a duet between Billy Murray and Ada Jones. On the "Back To Titanic" soundtrack it is heard sung by Maire Brennan with lines from the movie in the background said by Rose towards the end. It is also heard again on a deleted scene on the special edition DVD.

Was Cal aware that Rose's family was broke or poor?

It's likely that Cal knew about Rose's situation. He is a very calculating business man, so he is probably well aware of general financial situations, especially of people with whom he has dealings. Given his attitude towards Rose, it seems that he perceives her primarily as an accessory that will solidify his name, so it would make sense for him to assess the benefits and risks of entering into a commitment with her beforehand. He was probably aware that her family was financially ruined, but the fact that they came from a high-class background and had only lost their wealth recently meant that Rose was still a suitable "match." In any case, his family is very rich, and he would probably have liked the idea of Rose being financially dependent on him. The movie makes a point of the distinction between "new" and "old" money indicating that financial gain is not on its own as powerful as the name that accompanies it. This is evident in the first-class passengers' attitude towards the "vulgar" Molly Brown, who is described as "new money", meaning her family had only recently become wealthy, which doesn't carry the same status as families who have been rich for several generations (like Rose's). Also, when Jack mentions he is called Dawson, the immediate assumption is that he is of the Boston Dawsons. Rose's mother indicates that Rose's father had a name sufficient enough to cover his destitution. It is even possible that Rose and Cal were already betrothed before Rose's father died, and her financial crisis was not yet apparent. In any way, Cal probably appreciated that her name joining his would consolidate both their status and didn't care if it came with money or not.

What is the song they sing in church?

"Eternal Father, Strong to Save". This is also known (to Americans) as the Navy Hymn—note the lyrics: "Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea!" Its use in this movie constitutes an anachronism, because although the original lyrics of the hymn were written by William Whiting of Winchester, England, in 1860, and were set to music by John Dykes, an Anglican clergyman, in 1861, the verse that precedes Whiting's famous reference to "those in peril on the sea"... O Spirit, Whom the Father sent / To spread abroad the Firmament; / O wind of heaven, by Thy Might, / Save all who dare the eagle's flight; / And keep them by Thy watchful care / From every peril in the air. ...is the one that first appeared in the printed hymnal of the U.S. Protestant Episcopal Church in 1940 and so would not have been part of services aboard a British ship in 1912.

Which characters are real and which are fictitious?

Jack Dawson, Rose Bukater, Brock Lovett, Rose's fiancé Cal Hockley (Billy Zane), Rose's mother Ruth (Frances Fisher), Spicer Lovejoy (David Warner), Fabrizio (Danny Nucci), Tommy Ryan (Jason Barry), Helga Dahl (Camilla Overbye Roos) and family, and Cora Cartmell and family are all fictitious. The most prominent real-life characters mentioned by name are multimillionaire John Jacob Astor (Eric Braeden) and his wife Madeleine (Charlotte Chatton), Ben Guggenheim (Michael Ensign) (the guy who dresses in his best and asks for brandy), Margaret "Molly" Brown (Kathy Bates) (in real-life her nickname was Maggie, not Molly), the Countess of Rothes (Rochelle Rose), Colonel Gracie (Bernard Fox), Sir Cosmo (Martin Jarvis) and Lady Duff Gordon (Rosalind Ayres) (who really did design lingerie), the ship's architect Thomas Andrews (Victor Garber), White Star Line president Bruce Ismay (Jonathan Hyde), Captain Edward J. Smith (Bernard Hill), 1st Officer Murdoch (Ewan Stewart), 2nd Officer Lightoller (Jonny Phillips), as well as other officers and crew members. Shown but not named are Ida (Elsa Raven) and Isidor Strauss (Lew Palter) (the old couple shown lying on the bed near the end), who co-owned Macy's with Strauss' brother, and Charles Joughin (Liam Tuohy) (the baker on the railing with Jack and Rose). Named but not shown is Arthur Ryerson. Robert Douglas Spedden is the kid spinning the top on the promenade deck, a scene based on an actual photograph taken en route to Queenstown.

What is 'Titanic' about?

Eighty-four years after the sinking of the RMS Titanic, deepsea explorer Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) has located her carcass on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. Using robot technology, he recovers a safe containing a drawing of a young woman wearing what looks like the Heart of the Ocean, an immense, heart-shaped diamond. When 101-year-old Rose Calvert (Gloria Stuart) sees the drawing on a TV news broadcast, she is flabbergasted, because the woman in the drawing is herself. Lovett brings Rose aboard the Keldysh, where Rose tells the story of how she, as 17-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet), met drifter and artist Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) aboard the ill-fated ship.

Is 'Titanic' based on a true story?

The sinking of the British passenger liner RMS Titanic is, indeed, a true event that took place in April 1912 when it hit an iceberg and sank at 2:20 a.m on April 15, 1912. The movie is based on a screenplay by Canadian-born producer and director James Cameron. Cameron did extensive research on the Titanic, including organizing a dive to the wreck itself. During his research, Cameron was given access to the Titanic builders' blueprints and other archives. However, the drama between Rose and Jack is fiction.

When exactly did the Titanic sail?

She left Southampton, England on Wednesday 10 April 1912 and took on more passengers at Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland (now called Cobh) later that day. On Sunday at 11:40 p.m. (ship time), she struck an iceberg 400 miles (650 kilometers) south of Newfoundland, and went under at 2:20 a.m.

Where did the iceberg come from?

Warm weather causes huge chunks of ice to break off from glaciers at the point where they meet the ocean. The icebergs then float south with the currents until they eventually melt. Because of its location in the North Atlantic, the iceberg that the Titanic hit is thought to have most likely come from Greenland.

What does Lewis mean by "The same thing happened to Geraldo, and his career never recovered"?

Lewis makes this cynical comment after Brock has emptied the salvaged safe in the beginning, and finds out the diamond is not in there. Many viewers outside the USA may not be familiar with Geraldo Rivera and this infamous event. Rivera is an American journalist who was known for his talk show Geraldo and several famous human interest stories. In April 1986, he hosted a two-hour live television special called The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault; surveyors had recently discovered a secret room below the Chicago Lexington Hotel. The special focused on Riviera's attempts to retrieve Capone's vault that was buried there. The show was extremely hyped in advertisements, due to the allusion that the excavation might reveal dead bodies and riches. Approximately 30 million people watched the show ending in disappointment, when no bodies were recovered and the vault contained merely dirt and some empty bottles. The term "Al Capone's vault" has since become a description for an overhyped event that ends in an anti-climax. As for Rivera, he became more of a news reporter than a journalist let alone a talk show host.

Useful External Links

Titanic on Wikipedia

Titanic on IMDB