Titanic (1997 movie)

Titanic
Directed by	James Cameron
Written by	James Cameron
Produced by	James Cameron Jon Landau
Starring	Leonardo DiCaprio Kate Winslet Billy Zane Kathy Bates Frances Fisher Gloria Stuart Bernard Hill Jonathan Hyde Victor Garber David Warner Suzy Amis Bill Paxton
Cinematography	Russell Carpenter
Edited by	Conrad Buff James Cameron Richard A. Harris
Music by	James Horner
Production companies	20th Century Fox Paramount Pictures Lightstorm Entertainment
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures (USA) 20th Century Fox (International)
Release dates	November 1, 1997 (1997-11-01) (Tokyo International Film Festival) December 19, 1997 (1997-12-19) (United States)
Running time	194 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$200 million
Box office	$2.196 billion

Titanic is a 1997 American epic romantic disaster movie. It was directed, written, and co-produced by James Cameron. The movie is about the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic. It stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. The two play characters who are of different social classes. They fall in love after meeting aboard the ship, but it was not good for a rich girl to fall in love with a poor boy in 1912. Titanic ran for 200 days in cinemas. Production of the movie began in 1995. Cameron recorded footage of the real Titanic wreck. The reconstruction of the Titanic was created at Playas de Rosarito in Baja California. To create the sinking of the ship, scale models and computer-generated imagery were used. Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox helped with half of the funding for the movie. At the time when the movie was released, it was the most expensive movie ever made. It had a budget of $200 million.

The movie was released on December 19, 1997. It received positive critical reviews. The movie won 11 Academy Awards, and was nominated for fourteen total Academy Awards. It was also a commercial success with a total worldwide gross of $2.196 billion.

Story

A 100-year-old woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater (Dawson) tells a story about her voyage on the famous ship Titanic. She is sharing the story with her granddaughter, Lizzy Calvert, and a crew of men who are interested in the Titanic shipwreck. The members of the crew are named Brock Lovett, Lewis Bodine, Bobby Buell, and Anatoly Mikailavich. She tells the story while on the Keldysh. The men are on the Keldysh trying to find a famous necklace called "The Heart of the Ocean" that they think sank with the ship. She goes on to explain the whole story from the ship's departure to the sinking of Titanic on its first (and last) voyage at 2:20 in the morning on 15 April 1912. Most of the movie is not Old Rose telling the story, but Young Rose actually living the story.

On 10 April 1912, Young Rose boards a ship called Titanic with the upper-class passengers, her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, and her fiancé, Caledon 'Cal' 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.

Rose DeWitt Bukater who is on her way to Philadelphia to marry her rich snob fiancé Cal Hockley. Rose feels helplessly trapped by her situation and makes her way to the aft deck and thinks of suicide until she is rescued by a 20-year-old Third Class passenger artist named Jack Dawson. On her way back up, Rose slips and screams in panic. Her screams were heard by three of the ship’s crew members, who rush her to aid. They found Jack who saved Rose. Quartermaster Rowe assumes that Jack tried to assault that young woman, and summons for the Master-At-Arms.

Later, Cal and his Pinkerton detective Spicer Paul Lovejoy arrive at the scene. A security guard named Walter King handcuffs Jack, but then, Rose lies to Cal that Jack saved her. Cal is therefore obliged to invite Jack to dine at their first-class table where he suffers through the slights of his snobbish hosts. In return, he spirits Rose off to third class for an evening of dancing, giving her the time of her life. Deciding to forsake her intended future all together, Rose asks Jack, who has made his living making sketches on the streets of Paris, to draw her in the nude wearing the invaluable blue diamond Cal has given her. Later on 14 April, Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee both spotted an iceberg. He then rings the bell that William Murdoch heard, and telephones James Moody at the bridge, shouting “Iceberg, right ahead!” Titanic tries to avoid it, but it was too late.

At 11:40 p.m., Titanic collided with an iceberg on a starboard side. Lovejoy slips the Heart of the Ocean into Jack’s pocket. Cal sets up Jack to be arrested, framing him for stealing the necklace. Lovejoy asks the Titanic’s Master-At-Arms to take Jack into custody in their office on E-Deck. Rose later finds and uses an axe to break Jack free, and after they ran to Boat-Deck, Rose went on a lifeboat. Unable to abandon Jack, Rose jumped back onto the sinking Titanic. Cal became en-raged, and stole Lovejoy’s gun. Rose and Jack both run from Cal at the Grand Staircase.

In a deleted scene, Lovejoy searches for them while the Dining Saloon is flooding. But then, Jack fights him and smashes his head against a window. Lovejoy pushes Jack, saying “You little shit.” But then, Jack hits him again and hits his head against a pillar, saying “With compliments of the Chippewa Falls Dawsons.” Jack and Rose both ran to the stern of the Titanic. Captain Smith, who locked himself in his wheelhouse, died after the windows shattered because the water’s pressure on them was too great. With all the lifeboats gone, all passengers start panicking after the bow sank. Titanic’s propellers are now visible and they start to rise from the water. The bow is sinking deeper while the stern is rising higher into the air. At the same this time, the first funnel collapses, killing Fabrizio and several others, and the Grand Staircase's dome implodes by the pressure.

Around 2:18 a.m., Titanic reaches an angle of 45 degrees. In the electric rooms, an engineer was electrocuted by a massive electric shots and Titanic’s lights instantly went out. Her steel structure fails, and Titanic breaks in half. Lovejoy then died after he fell into a huge crack. The stern rises again to 90 degrees. Titanic disappears beneath the ocean. Jack later dies of hypothermia, and his body sank to the ocean floor. The film returns to 1996, with Old Rose revealing that only 6 of 1,503 were rescued from the water. Back in 1912, Rose sees the Cunard liner RMS Carpathia. Carpathia later arrives in Titanic’s original destination in the United States, New York City. Taking Jack's last name, Rose then gives her name as Rose Dawson. Cal later commits suicide in the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

Back in 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team has reached the most famous shipwreck of all - the RMS Titanic. Emerging with a safe believed to contain a famous diamond called the "Heart of the Ocean", he discovers that the safe does not hold the diamond, but a drawing of a beautiful young woman wearing it. When Lovett is later interviewed on television, he shows the drawing to the cameras, and Rose Dawson Calvert, now 101, recognizes the young woman in the drawing - herself. She and her granddaughter Lizzy visit Lovett on his research ship over the wrecksite, and tells her story of the Titanic and its ill-fated maiden voyage. Rose later died in her sleep while on a ship in 1996. In Heaven (or a dream), Rose is reunited with Jack at Titanic’s Grand Staircase, applauded by those who died that night.

Main cast

Actor	Role
Leonardo DiCaprio	Jack Dawson
Kate Winslet	Rose DeWitt Bukater
Billy Zane	Caledon Hockley
Kathy Bates	Margaret "The Unsinkable Molly" Brown
Frances Fisher	Ruth DeWitt Bukater
Bernard Hill	Captain Edward J. Smith
Victor Garber	Thomas Andrews
Jonathan Hyde	J. Bruce Ismay
David Warner	Spicer Lovejoy
Michael Ensign	Benjamin Guggenheim
Danny Nucci	Fabrizio De Rossi
Jason Barry	Tommy Ryan
Bill Paxton	Brock Lovett
Gloria Stuart	Old Rose (Rose Dawson Calvert)
Suzy Amis	Lizzy Calvert
Lewis Abernathy	Lewis Bodine
Eric Braeden	Colonel John Jacob Astor IV
Bernard Fox	Colonel Archibald Gracie IV
Ewan Stewart	First Officer William Murdoch
Jonathan Phillips	Second Officer Charles Lightoller
Ioan Gruffudd	Fifth Officer Harold Lowe

Production

The movie was based on the RMS Titanic (pictured in 1912).

The movie scenes of the ship's journey were taken on the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh in July 1996. Principal photography for Titanic began in September 1996. The location was at the newly built Fox Baja Studios. The poop deck was built on a move-able machine. This allow it to rise from zero to ninety degrees in a few seconds. This was used during the sinking scene of the movie. Many props were made of foam rubber. The material was used for the safety of the stuntmen. On November 15, the boarding scenes were recorded. Cameron decided to build his RMS Titanic on the starboard side. This was because weather data showed north-to-south winds. This caused the funnel smoke to move in one direction.

Coach

A full-time etiquette coach was hired. He taught the cast on the manners of the upper class during the year 1912. However, several critics noticed that some cast members were not very good. They also noticed the two main stars on the movie were not well trained. Cameron sketched Jack's nude portrait of Rose for the nude scene. He said "You know what it means for her, the freedom she must be feeling. It's kind of exhilarating (happy) for that reason." The nude scene was DiCaprio and Winslet's first scene together. Cameron said, "It wasn't by any kind of design, although I couldn't have designed it better. There's a nervousness and an energy and a hesitance [unsure] in them." This was the first scene to be recorded. Cameron said that the "big set" was not yet ready. The crew members had to record something so they decided to do the nude scene first.

Incident

An angry crew member put the dissociative drug PCP into the soup that Cameron and other members ate one night. This caused more than 50 people to be rushed to the hospital. "There were people just rolling around, completely out of it. Some of them said they were seeing streaks and psychedelics," said actor Lewis Abernathy. Cameron had vomited before the drug began working. Abernathy was shocked at the way he looked. "One eye was completely red, like the Terminator eye. A pupil, no iris, beet red. The other eye looked like he'd been sniffing glue since he was four." The person who poisoned the cast members was never found.

Schedule

Filming was scheduled to last 138 days. However, it grew to 160. Many cast members came down with colds, flu, or kidney infections. This happened during the many hours they spent in the cold water. Winslet, who also had these symptoms, decided she would not work with Cameron again unless she earned "a lot of money". Several other cast members left the movie. Three stuntmen broke their bones. The Screen Actors Guild decided to begin an investigation. They concluded that there was nothing unsafe going on on the set.

Budget

The movie's budget reached $200 million. Fox executives were worrying. They suggested an hour of different scenes to be removed from the three-hour movie. James Cameron did not accept this. He told Fox that if they want to remove some scenes out that they would need to fire him. The executives did not want to start over. This would mean they will loose their entire investment.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the movie was written, orchestrated and conducted by James Horner. The soundtrack was released by Sony Classical on November 18, 1997. When the movie was released, the soundtrack topped the charts in two-dozen countries. It sold over 30 million copies. It then became one of the best-selling albums of all time. It was also the highest-selling orchestral soundtracks ever. Horner wrote the song "My Heart Will Go On". He wrote the song in secrecy because Cameron did not want any songs with singing in the movie. Céline Dion agreed to record a demonstration. Her husband, René Angélil, asked Dion many times to do it, since she did not want to record it at first. Horner waited until Cameron was in a happy mood. After playing it several times, Cameron approved of the song. However, Cameron feared that he might be criticized for "going commercial at the end of the movie".

3D and re-release

James Cameron announced that Titanic was being converted to 3D. The 3D version came out on April 6, 2012. This was the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. It took $18 million to produce it. The 3D conversion was done by Stereo D. Sony Music with Slam Content's Panther Records, re-worked the soundtrack. The movie grossed $4.7 million on the first day of its re-release in North America. It went on to make $17.3 million during the weekend. It then became the third most-watched movie for that week. The movie earned $35.2 million worldwide. It then became the second most-watched movie for that week. The following week saw an increase of the movie's earnings. It became the number one movie for that week with $98.9 million. It was more successful in China. It earned $11.6 million on its opening day in that country. It then earned a record-breaking $67 million for that week. The re-release earned a total of $343.4 million worldwide. In China the total was at $145 million. In Canada and the United States, it made $57.8 million from those countries.

Books

• Frakes, Randall (1998). Titanic: James Cameron's Illustrated Screenplay. New York: Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-095307-2.
• Cameron, Stephen (1998). Titanic: Belfast's Own. Ireland: Wolfhound Press. ISBN 978-0-86327-685-9.
• Mireille Majoor; James Cameron (2003). Titanic: Ghosts of the Abyss. New York: Scholastic. ISBN 978-1-895892-31-4.
• Molony, Senan (2005). Titanic: A Primary Source History. Canada: Gareth Stevens. ISBN 978-0-8368-5980-5.
• Marsh, Ed W.; Kirkland, Douglas (1998). James Cameron's Titanic. London: Boxtree. ISBN 978-0-7522-2404-6.
• Parisi, Paula (1998). Titanic and the Making of James Cameron. London: Orion. ISBN 978-0-7528-1799-6.
• Sandler, Kevin S.; Studlar, Gaylyn, eds. (1999). Titanic: Anatomy of a Blockbuster. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-2669-0.
• Ballard, Robert (1987). The Discovery of the Titanic. Canada: Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 978-0-446-67174-3.
• Lynch, Donald (1992). Titanic: An Illustrated History. New York: Madison Press Books. ISBN 978-0-7868-6401-0.
• Lubin, David M. (1999). "Titanic" (BFI Modern Classics. London: BFI Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85170-760-0.

Other websites

• Official website
• Titanic on IMDb
• Titanic at the TCM Movie Database
• Titanic at AllMovie
• Titanic at Rotten Tomatoes
• Titanic at Metacritic

• Titanic at Box Office Mojo
• Titanic at The Numbers