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The Enduring Impact of Titanic: Themes, Characters, and Narrative

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The film titanic, the characters in titanic, the engaging narrative structure of titanic.

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Titanic (United States, 1997)

Short of climbing aboard a time capsule and peeling back eight and one-half decades, James Cameron's magnificent Titanic is the closest any of us will get to walking the decks of the doomed ocean liner. Meticulous in detail, yet vast in scope and intent, Titanic is the kind of epic motion picture event that has become a rarity. You don't just watch Titanic , you experience it -- from the launch to the sinking, then on a journey two and one-half miles below the surface, into the cold, watery grave where Cameron has shot never-before seen documentary footage specifically for this movie.

In each of his previous outings, Cameron has pushed the special effects envelope. In Aliens , he cloned H.R. Giger's creation dozens of times, fashioning an army of nightmarish monsters. In The Abyss , he took us deep under the sea to greet a band of benevolent space travelers. In T2 , he introduced the morphing terminator (perfecting an effects process that was pioneered in The Abyss ). And in True Lies , he used digital technology to choreograph an in-air battle. Now, in Titanic , Cameron's flawless re-creation of the legendary ship has blurred the line between reality and illusion to such a degree that we can't be sure what's real and what isn't. To make this movie, it's as if Cameron built an all-new Titanic , let it sail, then sunk it.

Of course, special effects alone don't make for a successful film, and Titanic would have been nothing more than an expensive piece of eye candy without a gripping story featuring interesting characters. In his previous outings, Cameron has always placed people above the technological marvels that surround them. Unlike film makers such as Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, Cameron has used visual effects to serve his plot, not the other way around. That hasn't changed with Titanic . The picture's spectacle is the ship's sinking, but its core is the affair between a pair of mismatched, star-crossed lovers.

Titanic is a romance, an adventure, and a thriller all rolled into one. It contains moments of exuberance, humor, pathos, and tragedy. In their own way, the characters are all larger-than- life, but they're human enough (with all of the attendant frailties) to capture our sympathy. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Titanic is that, even though Cameron carefully recreates the death of the ship in all of its terrible grandeur, the event never eclipses the protagonists. To the end, we never cease caring about Rose (Kate Winslet) and Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Titanic sank during the early morning hours of April 15, 1912 in the North Atlantic, killing 1500 of the 2200 on board. The movie does not begin in 1912, however -- instead, it opens in modern times, with a salvage expedition intent on recovering some of the ship's long-buried treasure. The expedition is led by Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton), a fortune hunter who is searching for the mythical "Heart of the Ocean", a majestic 56 karat diamond which reputedly went down with the ship. After seeing a TV report about the salvage mission, a 101-year old woman (Gloria Stuart) contacts Brock with information regarding the jewel. She identifies herself as Rose DeWitt Bukater, a survivor of the tragedy. Brock has her flown out to his ship. Once there, she tells him her version of the story of Titanic 's ill-fated voyage.

The bulk of the film -- well over 80% of its running time -- is spent in flashbacks. We pick up the story on the day that Titanic leaves Southampton, with jubilant crowds cheering as it glides away from land. On board are the movie's three main characters: Rose, a young American debutante trapped in a loveless engagement because her mother is facing financial ruin; Cal Hockley (Billy Zane), her rich-but-cold-hearted fiancé; and Jack Dawson, a penniless artist who won his third-class ticket in a poker game. When Jack first sees Rose, it's from afar, but circumstances offer him the opportunity to become much closer to her. As the voyage continues, Jack and Rose grow more intimate, and she tries to summon up the courage to defy her mother (Frances Fisher) and break off her engagement. But, even with the aid of an outspoken rich women named Molly Brown (Kathy Bates), the barrier of class looms as a seemingly-insurmountable obstacle. Then, when circumstances in the Rose/Cal/Jack triangle are coming to a head, Titanic strikes an iceberg and the "unsinkable" ship (that term is a testament to man's hubris) begins to go down.

By keeping the focus firmly on Rose and Jack, Cameron avoids one frequent failing of epic disaster movies: too many characters in too many stories. When a film tries to chronicle the lives and struggles of a dozen or more individuals, it reduces them all to cardboard cut-outs. In Titanic , Rose and Jack are at the fore from beginning to end, and the supporting characters are just that -- supporting. The two protagonists (as well as Cal) are accorded enough screen time for Cameron to develop multifaceted personalities.

As important as the characters are, however, it's impossible to deny the power of the visual effects. Especially during the final hour, as Titanic undergoes its death throes, the film functions not only as a rousing adventure with harrowing escapes, but as a testimony to the power of computers to simulate reality in the modern motion picture. The scenes of Titanic going under are some of the most awe-inspiring in any recent film. This is the kind of movie that it's necessary to see more than once just to appreciate the level of detail.

One of the most unique aspects of Titanic is its use of genuine documentary images to set the stage for the flashback story. Not satisfied with the reels of currently-existing footage of the sunken ship, Cameron took a crew to the site of the wreck to do his own filming. As a result, some of the underwater shots in the framing sequences are of the actual liner lying on the ocean floor. Their importance and impact should not be underestimated, since they further heighten the production's sense of verisimilitude.

For the leading romantic roles of Jack and Rose, Cameron has chosen two of today's finest young actors. Leonardo DiCaprio ( Romeo + Juliet ), who has rarely done better work, has shed his cocky image. Instead, he's likable and energetic in this part -- two characteristics vital to establishing Jack as a hero. Meanwhile, Kate Winslet, whose impressive resume includes Sense and Sensibility, Hamlet , and Jude , dons a flawless American accent along with her 1912 garb, and essays an appealing, vulnerable Rose. Billy Zane comes across as the perfect villain -- callous, arrogant, yet displaying true affection for his prized fiancé. The supporting cast, which includes Kathy Bates, Bill Paxton, Frances Fisher, Bernard Hill (as Titanic 's captain), and David Warner (as Cal's no-nonsense manservant), is flawless.

While Titanic is easily the most subdued and dramatic of Cameron's films, fans of more frantic pictures like Aliens and The Abyss will not be disappointed. Titanic has all of the thrills and intensity that movie-goers have come to expect from the director. A dazzling mix of style and substance, of the sublime and the spectacular, Titanic represents Cameron's most accomplished work to date. It's important not to let the running time hold you back -- these three-plus hour pass very quickly. Although this telling of the Titanic story is far from the first, it is the most memorable, and is deserving of Oscar nominations not only in the technical categories, but in the more substantive ones of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress.

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Titanic Review: Reinventing Blockbuster Storytelling

• Jack Walters
• December 14, 2022

Thanks to its awe-inspiring set pieces and captivating romance, James Cameron’s Titanic remains just as powerful today as it was 25 years ago.

James Cameron’s Titanic was a complete box office sensation when it took the world by storm in 1997 , and ever since that point, audiences have been trying to pinpoint exactly what it is about this timeless tragedy that made so many viewers fall in love with the film. It’s entirely unlike anything that cinema had seen before , blending genres and styles from start to finish, creating a story that’s impossible to describe with words. Whilst the untimely deaths of 1,500 passengers might not immediately seem like a suitable backdrop for such a sentimental, emotional romance like this, Cameron proves several times over that love and tragedy can often be found hand in hand.

Titanic recounts the fictional romance between Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), two lost souls whose separate journeys converge onboard the Titanic, resulting in a fairytale romance that brings the pair together. The first 90 minutes play like any other love story – though much more captivating and powerful than you’d expect. Jack and Rose’s dynamic builds slowly over the film’s 190-minute runtime, preventing the story from rushing through anything. Thanks to Cameron’s expert storytelling and the exceptional performances of DiCaprio and Winslet, the dynamic between Jack and Rose feels much more natural and fluid than most on-screen romances. It’s a surprisingly simple story, but it’s this very simplicity that ensures Titanic works. The magic is found in the quieter, less sensational moments between Jack and Rose as they grow closer to each other and begin to learn more about themselves on this journey.

And yet, anybody can write a whirlwind romance – what makes Titanic really special is how quickly and effectively this romance transforms into a heartbreaking race for survival . Everybody knows the real-life story of how the Titanic scraped an iceberg and eventually sank in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but James Cameron uses this romantic backdrop and magical atmosphere to truly bring this unique disaster to life in a way that’s never been replicated on film before. From the second that iceberg appears on screen, Titanic transforms from a hazy, slow-paced romance into a thrilling adventure that forces the audience to come face-to-face with death and sacrifice on a gigantic scale. 

The final hour of Titanic includes some of the most intense filmmaking in James Cameron’s entire filmography, and more importantly, some of the most influential and impressive special effects ever put to screen. The film’s recreation of the Titanic’s destruction is flawless, and there are several moments that could genuinely be mistaken for real footage. Cameron uses a mixture of special and practical effects to create this claustrophobic atmosphere, paying attention to even the most indistinct background details in order to really bring the scene to life. There’s always something shocking happening on screen, whether it’s rooms collapsing, people drowning, or even passengers fighting the staff, everything is fully-developed to make this experience feel as suffocatingly real as possible . And all the while, Jack and Rose remain the focus of the story as they fight for survival and drive the narrative forward.

Before 1997, there had never been a film quite like Titanic , and that’s clearly reflected in its historic box office performance. In the 25 years since its release, the film has made over $2.2 billion internationally – which remains the third-highest lifetime gross ever recorded. In fact, Titanic sat at the #1 position for 12 years before James Cameron overtook his own record with Avatar . There are several theories surrounding why exactly Titanic gathered such insurmountable attention upon release, but whatever the reason, it’s clear that the film has something special. Without Titanic , the number of classic films that simply wouldn’t exist today is countless. James Cameron crafted an experience that needs to be seen to be believed , and that’s exactly why audiences returned to theaters so frequently to immerse themselves in this beautiful tragedy.  

Titanic is now available to watch on digital and on demand . The film will be re-released globally in theaters on February 10, 2022 in celebration of its 25th anniversary. Find out why Old Rose is important in Titanic .

• TAGS: James Cameron , Leonardo DiCaprio

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“Titanic” by James Cameron Movie Analysis Essay (Movie Review)

Given the fact that the semiotic significance of a particular movie cannot be discussed outside of the conventions of an affiliated socio-cultural discourse, reflected by the contained themes and motifs, it is fully explainable why it now represents a common practice among critics to refer to cinematographic pieces, as such that often advocate the socially constructed behavioral norms.

Moreover, because Western societies never ceased being stratified along a number of different cultural, social and ethnic lines, there is nothing particularly odd about the fact that many Hollywood films (especially the historical ones) are being concerned with exploring the motif of a socially upheld inequality among people, reflective of the specifics of their gender and class affiliation.

The validity of this statement can be well explored in regards to the 1997 film Titanic , directed by James Cameron. After all, in this particular film, the director had made a deliberate point in exposing the existential stances, on the part of Titanic’s passengers, as such that corresponded perfectly well with the concerned people’s social perception of selves.

For example, there is a memorable scene in this film, where Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) ends up dining with first class passengers on the ship’s upper deck– quite contrary to the fact that, by virtue of being a third class passenger, he was not allowed to even approach close to these people.

This, however, should not be perceived as an indication of the first class passengers’ ‘open-mindedness’ – by having Jack invited, they simply wanted to entertain themselves. This is because they expected Jack to prove himself being a rather unsophisticated individual, which in turn would help them to continue enjoying their privileged status, as such that has been dialectically predetermined.

This, however, was not meant to happen, because while conversing with the moralistically minded ‘rich and powerful’, Jack was able to subtly expose their self-presumed ‘superiority’ being rather incidental, “Jack: I’ve got everything I need right here with me… Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge, and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people” (01.00.32).

Therefore, there is indeed a good reason in referring to Cameron’s film, as such that promotes a thoroughly humanistic idea that the measure of people’s actual worth has very little to do with what happened the extent of their material well-being.

The same can be said about how this film reflects upon male-chauvinistic prejudices towards women, which appear to have been shared by not only the film’s many male but also female characters. For example, there is another notable scene in the movie, where Rose’s (Kate Winslet) mother Ruth (Frances Fisher) tries to convince her daughter that she had no other option but to agree marrying Cal Hockley (Billy Zane), despite the fact that there was no even a slightest hint of love between these two characters.

According to Ruth, even though that forcing Rose to marry Cal stood in striking contradiction to her daughter’s desire, Rose had no good reason to complain about the situation, because it is fully natural for women to be willing to give in to the external circumstances, “Of course it’s unfair… We’re women. Our choices are never easy (01.11.00).

It is needless to mention, of course, that such Ruth’s point of view has been predetermined by what used be the realities of her patriarchal upbringing. Apparently, ever since her early years, Ruth was endowed with the belief that there was not anything unnatural about women being continually victimized by men.

Nevertheless, it would be quite inappropriate to suggest that the philosophical appeal of Cameron’s film is being solely concerned with the fact that, while working on it, the director strived to expose the counterproductive essence of the early 20 th century’s class-related and gender-related conventions.

This is because, along with advancing the idea that there can be no rationale-based reasons for people to be discriminated against, on the basis of what happened to be the particulars of their biologically/socially defined self-identity, this film also helps viewers to adopt a thoroughly scientific outlook on the representatives of Homo Sapiens species.

That is, contrary to what it being assumed by the religious /moralistic individuals, the watching of Cameron’s film leaves very few doubts, as to the fact that people are essentially primates, who rely predominantly on the workings of their unconscious psyche, when it comes to addressing the life’s most acute challenges.

The validity of this suggestion can be well illustrated in regards to the film’s final scenes, in which fashionably dressed gentlemen from the upper deck, try to make their way to the lifeboats, while trampling the bodies of women and children. Because earlier in the film, these men having been shown to treat the same women in a particularly gallant manner, viewers’ exposure to the ‘sinking’ scenes naturally predisposes them to think that the extent of people’s affiliation with the values of a ‘civilized living’ can be best defined rather negligible.

This is because, as it was shown in the Titanic , people’s foremost existential agenda in being solely concerned with the ensuring of their physical survival. Once, they are being put in a life-threatening situation, the considerations of religion, morality and behavioral etiquette, on their part, instantaneously disappear into the thin air, while prompting them to act in a manner, fully consistent with what these people really are, in the biological sense of this word – hairless apes.

Therefore, it is quite impossible to agree with Allan Johnson, who promote the idea that the very notion of competitiveness should be regarded ‘inappropriate’, because it reminds emotionally sensitive individuals the politically incorrect truth that there is a ‘monkey’, residing deep inside of them, “I don’t play Monopoly anymore, mostly because I don’t like the way I behave when I do. When I used to play Monopoly, I’d try to win, even against my own children, and I couldn’t resist feeling good when I did (we’re supposed to feel good) even if I also felt guilty about it” (17).

It appears that, while coming up with this statement, Johnson remained unaware of the simple fact that one’s ability to compete with others for the limited resources, defines his or her chances of attaining a social prominence. Therefore, prompting people to refrain from behaving in accordance with the basic laws of nature, which endorse competition, cannot result in anything but in reducing the extent of their existential fitness.

Therefore, it will only be logical, on our part, to conclude this paper by reinstating once again that the measure of just about film’s educational/philosophical worth should not only be assessed in regards to how this film helps viewers to realize the counterproductive essence of socially upheld prejudices (such as the assumption of women’s ‘inferiority’).

In order for a particular movie to be considered enlightening, it also needs to encourage viewers to come to terms with what can be considered the discursive significance of their biological constitution – even if this is being accomplished at the expense of revealing the conceptual fallaciousness of politically correct dogmas. Because the themes and motifs, explored in Cameron’s movie, appear fully consistent with these two provisions, there is indeed a good reason to refer to this particular film thoroughly progressive.

Works Cited

Johnson, Allan. The Forest and the Trees: Sociology as Life, Practice and Promise . Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997. Print.

Titanic . Ex. Prod. James Cameron. Los Angeles, CA.: 20th Century Fox. 1997. DVD.

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IvyPanda. (2022, August 6). "Titanic" by James Cameron Movie Analysis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/review-of-film-titanic-by-james-cameron/

""Titanic" by James Cameron Movie Analysis." IvyPanda , 6 Aug. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/review-of-film-titanic-by-james-cameron/.

IvyPanda . (2022) '"Titanic" by James Cameron Movie Analysis'. 6 August.

IvyPanda . 2022. ""Titanic" by James Cameron Movie Analysis." August 6, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/review-of-film-titanic-by-james-cameron/.

1. IvyPanda . ""Titanic" by James Cameron Movie Analysis." August 6, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/review-of-film-titanic-by-james-cameron/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . ""Titanic" by James Cameron Movie Analysis." August 6, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/review-of-film-titanic-by-james-cameron/.

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‘titanic’: thr’s 1997 review.

On Dec. 19, 1997, James Cameron's epic set sail in theaters nationwide.

By Duane Bygre

Duane Bygre

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On Dec. 19, 1997, James Cameron’s Titanic set sail in theaters nationwide. The 193-minute blockbuster epic went on to dominate the 70th Academy Awards, nabbing 11 wins including best picture. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below.

Paramount should replace that white mountain in its logo with an iceberg for the next several months. The studio will navigate spectacularly with its latest launch, Titanic , the most expensive movie ever created about what was once the largest moving object ever built.

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A daunting blend of state-of-the-art special effects melded around a sterling central story, Titanic plumbs personal and philosophical story depths not usually found in “event-scale” movies that, beneath their girth and pyrotechnics, often have nothing at their core.

Titanic , however, is no soulless junket into techno-glop wizardry but rather a complex and radiant tale that essays both mankind’s destructive arrogance and its noble endurance. 

Ultimately, we all know the horrible outcome of the Titanic sinking. We can recite the numbers lost and the awesome dimensions of the ship, and we can construct some sort of comparative scope for the catastrophe. But all these are mere quantifications and chit-chat regurgitation. 

Cameron, who wrote and directed the film, has put a face on that horrific happening; he has taken us beyond the forensics of the sinking and put us inside the skin and psyches of those who perished and those who survived. In both, we see facets of ourselves: In philosophical microcosm, Cameron shows that in the end — both the good and the bad endings — we’re all in the same boat.

Told in flashback as a single-minded fortune hunter (Bill Paxton) combs the Titanic’s wreckage with his state-of-the-art search ship in hopes of finding undiscovered treasure, the story is recalled by a 103-year-old woman (Gloria Stuart) who was a passenger on the ship’s ill-fated maiden voyage. Drifting back to that time in April 1912, we see the trip through Rose’s (Kate Winslet ) 17-year-old eyes. 

High-spirited and betrothed to a monied mill heir (Billy Zane), Rose is, nevertheless, despondent. Like a Henry James heroine, she finds that she is not suited for life in the gilded cage that society is shaping for her as the baubled wife of a leisured industrialist. She foresees her life as being measured out by serving spoons, and she wants no part of such a stuffy existence. Her ennui turns to deep depression, and she nearly ends it by diving into icy waters, where she is saved only by the wise grace of a third-class passenger, Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio ), whose joy for life and eagerness for living it to the fullest soon revitalize the young Rose. 

All the while, Cameron plants calamitous forebodings — the inadequacies of the life rafts, equipment shortages and the vanity of the ship’s creators and captain. Narratively, Titanic is a masterwork of big-canvas storytelling, broad enough to entrance and entertain yet precise and delicate enough to educate and illuminate. Undeniably, one could nitpick — critic-types may snicker at some ‘ 60s-era lines and easy-pop ‘ 90s-vantage hindsights  — but that’s like dismissing a Mercedes on the grounds that its glove compartment interior is drab. 

Unlike in most monstrosities of this film’s size and girth, the characters are not assembled from a standard stock pot. Within the dimensions of such an undertaking, Cameron, along with his well-chosen cast, has created memorable, idiosyncratic and believable characters. Our sympathies are warmed by the two leads: Winslet is effervescently rambunctious as the trapped Rose, while DiCaprio’s willowy steadfastness wonderfully heroic. On the stuffy side of the deck, Zane is aptly snide as Rose’s cowardly fiance, while Frances Fisher is perfect as a social snob, both shrill and frightened. Kathy Bates is a hoot as the big-hatted, big-mouthed Molly Brown — she is, indeed, indestructible. On the seamier side, David Warner is positively chilling as a ruthless valet. As the deep-sea treasure hunter, Paxton brings a Cameron-type obsessiveness to his quest. 

Also on the Oscar front, clear the deck for multiple technical nominations. Front and center is, of course, Cameron. A decided cut above other superstar directors in that he can also write, Cameron deserves a director’s nomination for his masterful creation — it’s both a logistical and aesthetic marvel. The film’s fluid, masterfully punctuated editing, including some elegantly economical match cuts, is outstanding: Editors Conrad Buff and Richard A. Harris deserve nominations, as does cinematographer Russell Carpenter for his brilliantly lit scopings ; his range of blues seems to hit every human emotion. 

Titanic ‘s visual and special effects transcend state-of-the-art workmanship, invoking feelings within us not usually called up by razzle-dazzlery . Highest honors to visual effects supervisor Rob Legato and special effects coordinator Thomas L. Fisher for the powerful, knockdown imagery. It’s often awesome, most prominently in showing the ship’s unfathomable rupture. The splitting of the iron monster is a heart stopper, in no small measure compounded by the sound team’s creaking thunders. Through it all, James Horner’s resonant and lilting musical score, at times uplifted by a mournful Irish reed, is a deep treasure by itself.  — Duane Byrge , originally published on Nov. 3, 1997.

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, special effects live up to hype in 'titanic'.

There is a shot in " Titanic " that I watched like a hawk. The point of view is from above, as the great ship steams to its destiny. In one apparently uninterrupted piece of celluloid, we see the ship from bow to stern, every foot of it, with flags flying and smoke coiling from its stacks, and on the deck hundreds of passengers strolling, children running, servants serving, sportsmen playing.

I watched it because I knew, logically, that this shot was a special effect. They did not rebuild the Titanic to make the movie. I knew, in general, what to look for - what trickery might be involved - and yet I was fooled. The shot looks like the real thing.

"That was a model shot," James Cameron said, smiling. "The people were all computer graphics. The way we did it was, we had people act out all of those individual behaviors in what we call a 'motion capture environment.' So, a steward pouring tea for a lady seated on a deck chair - that was all acted out and then that motion file was used to drive and animate those figures. The end result is like you said: We pull back down the full length of Titanic, and you see 350 people all over the decks, doing all those different things. The same technique was used for the sinking, when you see hundreds of people on the ship jumping off or rolling down the decks."

So it's all f/x. Well, I didn't expect them to build the Titanic and sink it again. But what I also didn't expect was a film so completely convincing in its details. There are a few moments the viewer doubts (the portholes look suspiciously bright at night), but in general Cameron's film is a triumph of reconstructed realism: Inside and out, in good times and bad, when it is launched and when it goes to its grave, the Titanic in this movie looks like a real ship.

James Cameron is, of course, a director who specializes in special effects, and he's been at the cutting edge since " Aliens " (1986), still the most disturbing of the " Alien " series. Before that he worked valiantly in films where the budget and the technology were not yet there for him ("Piranha II" in 1981, "Terminator" in 1984). After, he was the king of f/x, with such credits as "The Abyss" (1989), "Terminator II" (1991), " True Lies " (1994), and such producer credits as Kathryn Bigelow's " Strange Days " (1995). The story's the thing

There has always been the choice in Cameron's work to insist on a story; he doesn't lazily throw cardboard puppets into explosions and chases. When time ran out on the production schedule for "The Abyss," and he had to make a deadline decision about what to finish for the release print, he kept the relationship story between aquanauts Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio . Not until the Directors' Cut could we see the spectacular special effects (a city rising from the sea, a tidal wave) that he was willing to surrender before he short-changed his story.

In "Titanic," there are three stories: the historic story of the sinking of the grandest ship of its time; the fictional story of a young female passenger and the men in her life; and the modern story of the Titanic in its grave, 2 1/2 miles beneath the sea.

There is a lot of footage of the real Titanic on the bottom, some fake footage, and some that dissolves from one to the other. Cameron wasn't content to buy footage from documentaries about the search for the Titanic; he shot the film's undersea footage himself, new for this film: "It's all our own. I made the dives and operated the camera and we lit it and everything."

You saw the Titanic, I said.

"Yes. Sat on the deck 12 times. The IMAX film stuck the camera inside the sub; it shot out of the view port, which was very limiting. We built a camera that went outside the sub and could pan and tilt and do all the normal movie camera type stuff. Ironically, we totaled the number of hours that we spent at Titanic during the course of those dives and it was more than the number of hours that the passengers spent on board."

That last shot, I said, where we float on the bottom along the wrecked ship's deck, and then . . .

"In that particular case it's a model," he said, "but we did generate a lot of footage of the real ship that's in the film. Also interiors of the ship as it sits right now on the bottom of the ocean, and then fake interiors as well."

It's all so seamless.

"It's consistent with what Titanic looks like. We couldn't explore the whole interior of the ship. We could only get a glimpse into some areas. We went down some corridors to the D-deck level and saw a lot of the remaining hand-carved woodwork, the wall-paneling, the beautiful ornate carved doors. A lot of it is still there. It's very, very cold, which helps preserve things. There are marine organisms that will eat wood, but in certain areas the wood was covered with white-leaded paint that protected Titanic."

"Titanic," he calls it. Not "the Titanic."

"That's how they referred to liners in those days. The great ships were places, not things. They were an entity almost. You'd say, `I'm crossing in Mauritania.' "

I was sitting in Chicago, drinking coffee with a man who had been as close to the Titanic as he was to me.

"It was eerie," Cameron said. "I love to dive and I love shipwrecks, so the adrenalin was spiking. But there's something about Titanic that's sort of mythic, that's storylike and you don't quite believe it. It's almost more like a novel than an event that really happened - and yet here's the wreck. It really happened. People died here. That was the thing I had to take away. Not just the images of a wreck. I had to take away the sense of responsibility to do it right and to honor Titanic. The film that resulted is an expression of what happened there."

"Titanic," which opens Dec. 19, is said to be the most expensive movie ever made. Perhaps it is. Few films contemplate financing an expedition to the bottom of the Atlantic just to get things rolling. When "Titanic" missed its original opening date last summer, there were rumors that the film was in trouble, that it would be a disaster in the tradition of " Raise the Titanic !" (1980), a film that inspired its producer, Lord Grade, to observe, "It would have been cheaper to lower the ocean."

But the film's world premiere, in November at the Tokyo Film Festival, was a triumph, and now the word is trickling forth from press screenings that, whatever its cost, "Titanic" is value for money, a marriage of imagination and technology in the Hollywood tradition of well-crafted epics.

The framing story involves an old lady, a Titanic survivor, who sees TV documentary footage of a sketch drawn on board all those years ago. She visits the documentary filmmakers and tells her story, which is reconstructed in flashbacks. Kate Winslow plays the survivor as a young girl, Billy Zane is her rich and arrogant fiance (who loves her all the same), and Leonardo DiCaprio is the kid from steerage who becomes her lover and, eventually, her savior.

Around their story all of the details are fashioned of fact and fiction. The real Titanic took a long time to sink, and the film recreates an eerie feeling of how that time was spent by the passengers - both first class ticket holders, and those with cheaper tickets who are temporarily locked below, because there were not enough lifeboats for everyone.

"Many died in terror, you know," Cameron said. "When you look at the numbers, if you were a third class male on Titanic you stood a 1-in-10 chance of survival. If you were a first class female, it was virtually a 100 percent survival rate. It broke down along lines of gender and class. If you were a first class male, you stood about a 50-50 chance of survival. And the crew took it hardest.

"Of the 1,500 who died, 600 or 700 of them were crew members. The people who stayed in the dynamo room and the engine room, to keep the lights on so that the evacuation would not become panicked - who stayed till the end and missed their opportunity to leave the ship - that's something you'd see less of today."

I can only imagine, I said, the conditions on the set when you were filming the scenes where Titanic is almost vertical and people are sliding straight down and bouncing off air vents and deck walls.

"That was our most dangerous work," Cameron said. "The stunt team worked for weeks in advance, videotaping each one of those stunts and rehearsing it and showing me the tapes. It was all intensely pre-planned and the set was made about 50 percent out of rubber at that point, all padded up. But there's always an X-factor. We had 6,000 stunt person days on this film - the equivalent of one man doing stunts seven days a week for 16 years. But it was all happening at once. We did have a guy break his leg, which I hated. I don't think anybody should get hurt for a film. So I decided to do more of it with computer graphics. Here was a case where the effects actually stepped in and took the place of some of the more dangerous stunts - like the guy falling who hits the propeller of the ship and bounces off. But a lot of those other stunt falls are real. If you look at our stunt credits in the film it's like the Manhattan phone book." It was such a blow to human confidence, I said, that this great ship, unsinkable, the largest ever, would . . .

"The great lesson of Titanic for us, going into the 21st century," he said, "is that the inconceivable can happen. Those people lived in a time of certainty; they felt they had mastered everything - mastered nature and mastered themselves. But they had mastered neither. A thousand years from now Titanic will still be one of the great stories. Certainly there have been greater human tragedies during this century, but there's something poetically perfect about Titanic, because of the laying low of the wealthy and the beautiful people who thought life would be infinite and perfect for them." What would you have done? Anyone seeing this movie, I said, will have to ask themselves this question: Would I have fought to get on a lifeboat? Would I have pushed a woman or a child out of the way? Or would I have sat down in the lounge and called for a brandy, like Guggenheim, and faced the inevitable with grace?

"The sinking of Titanic took 2 hours and 40 minutes. People had time to think about their doom and to make choices. It wasn't instantaneous like the crash of the Hindenberg. This was about moral choices, and so it asks every member of the audience to question their own moral choices, their own courage, their own kind of fiber."

He sighed. "I don't know what I would have done. Well, I know what I would have done if I had been taken back on a time machine and put on the deck of Titanic. I know exactly how I could have survived without hurting anybody else. But if I was really there, with my personality but without my current knowledge, I don't know what I would have done."

What would the time traveler have known to do?

He smiled. "Oh, it's very simple. You just wait until Boat No. 4 is pulling away from the ship and dive in at the front off the B Deck level and swim to it, because it was only half full anyway."

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Titanic Movie: A Cinematic Retelling of Tragedy and Love

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