'TITANIC': WHAT IS TRUE AND WHAT IS NOT IN JAMES CAMERON'S MYTHICAL MOVIE
The real facts (and the false ones) beyond the sinking.
On April 14, 1912, the Titanic sank in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. And 85 years later, James Cameron turned the tragedy into one of the highest-grossing, award-winning, and most impactful films in cinema history. 'Titanic', released in 1997, was a phenomenon thanks to its incredible special effects at the time, its great lead performances (young Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, launched to stardom) and an epic romance 'made in Hollywood' that, to the rhythm of 'My heart will go on' by Celine Dion, had half the world sobbing in the movie theater.
Of course, Cameron knew how to leave his mark on the history of the medium. Now, as with any true story that is brought to the big (or small) screen, a question arises: How much of what we see corresponds to reality and how much is there creative license? We imagine the basics, you already know: yes, of course an ocean liner named Titanic sank, causing the death of hundreds of people and recording an event for history. But there are many more details to analyze in this transfer of the real event to the fictional film.
We review what is real and what is not in 'Titanic', from its characters to its most iconic images.
Rose and Jack never existed, but some secondary characters did
Unfortunately, the incredible love story between Rose and Jack did not really happen, nor did their characters really exist. It was all an invention to create the romantic center of 'Titanic', but much has been speculated about what was behind its creation. For example, there was a passenger listed as J. Dawson, which made many think that DiCaprio's character, Jack Dawson, was real. But that 'J' stood for 'Joseph', and his story was completely different. As for Rose, the inspiration declared by James Cameron to create the character has nothing to do with the ship, but with the artist Beatrice Wood. The director was reading his autobiography during the development of the film's production, and he ended up capturing aspects such as the woman's love for art or her wealthy family.
Now, that the protagonists did not exist does not mean that the entire cast was an invention of Cameron. One of the best characters, Margaret 'Molly' Brown (Kathy Bates), was a first-class passenger on the Titanic, as were the ship's architect Thomas Andrews (Victor Garber), cruise line manager Bruce Ismay ( Jonathan Hyde) and Captain Edward John Smith (Bernard Hill).
Yes, the underwater planes were real
Indeed, most of the underwater shots in which we see the remains of the Titanic are real. In 1995, during the preparation of the film, James Cameron hired the Russian ship 'Akademik Mstislav Keldysh' and her two submersibles. The director was willing to go as far as possible with his investigation, so he made a total of twelve dives in order to shoot the images of the sunken ship at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. The result, as we know, was spectacular, and was later combined with scenes of the actors reacting to the discoveries. It wasn't easy to get that far: special cameras and housings were designed to withstand the water pressure, but with them you could only shoot twelve minutes of footage down there, despite the fact that each dive lasted approximately fifteen hours. That is why, although we do see the real remains of the Titanic, not all of them are.
