20201205 Titanic (1997 Movie)

Saturday, 05 December

#Today I wanna write about a movie, Titanic. I still remember when this movie was released in 1997. I still in first grade in Junior High School. 😅😅😅

https://www.amazon.com/Titanic-Movie-Poster-Leonardo-Dicaprio/dp/B07ZZXGMY8

Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. Incorporating both historical and fictionalized aspects, it is based on accounts of the sinking of the RMS Titanic and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage.

Cameron's inspiration for the film came from his fascination with shipwrecks; he felt a love story interspersed with the human loss would be essential to convey the emotional impact of the disaster. Production began in 1995 when Cameron shot footage of the actual Titanic wreck. The modern scenes on the research vessel were shot on board the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, which Cameron had used as a base when filming the wreck. Scale models, computer-generated imagery, and a reconstruction of the Titanic built at Baja Studios were used to re-create the sinking. The film was co-financed by Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox; the former handled distribution in North America while the latter released the film internationally. It was the most expensive film ever made at the time, with a production budget of $200 million.

Upon its release on December 19, 1997, Titanic achieved significant critical and commercial success. Nominated for 14 Academy Awards, it tied All About Eve (1950) for the most Oscar nominations and won 11, including the awards for Best Picture and Best Director tying Ben-Hur (1959) for the most Oscars won by a single film. With an initial worldwide gross of over $1.84 billion, Titanic was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark. It remained the highest-grossing film of all time until Cameron's Avatar surpassed it in 2010. A 3D version of Titanic, released on April 4, 2012, to commemorate the centennial of the sinking, earned it an additional $343.6 million worldwide, pushing the film's worldwide total to $2.18 billion and making it the second film to gross more than $2 billion worldwide (after Avatar). In 2017, the film was re-released for its 20th anniversary and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team aboard the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh to search the wreck of RMS Titanic for a necklace with a rare diamond, the Heart of the Ocean. They recover a safe containing a drawing of a young woman wearing only the necklace dated April 14, 1912, the day the ship struck the iceberg. Rose Dawson Calvert, the woman in the drawing, is brought aboard Keldysh and tells Lovett of her experiences aboard Titanic.

In 1912 Southampton, 17-year-old first-class passenger Rose DeWitt Bukater, her fiancé Cal Hockley, and her mother Ruth board the luxurious Titanic. Ruth emphasizes that Rose's marriage will resolve their family's financial problems and allow them to retain their upper-class status. Distraught over the engagement, Rose climbs over the stern and contemplates suicide; Jack Dawson, a poor artist, intervenes and discourages her. Discovered with Jack, Rose tells a concerned Cal that she was peering over the edge and Jack saved her from falling. Cal becomes indifferent, and it is suggested to him that Jack be rewarded; he invites Jack to dine with them in first-class. Jack and Rose develop a tentative friendship, despite Cal, his valet Spicer Lovejoy, and Ruth, being wary of him. Following dinner, Rose secretly joins Jack at a party in third-class.

Aware of Cal and Ruth's disapproval, Rose rebuffs Jack's advances, but later realizes she prefers him over Cal. After rendezvousing on the bow at sunset, Rose takes Jack to her stateroom; at her request, Jack sketches Rose to pose nude wearing Cal's engagement present, the Heart of the Ocean. They evade Lovejoy and have sex in an automobile inside the cargo hold. On the forward deck, they witness the ship's collision with an iceberg and overhear its officers and builder discussing its seriousness.

Cal discovers Jack's sketch of Rose and an insulting note from her in his safe along with the necklace. When Jack and Rose attempt to inform Cal of the collision, Cal retaliates by having Lovejoy slip the necklace into Jack's pocket, accusing him of theft. Jack is arrested and restrained in the master-at-arms' office. Cal puts the necklace in his own coat pocket

With the ship sinking, Rose flees Cal and her mother, who has boarded a lifeboat and frees Jack. On the boat deck, Cal and Jack encourage her to board a lifeboat. While intending only to save himself, Cal claims he can ensure he and Jack get off safely. As her lifeboat lowers, Rose realizes she cannot leave Jack and jumps back on board. Cal takes Lovejoy's pistol and chases Rose and Jack into the flooding first-class dining saloon. After using up his ammunition, he relents. Cal realizes he gave his coat, and consequently the necklace, to Rose. He later boards a lifeboat by carrying a lost child.

After braving several obstacles, Jack and Rose return to the boat deck. The lifeboats have departed and passengers are falling to their deaths as the stern rises out of the water. The ship breaks in half, dropping the stern into the water. Jack and Rose climb onto the back of it and ride it into the ocean. He helps her onto a wooden panel buoyant enough for only one person. He assures her that she will die an old woman, warm in her bed. Jack dies of hypothermia, but Rose is saved by a returning lifeboat.

The RMS Carpathia later rescues the survivors; onboard, Rose hides from Cal en route to New York City, where she gives her name as Rose Dawson. Rose says she later read that Cal committed suicide after losing his fortune in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. 

Back in the present, Lovett decides to abandon his search after hearing Rose's story. Alone on the stern of Keldysh, Rose takes out the Heart of the Ocean, which was in her possession all along, and drops it into the sea over the wreck site. While she is seemingly asleep or has died in her bed, photos on her dresser depict a life of freedom and adventure. A young Rose reunites with Jack at Titanic's Grand Staircase, applauded by those who died on the ship. 

Principal photography for Titanic began in July 1996 at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with the filming of the modern-day expedition scenes aboard the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh. In September 1996, the production moved to the newly-built Fox Baja Studios in Rosarito, Mexico, where a full-scale RMS Titanic had been constructed. The poop deck was built on a hinge which could rise from zero to 90 degrees in a few seconds, just as the ship's stern rose during the sinking. For the safety of the stuntmen, many props were made of foam rubber. By November 15, the boarding scenes were being shot. Cameron chose to build his RMS Titanic on the starboard side as a study of weather data revealed it was a prevailing north-to-south wind which blew the funnel smoke aft. This posed a problem for shooting the ship's departure from Southampton, as it was docked on its port side. Implementation of written directions, as well as props and costumes, had to be reversed; for example, if someone walked to their right in the script, they had to walk left during shooting. In post-production, the film was flipped to the correct direction. 

A full-time etiquette coach was hired to instruct the cast in the manners of the upper-class gentility in 1912. Despite this, several critics picked up on anachronisms in the film, not least involving the two main stars.

Cameron's nude sketch of Rose wearing the "Heart of the Ocean". The associated nude scene was one of the first scenes shot, as the main set was not yet ready.

Cameron sketched Jack's nude portrait of Rose for a scene which he feels has the backdrop of repression. "You know what it means for her, the freedom she must be feeling. It's kind of exhilarating for that reason," he said. The nude scene was DiCaprio and Winslet's first scene together. "It wasn't by any kind of design, although I couldn't have designed it better. There are nervousness and an energy and a hesitance in them," Cameron stated. "They had rehearsed together, but they hadn't shot anything together. If I'd had a choice, I probably would have preferred to put it deeper into the body of the shoot." Cameron said he and his crew "were just trying to find things to shoot" because the big set "wasn't ready for months, so we were scrambling around trying to fill in anything we could get to shoot." After seeing the scene on film, Cameron felt it worked out considerably well.

Other times on the set were not as smooth. The shoot was an arduous experience that "cemented Cameron's formidable reputation as 'the scariest man in Hollywood'. He became known as an uncompromising, hard-charging perfectionist" and a "300-decibel screamer, a modern-day Captain Bligh with a megaphone and walkie-talkie, swooping down into people's faces on a 162ft crane". Winslet chipped a bone in her elbow during filming and had been worried that she would drown in the 17m-gallon water tank the ship was to be sunk in. "There were times when I was genuinely frightened of him. Jim has a temper like you wouldn't believe," she said. "'God damn it!' he would yell at some poor crew member, 'that's exactly what I didn't want!'" Her co-star, Bill Paxton, was familiar with Cameron's work ethic from his earlier experience with him. "There were a lot of people on the set. Jim is not one of those guys who has the time to win hearts and minds," he said. The crew felt Cameron had an evil alter ego and so nicknamed him "Mij" (Jim spelled backward). In response to the criticism, Cameron stated, "Film-making is war. A great battle between business and aesthetics."

During the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh shoot in Canada, an angry crew member put the dissociative drug PCP into the soup that Cameron and various others ate one night in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. It sent more than 50 people to the hospital, including Paxton. "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 managed to vomit before the drug took a full hold. Abernathy was shocked at the way he looked. "One eye was completely red, like the Terminator's eye. A pupil, no iris, beet red. The other eye looked like he'd been sniffing glue since he was four." The person behind the poisoning was never caught.

The filming schedule was intended to last 138 days but grew to 160. Many cast members came down with colds, flu, or kidney infections after spending hours in cold water, including Winslet. In the end, she decided she would not work with Cameron again unless she earned "a lot of money". Several others left the production, and three stuntmen broke their bones, but the Screen Actors Guild decided, following an investigation, that nothing was inherently unsafe about the set. Additionally, DiCaprio said there was no point when he felt he was in danger during filming. Cameron believed in a passionate work ethic and never apologized for the way he ran his sets, although he acknowledged:

I'm demanding, and I'm demanding on my crew. In terms of being kind of militaresque, I think there's an element of that in dealing with thousands of extras and big logistics and keeping people safe. I think you have to have a fairly strict methodology in dealing with a large number of people.

The costs of filming Titanic eventually began to mount and finally reached $200 million, a bit over $1 million per minute of screen time. Fox executives panicked and suggested an hour of specific cuts from the three-hour film. They argued the extended length would mean fewer showings, thus less revenue, even though long epics are more likely to help directors win Oscars. 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, as they predicted profits would be unlikely.

Cameron explained forfeiting his share was complex. "... the short version is that the film cost proportionally much more than T2 and True Lies. Those films went up seven or eight percent from the initial budget. Titanic also had a large budget, to begin with, but it went up a lot more," he said. "As the producer and director, I take responsibility for the studio that's writing the checks, so I made it less painful for them. I did that on two different occasions. They didn't force me to do it; they were glad that I did."

(http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_(1997_film))

#enoughfortoday #qmo