James Cameron’s Titanic is a movie that gave us a beautiful but tragic love story of Jack and Rose, who meet on a ship, fall in love and separate at the end of the disaster. It’s an iconic film that gave the famous ‘Titanic pose’ to be cherished by couples to date. However, Titanic is also the movie whose ending is still argued, with people finding alternate endings for it.
Despite several criticisms, Titanic is still remembered as the best among the Titanic-based movies of 1964 (The Unsinkable Molly Brown), 1980 (Raise the Titanic), and 1997 (Titanica). Cameron’s fascination with shipwrecks leads to the idea for this movie and contains some actual footage from RMS Titanic. This article is to explain Titanic and its ending using the insights from the film. So let’s begin!
About Titanic
James Cameron is the writer, director, and producer of Titanic, the highest-grossing film of all time, released on December 19, 1997, which was the most expensive movie of that time. Titanic became the movie with the highest nominations and won 11 Oscars.
The Cast
Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson is a poor artist from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, on Titanic with his friend Fabrizio (Danny Nucci). Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater, a high-class girl (17) from Philadelphia, fiance of Caledon Hockley (30) (Billy Zane), accompanied by her widowed mother Ruth (Frances Fisher). Spicer Lovejoy (David Warner) plays Cal’s valet and surveillances on Rose and Jack.
The 1996 scenes feature Gloria Stuart as Rose, Suzy Amis as her granddaughter Lizzy Calvert, and Bill Paxton as a treasure hunter Brock Lovett.
The Plot: 1912
Rose boards the Titanic with her mother and her boastful fiance Caledon, while Jack and Fabrizio win two third-class tickets in poker. He meets distraught Rose over the stern railing where she was trying to suicide. He saves her, and they become friends before they fall in love. Jack sketches Rose with Cal’s gifted Heart of the Ocean necklace and witnesses an iceberg collision.
Meanwhile, Cal discovers that sketch frames Jack for stealing the necklace and confines him in a cabin. Instead of safely escaping with her mother, Rose reaches Jack and frees him while Cal and her mother leave. Jack and Rose struggle for life. They finally land up in icy cold waters Jack dies, and Rose survives.
1996
Brock Lovett and his teammates find a sketch dated April 14, 1912, from the Titanic’s wreck, the same day the Titanic sank. It eventually leads to Rose who comes to the research vessel Keldysh along with her granddaughter and tells her part of the story. Hearing the tragedy himself, Lovett abandons his search for the diamond.
In the end, Rose stands alone on the stern of Keldysh, takes out the Heart of the Ocean, and drops it into the ocean on Titanic’s spot. The movie closes with young Rose reuniting with Jack at Titanic’s Grand Staircase.
The Titanic Ending: explained
Although people loved the story and special effects in Titanic, the unhappy ending, including Jack’s death and old Rose disposing of the Heart of the Ocean instead of handing it to the eager Brock, disappointed them the most.
Titanic portrays a love that gives inner freedom instead of controlling it. Rose and Jack dream of a happy life and struggle for it till their last breath. However, Jack suspects the reality of sacrificing himself for Rose after taking a promise for a happy life as they planned.
Simultaneously, mistrusting Rose’s love is not justified. Despite several chances to escape the sinking Titanic in lifeboats, she jumps from it twice just to accompany Jack. Also, after-hours wait on the wreck for rescuers and watching Jack die, she too desires to die and ignores the rescue lifeboat that comes. She calls the rescue boat back only when she recalls Jack’s promise.
Although people often present several alternatives to saving Jack, but Cameron says that Jack had to die for the script. The wreck was a weak wooden wreck, instead of a durable door that was inadequate to support them both.
Why did Rose drop the Heart of the Ocean into the sea? Was her reunion with Jack a dream or her afterlife? Her act sounds stupid because people admire it for its monetary value, but for Rose, it’s her life’s journey. She abandoned Cal and met her true love, Jack, who helped her meet herself. And being on her life’s edge, dropping this diamond back to Titanic as her gift to Jack, Rose completes her journey.
Rose’s death was left open to audiences. In the ending scene, she meets Jack on the Grand Staircase of the Titanic, surrounded by those who sank with the ship, with no Cal around. Hence, instead of attempting to solve its mysteries, Titanic should be viewed the way Cameron wanted.
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