This is a repost from the SOTR1989 Blog originally published February 10th, 2023. To see the original, click here
“My Heart Will Go On”
I used to hate this movie. I was 8 years old when it released. I was in 3rd grade. I remember all the girls loved it (or maybe just Leonardo DiCaprio) and were passionate about it. Being a boy, I only cared about the one thing that mattered: Rose naked in the middle of the film. I remember it was the first time I ever heard the “F-word” spoken in a film. I paused the film, and raced upstairs and told my mom. Weird but I was always a somewhat innocent kid. There’s a lot of scenes and images I recall from this one, even decades later. I remember this film was so long, it came on a double VHS pack, with half the movie on one tape, and the other half on the second. Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” was such a big hit, and love it or hate it, it will forever be a part of pop culture.
Seeing Titanic 25 years later as an adult…on the big screen non-the-less, wow…what a powerful film. No wonder James Cameron is so highly regarded as a filmmaker. Such a strong and passionate project. The ability to take a tragic historical event, mix in some fictitious elements, and build up an amazing masterpiece.
The buildup is strong. Seeing that kitchen takes me back to the beginning of the late 90’s. I very much felt that. I remember going to the Baltimore Aquarium as a child where they talked about one of the expeditions that led to finding the Titanic. Interesting to see how they mapped it out for a feature film.
Going into the movie itself, so much life and depth of characters. I hated Leonardo DiCaprio as a kid. I remember doing Kid’s Choice polls where we chose Chris O’Donnell over him to play Robin. Nothing against him, but God damn were we wrong. Leo plays Jack Dawson to a T. The liveliness and youthfulness. Seeing him and his friend whoop in the breeze is just the sheer definition of youth with a carefree attitude toward life and all the difficulties it brings. Even seeing the image of him smoking a cigarette under the stars. Granted, smoking was a given back then, but to see him gaze listlessly into the heavens as life carries him away, unbeknownst to him, towards his final adventure, after a short life well lived.
Rose is another story. More is known about mental illness today, but you see it clearly in Kate Winslet’s portrayal. Rose Dewitt Bukater is a human trapped in the false extravagance of wealth and privilege. You can have money and still live a great life. But to merely gather around and let true life escape you as you force the newer generations into a classist system is such a tragedy. Just look at Cal. Everything in the world for him, but no heart. No soul. The wrong definition of what ”wealth” in life truly should be. Rose tries to escape this as she tears across the boat, looking to jump. She tells Jack “he’s the crazy one” as he casually remarks that he’s not the one hanging off the back of the ship. The love and passion for life just breathe new hope and promise into a young woman looking to escape the trap of her current situation. Rose thinks he sees her as a sad spoiled rich girl, but more so he sees her as “what could have happened to this girl to make her think there was no way out?”
Rose’s comment about all eyes on her and everybody watching, remarking and gossiping reminds me of Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now”. Just people staring at in shock and awe of the disappointment and perceived uncultured of youth. People forget we were all young at one point. It’s not just a body change, rather very much a mental and emotional change. We learn and experience so much. To waste youth is to waste precious life.
Kathy Bates’ “Unsinkable” Molly Brown gives a memorable portrayal to an influential character in history. Molly was actually large into philanthropy and helped others despite her higher class of life. Her demanding to go back for survivors (and subsequent denial) is a true part of the Titanic story. Her warmth and motherly showing towards Jack is comforting and real. Definitely look up her history if you get the chance. She did a lot with her life.
Jack’s story in the first class dining room about “Making it Count” is quite profound. We all run schedules. Hell, I’m scheduled for the dentist later today. We have work, appointments to keep, all sorts of life to live. But Jack lives a very noble youthful existence. His global travels, life experiences, and generally calm attitude towards life is strong. His ability to overcome any situation presented to him despite his perceived lack of proper education is overlooked by his realist showing and extensive knowledge of “street smarts”. He can easily mix in with any group anywhere he goes. He makes his own luck happen, and certainly “Makes it count.”
The one part of the movie I will forever remember is Rose’s laughter and merriment during the party down on the lower decks. The way she drinks, smokes, dances, and just that laugh, such a delicate experience as she enjoys her life for the first time in a long while. She is free to be herself, outside the chains and shackles of a prim and proper society. That last part where they grab hands and swing each other faster and faster. It builds the perfect symbol of what true love is. The sense of “The faster and faster this world spins around and out of focus, I only see you. And that’s what matters in this life to me.”
Rose singing in the church is interesting. She is hyper focused on the singing while everyone around her tends to be looking all around at what is going on. I love the close up shot of her singing 🎵 …those in peril on the sea🎵 because it not only foreshadows the tragedy of the Titanic, but also her situation.
Sometimes I feel relatable to Jack. As he tells the tales of where he’s been, his net worth, and other things. He’s been to Paris, Wisconsin, Los Angeles, the UK, all sorts of various places. He’s worked many different jobs, picked up various life skills, yet only $10 to his name. He has no permanent address. I’ve been to Paris, Zurich, Bern, Cancun, Vancouver, Calgary, Los Angeles, NYC, DC, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, all over. You just collect an immense wealth of knowledge and experience that makes for a life well traveled and well lived even if you haven’t amassed a greater sense of sustainability. It’s a hard but rewarding life however simplistic.
The captain meets with the passenger who works in the press. He is told that if he can arrive in New York by Tuesday night, not only would it surprise everyone aboard, but cap off his legacy. The captain is immune to this idea at first, but then let’s the delusion of grandeur take over. He pushes the ship against her evasive capabilities and dooms the ship to their collision course with the iceberg.
Rose’s falling in love with Jack builds over the course of the movie. Cal’s seemingly violent outbursts on her are outlandish, and it’s interesting to see how far we have come as a society. Certainly a film of it’s time period. I think the nerve to Cal is best struck when Rose declares “I’d rather be his whore than your wife.” Cal seems to be a man who just expects things to fall his way. He never fully gets the idea that money cannot buy you the perfect life. He can spend all the money in the world, yet it will never be enough for the heart of a true woman. And ironically he loses her to a man with little to no money.
The water creeping along the ship corridors as the compartments slowly fill up gives an eerie horror sense to the film. It’s reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” when the blood comes crashing off the elevator.
Something I only picked up watching this in a movie theater is the scene where the ship is launching the flares into the sky, hoping a nearby ship will see it. You just see this great ship in a pure sea of darkness. If you ever want to feel the isolation of loneliness, watch this ship in the darkness of the world plea out for help that will never be able to come. And unanswered message. A booming cry for help, never to be heard by the world outside.
Cal’s mocking comment about “I make my own luck.” as he grabs things out of the same shows how he doesn’t necessarily “make” his own luck, but rather he buys his own luck. He is a business man, who sees life as transactional. He gives off large wads of cash into the pockets of those who see him as sort of a “cash cow”, and fall to his mercy in believing they can accrue wealth by following his demands. I don’t really perceive that as “making luck” but rather throwing endless sums at seemingly unfulfilling things. I understand tipping culture and providing financial gain to those who help you for various things on a luxury trip or otherwise, but the manner in which he does it is excessive and demeaning.
It’s interesting, when Rose prepares to jump off the back of the boat, Jack has a conversation with her about the frigid nature of the water. This leads to a saying of “If you jump I jump.” Funny how all the events of the film come full circle and lead back to this very same part of the boat where they both take the plunge into the water together, and the action actually costs Jack his life. True to his word, he “went in right after her” and saved her from the cold water. In a strange twist of things, if you view the plunge into the water as a “baptism” of sorts, we truly see the death of “Rose Dewitt Bukater” and the birth of “Rose Dawson” as she emerges from the sea for her first gasp of air. Even with the scene where she remains hidden from Cal as he searches for her on the Carpathia. She rejects the evils of her former life and carrie’s on fully refreshed with the love and lust for life the experience and now memory of Jack has brought her.
As a child, I never really saw much to the captain as much more than that. He’s an old man, he commandeers the ship, he goes down with the ship, end of story. As a adult, you see the conscience of this man come into full effect. He realizes over the course of time that he was influenced against his better judgment to push the ship faster than it could go, and now that one action, in an attempt to embellish his legacy with one more notable accomplishment, has now cost the lives of 1500 people - himself included. He subjects himself to the ritual of “the captain goes down with the ship”. He is remorseful and you can feel the regret in this man’s heart. That final scene where Rose climbs the stairs to meet Jack at the clock while all the others who have passed away surround them, you see the captain, smiling and happy. One has to wonder, if Rose passed away during this scene, because by throwing the jewel back into the ocean, her life has become complete, and now she joins those who went ages before her in the confines of paradise. The captain must true feel at peace in the confines of a paradisiacal realm, because he is truly among the people he belongs with, who paid with their lives when the Titanic sank, as opposed to pressing on several more painful years, wrecked with assumed alcoholism and survivor’s guilt from his actions.
As the ship sinks, you see the people who instead of pushing to escape, seemingly accept their fate, and prepare for the impending death that awaits them. I think of the old couple lying in bed as the water fills their cabin. The mother putting her children to bed, knowing this final moments of rest lead to an eternal rest. It’s strange to think but, some of these people will be forgotten forever, yet forever remembered in the same way. Some of the more impoverished people who leave behind no legacy, nor any sort of memory to be remember by outside those who perish alongside them, are erased from history as the individual, yet are remembered in history, as merely a number. A count soul on one of the greatest tragedies of all time. Forever forgotten, yet forever remembered. Evermore.
Even things such as Benjamin Guggenheim, the old man who remains and requests the brandy as the ship is going down. The look of sheer terror on his face as he watches people scatter mercilessly in vain to escape the disaster. He seemingly feels human, possibly for the first time in his life. He is remembered for leaving a message with a survivor to tell his wife he “played the game out to the end” to suggest he was not a coward, and let the lives of others (notably women and children) the opportunity to survive onward in place of him. While not necessarily the most noble man, certainly has a conscience of sorts as the events play out.
The musician’s sense of camaraderie, as the continue to play while the ship sinks. They take solace in their music. Even as they agree to depart, they refuse to leave their friend behind, and join him in “musical arms” to provide a somber, yet soul releasing sound as the horrors erupt around them.
Parts of the end strike an emotional tone. Sensing the will to live if some of the passengers. You see as some get sucked into the windows of the main staircase, other pull with all their might, and do not allow fate to take them quite so easily. They are determined to get through this by any means necessary.
As the destruction continues, you see the lifeless bodies floating around in the ship, the unused china smashing to the floor. The utter chaos and destruction abound. Even the boat rising and splitting in half has I’ll-fated consequences. Some of those who escaped the terror of the boat and bobbling in the freezing cold are put out of their misery by several tons of steel that comes crashing down on top of them, sending a vast sea of souls off into the greater beyond a modest the freezing temperatures of the Atlantic. The horrible nightmare rages on.
As the front of the ship begins it’s descent to the ocean floor, the stern rises up vertically into the water. There is an eerie calming as it bobbles there for a moment. The feeling is similar to that of a roller coaster, just before you teeter off the edge and go flying in. Just enough to consider your life before it flashes before you.
As Jack helps Rose on to the door, he attempts to join her, but is unable to without capsizing it. As time wears of, he slowly realizes his luck in life has run out, and he now faces the end as he comforts Rose and pushes her to continue onward in life.
As time presses on in the immediate aftermath, you see an endless sea of dead bodies, blue to the face, and just devoid of all warmth and liveliness. The sheer horror of seeing nearly a thousand corpses (some of them, their own loved ones) bobbing back and forth lifelessly in the darkness of the night would scar anyone. You want to talk emotional trauma? Face that and carry on as they did. People of prior generations were cut from a different material.
Rose faces the dilemma as the rescue boat comes back for her. Jack has passed away. Instead of allowing the pain of losing him cause her to give up on life, she make him one final promise before setting him off into the darkness of the sea, and pushes over to grab the whistle and signal for help. Her willingness and spirit to fight to live on restored, and purpose to press on forward and make a life well lived in memory of her fallen lover and friend is beautiful in light of such tragic events.
Over 1500 people perished in the loss of the Titanic. About 700 remained on in life boats waiting for an absolution. Drifting in the cold night. It’s interesting to see Cal join in with the other survivors drinking from the flask, compared to his usual brandy, or champagne. He almost feels human for a single moment of the movie.
Rose said she hadn’t mentioned Jack to anyone in 84 years. He has been lost to the world but the inside of one person’s heart and memory for all this time. There was no record of him to be found in the world. A true drifter. No legacy contact in Wisconsin, nor in any other part he claimed to have visited. So now you wonder either just how poor was his family, or was he slightly deceptive (as people in similar situations are forced to sometimes are) in order to make himself feel more normal. That being said, he never came across as a morally dishonest individual, he has some discretions, but mainly for the greater good as opposed to ill-intent. Perhaps he was simply the last of his line, and was determined to make the most of it, in any way he could.
I’ve often wondered about the US in the 1800’s. Kids who came up somewhere in an old school house in a now deserted ghost town out west here. What became of them? Their teachers? Everything they perceive as life is not just gone, but forgotten. Much like Jack was for 84 years.
As Rose shares her memories, Jack’s story lives on now in the crew that heard the tale, and that presents new opportunities for his legacy to live on, and as the story gets shared, he becomes a legend, and is never truly forgotten to time. Anything could have happened to Rose in the 100 years she lived and held on to his memory. But the spirit and fight to keep pushing allows his spirit to remain on in the light of the world.
As Rose drops the jewel into the ocean, she seemingly feels complete with her life. The ending implies her passing away that night, and rejoining Jack along side those who went before her on that cold mid-April night decades ago. You see happiness and looks of joy abound with everyone there. It reminds me of Miranda Lambert’s song “Heart Like Mine”. The lyric 🎵 There are the days that I will remember, when my name’s called on a roll, [they’ll] meet me with 2 long stem glasses, and make a toast to me coming home🎵 . Jack seemingly has been staring at that clock for 84 years. Waiting for Rose to return to him. The people cheer on the Dawsons as they live on in eternity, a seemingly fitting end to a modern day Romeo and Juliet to stand for the ages.
What do we become as we age? What about after we pass away? We are children to our parents and grandparents. We are friends and lovers to those around us. We are the old, weathered, and wise to those younger than us. But to what final form do we take on when our time in this world ends? A return to the seemingly perfect appearance of our youth, a refined adult, or does the age wear on as time ceases to continue? Different religions preach different variations of the afterlife. Going into Heaven, reincarnation, a complete end to all things. The ending of this movie suggests something else. What if paradise is the moment of our lives we were the happiest? What if it doesn’t matter how others feel because paradise could be a world unique to one’s true existence, and those you love will always be there because you see a perfect world, as opposed to the flawed crude one we live in presently. A seemingly endless multiverse of different universes dictated by single minds. We return to live it out forever in the glory of a perfect scenario. For Rose, her time with Jack on the Titanic, before it sank, was the greatest of her life. So she returns to a truly unsinkable Titanic. To live out eternity with Jack by her side, as they tackle the wonders of the cosmos in lands far far away from here.
