I have read a date by date diary of one of the crewmembers who did get away who recorded what was happening as it happened, so i'd love to see a film about the actual event, but it truly is a great film, it's a classic, no one will ever forget this film or the event because of how James Cameron has installed in into our memories.
So let's talk about the story for those who like me, never saw the film all the way through and didn't know how it began, or people who just feel that they don't want to see it.
It starts out with an expedition to the Titanic wreck. The expedition is one of many trips to search the wreckage of Titanic to find a diamond called The Heart of the Ocean, a blue diamond that costs more than the Hope Diamond. They find a safe which belonged to a man named Cal Hockley, and bring it aboard the boat and empty it, but it's only filled with documents. Nonetheless, their team takes one of the papers and tries to see what's on it, and they find a drawing of a naked woman wearing the diamond that's dated the night of the event and signed "J.D.".
The man in charge, Brock Lovett is desperate to find out who she was (as everyone who was on board is dead, and if alive would have to be over 100 years old) and he speaks with a news anchor and they show the picture. He gets a phone call from an old woman who is about to be 102 named Rose Dawson Calvert who reveals herself as Rose Dewitt Bukater. She recounts her story which begins the story of how the event came to be, and the life of a fictional passenger and the story of her time upon the great ship.
Rose, Cal, and Rose's mother Ruth board the ship, and it shows that they are of a high class society. Cal and Rose are engaged, and Ruth makes it clear throughout the flashback about how important it is that Rose marries Cal in order to settle their serious financial problems.
At the same time a young man named Jack Dawson and a friend of his win tickets to America on board the Titanic at a game of poker and just barely make it to the ship on time. They almost are unable to board as a crewmember asks if they went through lice inspection, to which Jack says "We're Americans, we don't have lice." and the crew member allows them to board.
Rose tells everyone that she had had it with her high life family, always being told what to do and how a lady should act. She felt that she had no way out so she runs to the stern of the ship ready to jump off, but Jack hear's her crying and is able to stop her. Everyone thinks that she slipped and he rescued her so he is invited to eat dinner with the family the following night.
The next day, the ship's designer takes Rose, Ruth, and Cal on a tour of the ship, and tell Rose about the lifeboats, that there are only enough to take half of the passengers aboard, and that the company thought that having the appropriate amount of lifeboats would take up too much space.
After the dinner, Jack invites Rose to the E deck (the lower classes) to party with them to a live band, wild dancing and drinking and arm wrestling.
The next day, Ruth and Cal forbid Rose from ever seeing Jack again, and Cal reveals his true colors when Rose tells him that she is his fiancee and not one of his workers in the steel mill, to which he responds by yelling at her and throwing the table between them and slapping her. Later that night, he gives her the Heart of the Ocean as an engagement gift.
Rose tries to refuse Jack's advances, but in the end realizes that she loves him and wants to be with him. They meet at the bow where he tells her to get on the rail and that he'll hold her and she puts out her arms and opens her eyes. Hence this famous shot
"I'm flying, Jack"
Anywho, they go back to her cabin, she puts on the Heart of the Ocean and tell Jack that she wants him to draw her nude with only the diamond around her neck.
They then go about the ship running from Cal's buddy who is stalking Rose. They end up in the cargo hold of the ship, have sex in a car in the hold, run to the deck.
At this point the crew realizes that instead of being peeping toms at Rose and Jack they should pay attention to the huge ass iceberg that's dead ahead that they can't avoid. They try, and it rips a hole in the side of the ship. Jack overhears the crew members talking about the damage at the bottom of the ship and that they are in danger, and Rose tells Jack that she needs to tell Cal and her mother. They go to Rose's compartment where Cal has Jack searched, and they find the Heart of the Ocean in the jacket he is wearing which isn't even his. Rose doubts him, and believes that he might have stolen the diamond as the jacket clearly isn't his. Once Rose and Cal are alone, he hits her. The ships designer comes in and tells Rose what has happened and that the ship is going to sink and that she needs to get to a boat quickly and to not tell anyone unless she absolutely has to remember what he told her about the boats.
At the lifeboats, Cal reveals that he planted the diamond on Jack, and Rose runs to find him on the E deck, which is being filled with water. Jack is handcuffed to a pipe, and Rose uses an ax to cut him free. The try to get out at the upper levels, but the crew members have locked the gates. At one of the gates, Jack and some other men unhinge a bench and use it as a battering ram against the gate.
On deck, Cal tricks Rose into thinking that if she gets into a lifeboat now, he and Jack can get on a boat on another side of the ship. But Rose can't bear to be away from Jack so she jumps from the lifeboat back onto the ship.
Cal does get on a lifeboat by pretending he has a child and is a single father. Rose and Jack end up on the stern of the ship when the boat snaps in half, and the stern is about to go under. When it does, Jack finds a wall panel that will hold Rose above the water, but when he tries to get on it with her, it tries to capsize. He tells her to stay on it, and he stays in the water, telling her that she cannot say good bye and that she needs to survive no matter what it takes and tells her to never let go of this promise. One of the boats returns hours later, and Rose tries to wake Jack but realizes that he has already died. She tells Jack's body that she'll never let go, kisses his hand a final time, and lets his body sink to the bottom of the Atlantic. She tries to yell for the boat to return, but she's too weak and they cannot hear her. She jumps into the water and swims to a near by crewmember who had been blowing a whistle before he died, and she uses it to alert the lifeboat.
A ship does come for them, and the survivors are boarded on it. Cal looks for Rose, as he has forgotten that he'd put the diamond in his coat, and then had put the coat on Rose, but she hides from him, and he assumes that she never made it and that the diamond is gone.
When the ship arrives in New York City, Rose is asked what her name is and she says that it is Rose Dawson. She puts her hand in the coat pocket and realizes that the diamond is in it.
The flashback ends, and old Rose (who does not reveal that she has the diamond to Brock) tells them that this is the first time that she has recounted what happened back then to another person, and tells her granddaughter that she has never even spoken of Jack even to her husband. When told that no records were ever found on Jack, she isn't surprised, and says that he only exists now in her memories.
That night, Rose walks to the stern of the expedition boat and takes the diamond out which is when the audience realizes that she had it the whole time all those years, and she throws it into the water. The film goes forward to Rose asleep in her bed, and the camera shows pictures of her life in America based on things that Jack told her about and that she wanted to do with him once they got there. In what appears to be a dream sequence, young Rose is reunited with Jack back on the Titanic with all of her friends and family there and they applaud at their reunion.
Okay now for the review. Now the film IS good, but I do have some points about it. The lines are extremely cheesy such as the "i'll never let go" and "i'm flying". In the film itself, they aren't funny, but the second the movie is over, i'm laughing at these lines.
Also while watching it, I realized something. When Rose is on the wall panel, her heels are still on her feet. Now come on, that's pretty unrealistic. She was sucked down into the ocean, how would heels stay on her feet??
Another thing, it is not worth the extra money for 3D. When I think 3D, i'm thinking of things popping out of the screen at me. "Digitally enhanced" would have been a better description of the film.
Other than that, despite my personal feelings about the film and it's cheesiness, it is a great movie, and a great love story. It's a classic, and should always be given a chance.
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