Just a quick question about the last scene in the movie Titanic (the Leonardo DiCaprio version). In the last scene the cameras go below the sea to the wreck of the Titanic. As the camera moves through the wreck, the ship is seemingly restored to it’s former grandeur. Finally the camera arrives at a doorway leading to a grand staircase on the ship. A crewman opens the door and in walks the young Rose. Waiting for her on the staircase is Jack. With many other Titanic crew and passangers in attendence, Rose walks over to Jack and kisses him. Fade to black.
Is this James Cameron’s way of telling us that Rose died that night on the salvage ship and that her ghost now went to join the ghosts of all the other former passengers on Titanic. Or is there some other meaning that I am completely missing?
I remember reading an interview with Cameron where he said he left it ambiguous on purpose, but my interpretation has always been the same as yours–she died and went to be with Jack. Which always makes me feel a little sad for her husband.
I haven’t seen it in a while, but a friend of mine said it had always been obvious to him the she died because he says she stops breathing in her sleep right before the cut to the dream sequence.
I never thought of it any other way than Rose had died. All the people she sees on the ship are ones who died as a direct result of that night. We don’t see her mother, Molly Brown, her fiancee, his body guard, etc. Seems she’d been living just so she could finally tell her story and Jack would live on in someone else’s memory. Once she had, and she returned the diamond to the sea, she could finally rest in peace.
Maybe she was having to drive all the way to Canada to get cheap pills to stop hallucinations… but being in the middle of the ocean prevented her from driving.
Zev, I think you’re totally right. She dies & goes to Titanic heaven where everyone but her evil ex-fiance & David Warner went.
A friend told me that a friend of his took the song in the closing credits (My Heart Will Go On) as a literal explanation & that she goes there “every night in (her) dreams”.
Hijack: In one of the deleted scenes, Cal actually spots Rose on the deck of the ship and attempts to “rescue” her. She essentially blackmails him: she won’t tell anybody what a coward/bastard he was if he doesn’t tell anybody she’s still alive. The main thing I wondered is what became of her mother, who was already broke. (Perhaps she married a much older widower.)
I wish they’d release some of the deleted scenes. I’d particularly like to see more of the footage shot of the Strauss’s (whose story was so beautiful in real life).
Of course there’s also the other option: Rose is a pathological liar who will later claim to have survived the Hindenberg, Marie Celeste, Andrea Doria, Achille Laurel and the Bataan Death March. (And I still say that if my grandmother threw a $50 million diamond into the sea, she’s a goin’ in after it.)
I doubt the board could’ve supported both of them. Even if Jack tried to get onto it, he would’ve probably caused it to tip, which would’ve then caused Rose to slide off.
How did the TITANIC electricians keep the damn lights on while the ship was sinking? The film shows the lights on, even as the bow plunges toward the sea floor? Did they have lots of spare fuses? Explain to me how you can keep a generator functioning, when half of your loads are shorted out by seawater!
Well, proving that she was on the Titanic to begin with wouldn’t be hard to prove. The passenger manifest is well known.
One of the phone companies did a parody commercial on this. Rose throws the Couer De Le Mer into the sea. A second later, she regrets it and goes in after it. The next scene you see a dripping Rose pulling out a Yellow Pages and looking for pawn shops…
The electircians died at their boards; virtually all of the engineering crew perished with their ship. Presumably they were cutting the circuits out as the the water shorted them.
