It looks like the factual question has mostly been answered in the second post, and everyone else wants to talk about the plot of the movie as distinct from anything in real life, so in CS it shall stay.
I was my daughter’s primary caregiver for eight years (1997–2005). I took her with me almost everywhere I went when I wasn’t working.
It was a gift given in anticipation of marriage, but it wasn’t an engagement ring so I’m not sure that would matter. Presumably Cal didn’t mentioned he’d already given it to Rose when he filed the insurance claim so he committed insurance fraud, but he’s long dead and it’s been 85 years so any statue of limitations has long expired. The insurance company would just crunch the numbers to see if it’s worth pursuing and make a business decision. We don’t know how many descendants Cal has or what their financial situations are, but I’m some sure they’d get offers from lawyers willing to work on contingency. Also Rose’s family could try and claim she wasn’t in her right mind when she gave it away. So the result could be a complicated lawsuit with up to 4 parties and lawyers making out like bandits.
Wait, did Cal survive? If he didn’t, then it’s even simpler.
Cal committed suicide during the stock market crash of ‘29.
Yeah, as Rose said, “The crash hit his interest hard, and he put a gun in his mouth…or so I’m told.”
Evil? Naw. Not a nice guy, sure, but hardly evil. And it was a gift.
She should have sold it and donated the $ to the survivors fund.
Hmm. I dont remember that?
Good points.
And altho the binoculars for the lookouts had been locked up- they could have broken open the locker, or one set of the many binocs for the bridge crew could have been sent up.
But in real life, they weren’t, so, still not Rose’s fault.
I still blame Andrews, but this time for not putting a headlight on the ship. Why not?
Cameron has his own issues with class that seriously worked their way into the plot. He just had tio stack the deck against Cal, because otherwise the audience might start to realize how bad Rose really was, in context of her situation.
The first several lifeboats were launched only half full because people bought into the ‘unsinkable’ meme they’d been hearing since before the trip began and saw no reason to be sitting in a cold, wet lifeboat while waiting for help to come. Later on when Things Got Serious the boats were well filled but not early on.
Funny enough, this is also my largest complaint about Avatar.
There’s a fan theory that Jack is actually a transman - which almost certainly wasn’t Cameron’s intent, but if it was it would’ve been a much more interesting movie.
This matter was brought up repeatedly at the Washington inquiry (and presumably the British one as well), and no one had any explanation for why binoculars were not issued to the men in the crow’s nest. Second Officer Blair apparently took the secret of where the binoculars were stowed with him when he was reassigned to another ship.
If it was known where they were, I suspect whoever was responsible for issuing them was simply reluctant to damage anything on board the spanking-new Titanic without getting proper authorization first. Ergo, no attempt was made to break open the locker.
It should also be kept in mind that the night was idyllic in terms of visibility, and icebergs were fairly easy to spot in the dark because of the white foam that spashed around them at their base. So most of the officers, including the Captain, probably thought they could get along well without them at the time. At the Washington inquiry, even Frederick Fleet, the crewman who alerted the bridge as to the berg’s presence, had to be prodded into admitting they might have seen it “a bit sooner” if they had had binoculars.
With regard to Cal surviving the wreck, scenes were filmed in which he was standing up in his lifeboat and using an oar to beat off people who were trying to get out of the water. While very dramatic and showing what a true asshole he was, they would have made the movie too long and ended up on the cutting room floor. (The commemorative book that came out after the movie was released contained stills taken from one of those scenes.)
One of the recommendations the Washington inquiry made for improving safety at sea was that ocean liners be equipped with searchlights, just like naval vessels. As I recall, this led to nothing at the time, due probably to high costs and British conservatism—the very reasons the “unsinkable” Titanic had only half the lifeboats it needed. The Board of Trade regulations under which she sailed were hopelessly outdated.
JohnT may be being a bit facetious, but yes, that’s how the movie portrayed it. The ship lookouts were portrayed as being distracted from their job because they were watching Rose and Jack fool around. By the time they saw the iceberg, it was too late.
This gives rise to another question that I’ve long had about the movie: The salvage guys raise the safe from Cal’s stateroom, and they open it. Water pours out. And yet, Jack’s sketches, rendered in charcoal on paper, are intact. No rotting, no washing away of the charcoal, the sketches are as brilliant as the day they were made.
How?
I’m thinking “movie magic,” and I’m willing to suspend disbelief, as the discovered sketches advance the plot and give it a reason to be, but realistically, how could those charcoal sketches have survived 85 years under water?
That’s still not Jack and Rose’s fault. They’re on an ocean liner - there’s always going to be someone fooling around on deck. It’s the lookouts’ job to ignore them and keep their eyes forward.
Well, yes, of course. I was just pointing out to DrDeth what JohnT was referring to since DrDeth said he didn’t remember seeing that part in the movie.
Maybe the extreme cold and pressure helped preserve them?
(a) Sketchbook paper, especially in those days, would have been made from cotton and linen fiber, not wood pulp. So it was definitely very durable.
(b) The cold temperature and lack of oxygen at a depth of two miles would have protected the paper from any decomposition, especially if it was kept inside a safe.
So far as I know, no human remains have ever been recovered from the wreck—due not to decomposition but because they were transformed into organic paste by the great pressure at that depth. I’ve seen items like shoes and leather purses that have been recovered, and they were all remarkably well preserved.
Also, the complete lack of light at the bottom of the ocean would help preserve anything that would be damaged by photons (or any other kind of radiation, for that matter).
Thank you, @terentii , that seems to answer my question about the paper. What about the charcoal on the sketch paper?
Either way, I’ve seen the exhibition of Titanic artifacts at the Luxor in Las Vegas, and I noticed the lack of paper artifacts. Lots of dishes, leather goods, and vials of perfume; and I understand the lack of human bodies. I guess what paper menus (for example) we have come from souvenirs that first, second, and third-class survivors put in their pockets when the ship went down.
Little story: I was in St. John’s, Newfoundland, for a conference a couple of years ago, the year the Ocean Gate submersible imploded. Nice hotel, overlooking the harbour. We quit for the day, and hit the hotel bar for happy hour. Then somebody pointed out the window, and said, “Isn’t that pier where they brought up the wreckage of Ocean Gate?”
Suddenly, happy hour wasn’t so happy.