Titanic

Titanic (1997) Behind the Scenes

Framing Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) for stealing.

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Plot
Set in modern day, Bill Paxton and his crew go down to the bottom of the ocean where the Titanic ship wreck lays, searching for a jewel that was said to have gone down with the ship. A sketch was recovered and a old woman known as Rose claims that it was a sketch of her. She starts telling the story of her survival on the Titanic. The flashbacks back in time tell the story of a young wealthy lady, Rose (Kate Winslet) and third-class Jack (Leoanrdo DiCaprio) and their romance while the ship's doom awaits.

James Cameron's idea
Many years back, James Cameron had an idea. After seeing Robert Ballard's 1987 National Geographic documentary about the discovery of the ship wreck of the Titanic, Cameron decided he wanted to do a film about the Titanic. The next few years Cameron worked on his story, combining present day discoveries with documented history. In early 1995, Cameron made his pitch to studio executives at Fox. "They were like, 'Ooooohkaaaay--a three-hour romantic epic? Sure, that's just what we want. Is there a little bit of Terminator in that? Any Harrier jets, shootouts, or car chases?" I said, 'No, no, no. It's not like that.'" Cameron recalls.

Casting
After trying to figure out the building the replica of the Titanic, James Cameron had to decide who the stars were. The characters were around 20 years old so finding actors were a bit difficult since many big actors were older. For the part of Rose, Cameron wanted "an Audrey Hepburn type", included the list of actresses who auditioned were Gwyneth

Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio and director James Cameron.

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Paltrow and Claire Danes. But after Kate Winslet pleaded to Cameron, Winslet eventually got the part.

For the role of Jack Cameron pictured a young Jimmy Stewart, after listing Chris O'Donnell, Matthew McConughey, and others, he figured they were to old. At the audition, Leonardo DiCaprio wasn't too eager for the part, he even refused to read it with Kate Winslet but later did. "He read it once, then started goofing around, and I could never get him to focus on it again," says Cameron. "But for one split second, a shaft of light came down from the heavens and lit up the forest." After Cameron was convinced that DiCaprio was the one to play Jack, DiCaprio suggested making Jack more interesting. Cameron said "Look, I'm not going to make this guy brooding and neurotic. I'm not going to give him a tic and a limp and all the things you want." Finally DiCaprio signed on and received his first million-dollar pay, he got 2.5 million to do the film.

Filming the scene with a green background.

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The 'Flying' scene
Almost everyone knows this scene where Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) holds out Rose's (Kate Winslet) arms out at the bow of the Titanic and she says "I'm Flying". That scene was actually taken inside with a green background. The sunset was filmed seperately and so was the smaller model ship. Using the stunning special effects, James Cameron and others put the scene together.

Recently many ships were having some problems with passengers standing at the bow, with their arms out, trying to recreate the same effect. Some people actually fell overboard trying to do that.

Food Poisoning
What was supposed to be a just a dinner break from shooting ended up in disaster. The director and his crew were all sick, a lab report confirmed that the cause was the lobster chowder poisoned with PCP. The person who put it there is still not found.

"There were people just rolling around, completely out of it. Some of them said they were seeing streaks and psychedelics. I thought it was food poisoning. Really bad seafood can make you hallucinate, and this caterer was big on clams. Jim (Cameron) was being loaded into the back of this van. I was just shocked at the way he looked. One eye was completely red, like the Terminator eye. A pupil, no iris, beet red. The other eye looked like he'd been sniffing glue since he was 4."

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