At the end of the movie “Titanic” Jack dies dramatically in the icy sea. With this scenario, fans of the classic do not really want to make friends and spin theories as to whether the main character could not have survived after all. Successful director Cameron now wants to finally clarify the question.
For decades, ardent ‘Titanic’ fans have plagued director James Cameron with the theory that Jack (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) could have survived if he had joined his beloved Rose (Kate Winslet) on the floating door after the ship sank . In the film, Jack realizes that adding his weight would only kill them both and eventually dies in the freezing cold North Atlantic. In a special documentary by “National Geographic” Cameron plays through several scenarios of the iconic film scene.
Cameron concludes in the documentary that there was a way for both main characters to survive on the door – but it would have been difficult. The scene was re-enacted in a pool, with two members of Cameron’s team playing Jack and Rose. In the first scenario, both should have stood on the door, but their combined weight causes them to sink into ice-cold water.
On the other hand, if both of them had gotten into a position on top of the door that lifted their torsos out of the water, the chances of survival would have increased. However, that would have required strength. “If you extrapolate it, he could have done it for quite a long time. Like a few hours,” Cameron sums up.
The last scenario contains an element that does not appear in the film at all. A life jacket for Jack. “He might have just survived until the lifeboat arrived,” concludes the cult director. “But there are a lot of variables. I think Jack’s line of thought was, ‘I’m not going to do anything that might endanger her [Rose],’ and that’s 100 percent his character.”
Actress Kate Winslet had previously commented on the “Jack” question. She doesn’t believe in survival. “I don’t think we would have survived if we both got on that door. I think he could have fit on it, but it would have fallen over and that wouldn’t have been a good idea,” Winslet said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
The documentary “Titanic: 25 Years Later With James Cameron” is also intended to cheer on the film’s restart in cinemas. The film was the highest-grossing film of all time for decades before Cameron broke his own record with “Avatar”.
