You know how Titanic fans argue about whether or not there was enough room for both Jack and Rose to fit on that door? (There was.) Well, I've moved passed that and have just recreated the ending in my mind entirely so that Jack survived and the two lived happily ever after.
But, director James Cameron is screwing with my happy delusion because, in a recent interview with Vanity Fair, he revealed that pretty much nothing would've saved poor Jack.
James told Vanity Fair, "...it says on page 147 [of the script] that Jack dies. Very simple. ... Obviously it was an artistic choice, the thing was just big enough to hold her, and not big enough to hold him ...
"Had he lived, the ending of the film would have been meaningless. ... The film is about death and separation; he had to die. So whether it was that, or whether a smoke stack fell on him, he was going down.
"I think it’s all kind of silly, really, that we’re having this discussion 20 years later. But it does show that the film was effective in making Jack so endearing to the audience that it hurts them to see him die."
James continued, crushing souls and shattering dreams:
I was in the water with the piece of wood putting people on it for about two days, getting it exactly buoyant enough so that it would support one person with full free-board, meaning that she wasn’t immersed at all in the 28 degree water so that she could survive the three hours it took until the rescue ship got there. [Jack] didn’t know that she was gonna get picked up by a lifeboat an hour later; he was dead anyway. And we very, very finely tuned it to be exactly what you see in the movie because I believed at the time, and still do, that that’s what it would have taken for one person to survive.
Whatever you say, James. Whatever you say. You have your version, and I have mine.
Anyway, here are some pictures of Kate and Leo living their best lives to cheer you up. You're welcome.
