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James Cameron has visited Titanic wreckage 33 times. Here’s what he said about the Titan

Behind cameron’s motivation to make the film ‘titanic’ was his desire to dive down to the wreckage.

By Hanna Seariac

A submersible named Titan went missing on Sunday in an expedition to see the wreckage of the Titanic. On Thursday, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger said the sub experienced a “catastrophic implosion,” according to CNN .

Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood, Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet are presumed dead, per NBC News . The Coast Guard said the debris searchers found indicated the vessel’s implosion.

“I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many people died as a result. For a very similar tragedy, where warnings went unheeded, to take place at the same exact site with all the diving that’s going on all around the world, I think is just astonishing,” James Cameron, director of “Titanic,” told ABC News .

Cameron’s “Titanic” won best picture in 1998. The director has taken 33 dives himself to the wreckage of the Titanic, according to CNN.

Behind Cameron’s motivation to make the film was his desire to dive down to the wreckage, which was discovered in 1985. “The Titanic was the Mount Everest of shipwrecks, and as a diver I wanted to do it right. When I learned some other guys had dived to the Titanic to make an IMAX movie, I said, ‘I’ll make a Hollywood movie to pay for an expedition and do the same thing.’ I loved that first taste, and I wanted more,” Cameron said, per CNN .

On one of his visits to the Titanic wreckage, Cameron told USA Today that he saw the Straus Suite. When he was making the film, he had to make educated guesses about what he didn’t know and said the real Straus Suite “looked just like the fake set that we got built.”

James Cameron’s deep dives

Cameron himself has helped design a submersible known as the Deepsea Challenger — a 24-foot-long sub that had several cameras. He took the sub to the ocean floor of the Marianas Trench, per NPR.

The Marianas Trench is considered the deepest trench known on earth and it’s located east and south of the Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Britannica said, “An arcing depression, the Marianas Trench stretches for more than 1,580 miles with a mean width of 43 miles.”

“Surface, this is DEEPSEA CHALLENGER. I am on the bottom. Depth is 35,756 feet ... life support’s good, everything looks good.’ Only now does it occur to me that I might have prepared something more memorable, like ‘One small step for man,” Cameron later wrote when he reflected on his call to the ship after reaching the ocean floor, according to NPR .

When Cameron completed the dive, he broke the record for the deepest solo dive, NBC News reported. He also became the first person to reach the bottom of the Marianas Trench by himself.

Cameron has also said going into the deep sea can be dangerous — he said his vessel underwent testing and had backup gear for power. “You’re going into one of the most unforgiving places on earth. It’s not like you can call up AAA to come get you,” he told The New York Times.

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James Cameron isn’t just one of Hollywood’s most successful directors ever, he’s also a lover of deep sea exploration.

Those paths have crossed in two of his biggest hits, “Avatar” and “Titanic.”

While Cameron has not publicly commented on the current search for the Titanic tour OceanGate submersible with five people on board, he has personally made 33 dives to the wreckage site.

Video above: 5 missing in Titanic submersible in Atlantic Ocean

CNN has reached out to representatives of Cameron for comment.

Here’s what the director has said in the past about the deep-sea exploration.

His motivation for making ‘Titanic’

Cameron told Playboy in 2009 that it wasn’t a love story aboard the doomed Titanic that inspired him to make his hit 1997 film.

“I made ‘Titanic’ because I wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to make the movie,” he told the publication.

“The Titanic was the Mount Everest of shipwrecks, and as a diver I wanted to do it right,” he said. “When I learned some other guys had dived to the Titanic to make an IMAX movie, I said, ‘I’ll make a Hollywood movie to pay for an expedition and do the same thing.” I loved that first taste, and I wanted more.”

Cameron sees his filmmaking and sea exploration as connected.

“I think the through-line there is storytelling,” the director told NPR in 2012. “I think it’s the explorer’s job to go and be at the remote edge of human experience and then come back and tell that story.”

Growing up fascinated

Cameron told National Geographic that while he grew up in Ontario, Canada, hundreds of miles from the ocean, as a youngster he remembers “watching with amazement” sea explorer Jacques Cousteau’s specials.

In his youth, Cameron took a trip to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, where he saw an exhibit of an underwater habitat designed by Joe MacInnis that prompted him to write a letter to MacInnis.

To a then 14-year-old Cameron’s surprise, MacInnis responded.

“He actually sent me back the address of his contact at … the Plexiglas manufacturer… . I contacted them, and they sent me a sample of Plexiglas,” Cameron recalled. “And at that point, I had the window [for the underwater habitat]. I just had to build the rest of it! That was important. That creates the sense of it being possible.”

Going past Titanic depths

Cameron has made dozens of deep-sea dives since filming “Titanic.” In 2012, he dived to the Mariana Trench, considered one of the deepest spots in the Earth’s oceans at almost seven miles below the surface.

He did it in a 24-foot submersible vehicle he designed called the Deepsea Challenger.

Cameron took cameras to document the entire trek in the western Pacific. In a National Geographic video and essay, he described the experience that began with an early morning descent.

“I took off like a shot, fastest I’ve ever seen. The surface just receded,” he said in the video. “It just went away. I’m looking at the depth gauge and I’m at a thousand feet in the first like couple of minutes. Then it’s two thousand, then three thousand. The sub’s just going like a bat out of hell.”

Quickly, he said, he went past Titanic depth. When he got to 27,000 feet, which was the deepest Cameron said he had ever dived before, there were still nine thousand feet to go to the ocean floor.

As he continued to dive, Cameron said he reflected on the seven years it took to make the trek happen and was enjoying the solitude when his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, who played Lizzy Calvert in “Titanic,” got on the communication system from the surface.

“Here I am in the most remote place on planet Earth that’s taken all this time and energy and technology to reach and I feel like the most solitary human being on the planet, completely cut off from humanity, no chance of rescue in a place no human eyes have ever seen,” Cameron said. “And my wife calls me. Which of course was very sweet.”

“I call it bearing witness. I get to bear witness to a miracle that’s down there all the time,” Cameron told 60 Minutes Australia in 2018 of his deep-sea explorations. “This is not just some, you know rich guy ego thing. This is about, you’ve got so much time on this planet, so much life, so much breath in your body. You have to do something. If you should be fortunate enough to make some money and have some capital, some working capital, why not put it into your dream.”

Video below: Coast Guard describes search for 5 missing people, sub near Titanic

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Here’s what james cameron has said about diving to the titanic wreckage.

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James Cameron isn’t just one of Hollywood’s most successful directors ever, he’s also a lover of deep sea exploration.

Those paths have crossed in two of his biggest hits, “Avatar” and “Titanic.”

While Cameron has not publicly commented on the current search for the Titanic tour OceanGate submersible with five people on board, he has personally made 33 dives to the wreckage site.

Video above: 5 missing in Titanic submersible in Atlantic Ocean

CNN has reached out to representatives of Cameron for comment.

Here’s what the director has said in the past about the deep-sea exploration.

His motivation for making ‘Titanic’

Cameron told Playboy in 2009 that it wasn’t a love story aboard the doomed Titanic that inspired him to make his hit 1997 film.

“I made ‘Titanic’ because I wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to make the movie,” he told the publication.

“The Titanic was the Mount Everest of shipwrecks, and as a diver I wanted to do it right,” he said. “When I learned some other guys had dived to the Titanic to make an IMAX movie, I said, ‘I’ll make a Hollywood movie to pay for an expedition and do the same thing.” I loved that first taste, and I wanted more.”

Cameron sees his filmmaking and sea exploration as connected.

“I think the through-line there is storytelling,” the director told NPR in 2012. “I think it’s the explorer’s job to go and be at the remote edge of human experience and then come back and tell that story.”

Growing up fascinated

Cameron told National Geographic that while he grew up in Ontario, Canada, hundreds of miles from the ocean, as a youngster he remembers “watching with amazement” sea explorer Jacques Cousteau’s specials.

In his youth, Cameron took a trip to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, where he saw an exhibit of an underwater habitat designed by Joe MacInnis that prompted him to write a letter to MacInnis.

To a then 14-year-old Cameron’s surprise, MacInnis responded.

“He actually sent me back the address of his contact at … the Plexiglas manufacturer… . I contacted them, and they sent me a sample of Plexiglas,” Cameron recalled. “And at that point, I had the window [for the underwater habitat]. I just had to build the rest of it! That was important. That creates the sense of it being possible.”

Going past Titanic depths

Cameron has made dozens of deep-sea dives since filming “Titanic.” In 2012, he dived to the Mariana Trench, considered one of the deepest spots in the Earth’s oceans at almost seven miles below the surface.

He did it in a 24-foot submersible vehicle he designed called the Deepsea Challenger.

Cameron took cameras to document the entire trek in the western Pacific. In a National Geographic video and essay, he described the experience that began with an early morning descent.

“I took off like a shot, fastest I’ve ever seen. The surface just receded,” he said in the video. “It just went away. I’m looking at the depth gauge and I’m at a thousand feet in the first like couple of minutes. Then it’s two thousand, then three thousand. The sub’s just going like a bat out of hell.”

Quickly, he said, he went past Titanic depth. When he got to 27,000 feet, which was the deepest Cameron said he had ever dived before, there were still nine thousand feet to go to the ocean floor.

As he continued to dive, Cameron said he reflected on the seven years it took to make the trek happen and was enjoying the solitude when his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, who played Lizzy Calvert in “Titanic,” got on the communication system from the surface.

“Here I am in the most remote place on planet Earth that’s taken all this time and energy and technology to reach and I feel like the most solitary human being on the planet, completely cut off from humanity, no chance of rescue in a place no human eyes have ever seen,” Cameron said. “And my wife calls me. Which of course was very sweet.”

“I call it bearing witness. I get to bear witness to a miracle that’s down there all the time,” Cameron told 60 Minutes Australia in 2018 of his deep-sea explorations. “This is not just some, you know rich guy ego thing. This is about, you’ve got so much time on this planet, so much life, so much breath in your body. You have to do something. If you should be fortunate enough to make some money and have some capital, some working capital, why not put it into your dream.”

Video below: Coast Guard describes search for 5 missing people, sub near Titanic

James Cameron Takes Viewers Through Titanic Deep Dive in 1997

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James Cameron  is taking ET inside the Titanic. In the wake of the Titanic tourist submersible tragedy , ET is taking a look back at its 1997 interview with the  Titanic  director, when he shared footage from the 12 dives he completed as part of his research for his acclaimed film.

For the passengers aboard the Titan, the submersible owned by OceanGate Expeditions, there was a "catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber" that presumably caused all aboard to die, Rear Admiral John Mauger said on Thursday.

As Cameron showed ET inside the ship, he spoke about the "freezing cold water" that the wreckage resides in and the "cramped conditions" inside the submersible he took down.

Cameron's decision to go to the Titanic's wreckage came after he priced out the options of creating a "perfect simulation of diving the Titanic and what's it going to cost to actually dive the Titanic," and found that the cost wasn't all that different.

"It seemed like you would get two sort of intangible benefits to the film," he explained. "One is you could say, 'This is real. You are there.' The other thing is, I can say to the actors, 'This is the type of film you're working on that takes its sense of veracity that importantly and I want you to do that too.'"

Essentially, "It sort of set the bar at a high level for everything to be real," Cameron said.

"It was important to me, I think, to get that sense of truth about the whole film," he noted, before admitting with a laugh, "And, let's face it, I also wanted to go see the Titanic. Once it made sense on paper, I was like, 'Yeah, let's go.'"

He and his crew did just that over the course of 12 dives, the first couple of which "were write-offs," according to Cameron.

"It was a mess down there with currents and so on and figuring out how to do things and coordinate," he said. "The first ones were rehearsal dives, really. We didn't get good footage until about the third or fourth dive."

Cameron said his dives averaged 12 hours in length, with the longest expedition lasting 17 and a half hours.

"We got about 15 minutes of runtime. So you have a 15-hour dive and 15 minutes of film. And probably from that what we use in the movie itself might be 10 seconds or 15 seconds or 20 seconds," Cameron said. "It's the gold... You don't need a lot of it."

Due to constraints about the type of camera they could get down there, none of the footage they shot during the dives appeared in the movie.

"We recreated what we saw," Cameron said. "So what you'll see in the movie is a recreation of what we saw on video, but based on the actual look of the wreckage."

Cameron said that he and the others "were just tickled" to have the experience, but said there was an overarching sadness to the trips too.

"This was sort of extracurricular," he said. "... As excited as we were, there was suddenly kind of a somberness to it, because it's like this big iron tomb down there."

"Suddenly there was a sense of wow, we should be a little more respectful here. We shouldn't treat this as much as set, but as something that we may be permitted to photograph," Cameron added. "... We became very aware of the fact that we had to move cautiously."

Cameron's dives to the wreckage ended up impacting  Titanic  greatly, as the experience focused him "to the emotional reality of the event, as opposed to the factual reality of the event." That reality is one Cameron spoke about at length, and one that the friends and family of those aboard the Titan -- Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri "PH" Nargeolet -- are experiencing at present.

"The heartbreak of all these widows, who suddenly the next morning, the sun came up and there was nobody there, there was no ship there, there was no one saved but them," Cameron recalled thinking about while viewing the wreckage. "Their husbands were gone. When they said goodbye to them on the deck some of them knew that they might not see them again, some of them didn't. There's this tremendous kind of sadness to it."

Even so, Cameron acknowledged the intrigue surrounding the ship, telling ET, "The Titanic is the great back hole for obsession. It will just suck you in."

In an interview with ABC News on Thursday, Cameron spoke about the similarities between the Titanic and Titan tragedies, especially as it relates to safety concerns of the two vessels. 

"I'm struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many people died as a result," he said. "For us, it's a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded. To take place at the same exact site with all the diving that's going on all around the world, I think it's just astonishing. It's really quite surreal."

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First Look At “Titanic: 25 Years Later With James Cameron” Special

Paramount and 20th Century Studios are re-releasing James Cameron’s “Titanic” in cinemas for Valentine’s Day for its 25th Anniversary.  At the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour event, National Geographic announced that it will release a new special, “ Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron .”

This special will be an updated version of “Titanic: 20 Years Later with James Cameron” , which takes a look back at the critical choices he made when creating the blockbuster film, Titanic, and with a team of experts, puts those ideas to the test against a wealth of new Titanic research — underwater footage, computer-generated simulations, and scholarly discovery — continuing to unravel the many mysteries of this iconic and tragic event.

In “Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron,” the Academy Award-winning director and National Geographic Explorer-at-Large adds a postscript to his fictional retelling of the tragedy. After hearing fans continue to insist Jack didn’t have to die that night, he mounts tests to see, once and for all, whether both Jack and Rose could have fit on that raft and survived.

Here’s a clip from the upcoming special:

This new special will be released on the National Geographic channel in the United States on February 5th at 9/8c, and I’d expect the special to also be released on Disney+ at a later date.

Will you be checking out “Titanic: 25 Years Later With James Cameron”?

Roger Palmer

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Did James Cameron go down to the Titanic and how many times?

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The OceanGate submersible Titan that was attempting to reach the wreck of the Titanic ‘catastrophically imploded’, a US Coast Guard spokesperson said on June 22.

Its five passengers – British billionaire Hamish Harding , French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, his 19-year-old son Suleman, and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush – are believed to have lost their lives in the implosion .

The vessel submerged on Sunday morning (June 18), and after losing contact with its mothership sparked a frantic several-day search in a bid to save those on board .

While Titan has made voyages to the Titanic before – having been in operation since 2021 – those who have boarded the sub are not the only people who have made the journey.

Film director James Cameron – who won an Academy Award for his 1997 movie about the doomed ship – has also spoken of his experiences visiting the depths of the ocean .

But did he visit the Titanic itself, and how many times did he go?

Did James Cameron go down to the Titanic?

Sorry, this video isn't available any more.

Yes, James Cameron has made several trips to the wreck of the Titanic – 33 to be exact.

The filmmaker made his first trip in 1995 in order to capture footage for the 1997 box office smash, which went on to win 11 Oscars.

He has even written a book about his experiences, Exploring The Deep, which includes his dive journey, photos and maps from his own explorations of the wreck.

‘I can think of no greater fantasy than to be an explorer and see what no human eye has seen before,’ he said in a 2011 interview with the New York Times.

How many times has James Cameron been to the Titanic?

In total Cameron has made 33 trips to see the wreckage of the Titanic.

And he knows all too well how risky it can be , as one of those voyages saw him trapped underwater for 16 hours.

Mexican actor/producer Yordi Rosado explained in an interview to actor Alan Estradad: ‘There are currents down there. James Cameron has been down there 33 times and a current of water trapped them against the stern of the Titanic.

‘They were there for 16 hours until the water was diverted because they couldn’t get out.’

The interview has gone viral in the wake of the Titan going missing.

Cameron himself also addressed the dangers of undertaking such a dive, saying in 2012: ‘You’re going into one of the most unforgiving places on earth. It’s not like you can call up AAA to come get you.’

However, the director, who has also ventured to the bottom of the Mariana Trench – one of the deepest spots in the Earth’s oceans at around seven miles below the surface – has also described his adventures as ‘bearing witness to a miracle’.

Speaking to 60 Minutes Australia in 2018, he explained: ‘This is not just some, you know rich guy ego thing. This is about, you’ve got so much time on this planet, so much life, so much breath in your body.

‘You have to do something. If you should be fortunate enough to make some money and have some capital, some working capital, why not put it into your dream?’

MORE : How many trips to the Titanic has the OceanGate Titan submersible made and how deep is the wreck?

MORE : Titanic film’s imminent return to Netflix following fatal submarine disaster sparks outrage

MORE : Titanic star Lew Palter, known for one of the film’s most heartbreaking scenes, dies from lung cancer aged 94

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Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron

After hearing fans continue to insist Jack didn't have to die that night, Academy Award-winning director James Cameron mounts tests to see, once and for all, whether both Jack and Rose could... Read all After hearing fans continue to insist Jack didn't have to die that night, Academy Award-winning director James Cameron mounts tests to see, once and for all, whether both Jack and Rose could have fit on that raft and survived. After hearing fans continue to insist Jack didn't have to die that night, Academy Award-winning director James Cameron mounts tests to see, once and for all, whether both Jack and Rose could have fit on that raft and survived.

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James Cameron : We released Titanic 25 years ago. But despite all our efforts to make the film as accurate as possible... There's one thing some fans just can't accept. They insist Jack could have survived if he climbed on that floating piece of debris with Rose. People even claim to have proved it.

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Experience how Cameron’s passion for exploring our ocean shone a light on the least-known place on Earth. This immersive exhibition takes you into a deep-ocean environment using cinema-scale projections, artifacts and specimens from his expeditions. Explore the deepest ocean and discover the shipwrecks of Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck. Learn how technologies pioneered by Cameron for underwater recording, lighting, communication and diving are employed in both his filmmaking and exploration. You’ll also see original film props and costumes from “The Abyss” and “Titanic,” including the iconic Heart of the Ocean diamond. Discover the world of a man driven to explore and meet the challenges of the deep.

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Titanic director James Cameron has an answer for fans that insist the film’s hero would have survived had he only gotten on the floating door : You don’t know Jack .

Passionate fans of Titanic have hounded Cameron for years with their theory that Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) could have survived by joining his beloved Rose (Kate Winslet) on the floating door after the ship sank. In the film, Jack realizes that he would only kill both of them by adding his weight, so he eventually dies in the freezing North Atlantic.

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Titanic: 25 Years Later With James Cameron premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on National Geographic, and streams the next day on Hulu.

SPOILER ALERT: Do Not Read Past This Line If You Wish To Be Surprised By The Results

The good news for Jack fans is that there possibly could have been a way to survive on the door, but it would have been tricky.

The tests starts with Jack and Rose both on the door. They can do it, but their combined weight keeps them immersed in frigid water. Fail.

If both Jack and Rose could have gotten on the door in a position that lifts their upper bodies out of the water, they potentially could have survived. It would have required knowledge of the circumstances and some strength.

“Out of the water, [his body’s] violent shaking was helping him,” Cameron said. “Projecting it out, he could’ve made it pretty long. Like, hours.”

The final test involves a scene not in the film involving a life jacket. They also have Jack and Rose perform a series of strenuous exercises.

“He’s stabilized,” Cameron says. “He got into a place where if we projected that out, he just might’ve made it until the lifeboat got there. Jack might’ve lived, but there’s a lot of variables. I think his thought process was, ‘I’m not going to do one thing that jeopardized her,’ and that’s 100 percent in character.”

“I have to be honest: I actually don’t believe that we would have survived if we had both gotten on that door. I think he would have fit, but it would have tipped and it would not have been a sustainable idea,” Winslet said in December on the  Happy Sad Confused  podcast. “So, you heard it here for the first time. Yes, he could have fit on that door, but it would not have stayed afloat. It wouldn’t.”

. @GMA FIRST LOOK: @natgeo special “Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron” will settle the debate once and for all: could Jack have survived? @JimCameron @natgeotv pic.twitter.com/OkKCXaEkvF — Good Morning America (@GMA) February 2, 2023

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When James Cameron was on a Titanic submersible dive as 9/11 unfolded

Nearly 13,000 feet underwater, James Cameron was again tucked inside a submersible vessel toward the bottom of the North Atlantic on one of his many dives documenting the Titanic. But as the crew finished its dive near the wreckage of the 1912 sinking that killed an estimated 1,500 people, Cameron and his colleagues had no idea of the American nightmare that awaited them on the surface.

The date was Sept. 11, 2001.

When Cameron climbed down from the steps of his submersible inside the expedition’s main ship, the “Titanic” director was told what had happened 12 hours earlier: Roughly 3,000 people were killed in terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, and thousands more were injured.

“What is this thing that’s going on?” Cameron asked actor Bill Paxton, who starred in Cameron’s 1997 film about the ship and would later be part of the expedition for the 2003 documentary “ Ghosts of the Abyss ,” which toured the Titanic’s disintegrating wreckage.

“The worst terrorist attack in history, Jim,” Paxton replied.

As Paxton explained to Cameron and the stunned crew about the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center’s twin towers only minutes apart, the filmmaker who dedicated years of his life to bringing both the historical and fictionalized versions of the Titanic story to the world realized he “was presumably the last man in the Western Hemisphere to learn about what had happened,” he told Spiegel International .

The Sept. 11 attacks also forced Cameron to question why crew members were still diving toward the Titanic at that crucial moment in time.

“The day the 9/11 terrorists murdered 3,000 people in New York and Washington, I was just diving to the Titanic,” he told the German outlet in 2012. “For a while, I thought, ‘Why are we diving into history while new parts are made, while the very ground we are standing on is shaking?’”

He added in the documentary, “We were all very wrapped up in what we were doing and we all thought it was desperately important. And then this horrible event happened and slammed us into this perspective.”

One of Cameron’s crew members agreed: “The morning after the attack on September 11th, I kept thinking how trivial this expedition suddenly became. It just wasn’t a big deal anymore.”

Many are now reflecting on the Titanic and the dives to the wreckage as the search for a submersible vessel that vanished on an expedition to the site enters its third day. Rescuers and officials are concerned about the rapidly dwindling supply of emergency oxygen for the five people on the deep-sea submersible, which lost contact with the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince during a dive 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Mass., on Sunday morning.

What we know about the submersible missing near the Titanic wreck

Finding the submersible that far underwater has been described by experts as a monumental task. The wreckage of the Titanic, which was touted as unsinkable before it hit an iceberg and sank in April 1912, lies on the ocean floor under 12,500 feet of water, roughly 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, a province in northeastern Canada.

Cameron’s experience in submersible dives dates back decades. When he signed on to direct “Titanic,” he made about 12 trips to the wreckage on a submersible, according to National Geographic . He recalled to Playboy magazine in 2009 that he made the film “because I wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to make the movie.”

“The Titanic was the Mount Everest of shipwrecks, and as a diver I wanted to do it right,” he said.

Cameron got the deep-sea diving bug and eventually made more than 70 submersible dives, including 33 to the Titanic, logging more hours on that ship than Capt. Edward Smith himself, according to National Geographic. (A submersible is different from a submarine in that it is supported by a surface vessel, platform, shore team or submarine.)

Cameron, who did not immediately respond to an interview request Tuesday, also told Playboy that he was aware of the dangers of going in a submersible thousands of feet underwater.

“You don’t want to put a big emphasis on it because you’re there to do a job and stay focused,” he said. “But every time I close the hatch of a submersible I say to whoever is gathered to see us off, ‘I’ll see you in the sunshine.’ Of course there’s no sunshine down there, so to say that means you’re coming back to the surface.”

Paxton, who died in 2017, recalled to the Guardian in a 2002 interview how in August and September of 2001 he was helping Cameron make “Ghosts of the Abyss,” which mimicked the opening sequence in “Titanic.” He was back on the ship and not in the submersibles when some of the crew members found out what was happening hundreds of miles away on land in Manhattan.

“When we first got word, Jim had just gone down with the two subs,” Paxton said, adding that it was the last dive of the day before Hurricane Erin arrived. Cameron and the crew had lost one of their robotic cameras, Ellwood, named for one of the Blues Brothers, and they were attempting to recover it.

Don Lynch, the official historian of the Titanic Historical Society, who was on one of the two submersibles, recounted to the Reagan Foundation how the crew got an “acoustic” call from Cameron’s brother telling the filmmaker how “there had been a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center” and “all flights were grounded.”

“These two sentences didn’t seem to connect,” Lynch said in 2017, noting that they believed terrorist attacks typically involved bombings. “We ended up getting so involved in the dive that we pretty much forgot about it.”

When they came back up, Cameron and the crew were excited to talk about how they had retrieved Ellwood. But the euphoria quickly dissipated once they were apprised of the scale of the recent attacks on U.S. soil.

“It was the strangest feeling that I had left the surface, and I had left one world behind,” Lynch said. “When I came back, it was a new planet. It was a whole different world and there was no going back again.”

Paxton echoed the sentiment to the Guardian: “I said, ‘Jim, the world changed from the time you went down till you came back.’ It was strange. We felt a little bit like survivors out there.”

In the days following the 9/11 attacks, Cameron wrestled with why he and others were still doing submersible dives, all these years after the 1912 disaster. But he soon understood that his 1997 film — an Oscar-winning cultural phenomenon that made more than $2.25 billion at the box office — offered a blueprint for how people could cope with a tragedy that had a death toll twice as high.

“Some days later, I realized that ‘Titanic’ gave us help in interpreting the new disaster, in exploring the feelings of loss and anger,” he told Spiegel International. “Why do people watch ‘Titanic?’ It’s partly because they can cry. Loss is a part of our life; it’s about love and death and about death partly defining love.

“And these are things we all have to cope with.”

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Revisit james cameron’s landmark titanic expeditions with bill paxton in “exploring the deep”.

Review by C.J. Bunce

With the regenerated interest this week in the Titanic undersea expeditions with the missing submersible Titan , we’re returning to one of the best firsthand accounts of these perilous journeys, by none other than James Cameron and the late Bill Paxton, who recalled the dangers and risks to himself and his family in the book Exploring the Deep , reviewed below. 

One of the high points from a scientific standpoint in 2017 was the discovery of the USS Indianapolis on the floor of the Pacific Ocean by undersea adventurer and billionaire Paul Allen, more than 70 years after it was sunk during World War II, and thirty-two years after undersea explorer Robert Ballard first discovered the location of the wreckage of the most well-known maritime disaster, the sinking of the RMS Titanic.  In 1995, 2001, and 2005, director James Cameron, well-known already for Aliens, the first two Terminator movies, and True Lies, would take knowledge he learned filming The Abyss to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming an undersea explorer in Ballard’s and Jacques Cousteau’s footsteps.  Ultimately Cameron would make thirty dives on the site of the wrecked R MS Titanic, more than anyone, first for footage for his film Titanic (which would win 11 Academy Awards), and later purely for scientific knowledge and exploration.  Cameron documented his expeditions in his book Exploring the Deep: The Titanic Expeditions ,  available here in a paperback edition from Insight Editions.

One of the low points of the year was the death of beloved actor Bill Paxton.  What many people may not know is the role Paxton (known for dozens of films including Edge of Tomorrow, True Lies, Aliens, and Tombstone) played in the exploration of the real Titanic after starring in Cameron’s film Titanic.   He accompanied Cameron on four deep-sea dives, documenting his experiences and serving as narrator on one of Cameron’s documentaries, the 2003 film Ghosts of the Abyss.  In his foreword to Exploring the Deep: The Titanic Expeditions , Paxton notes his reservations of traveling to the ocean floor.  “At the time, because I had young children at home, I felt it was more risk than I should be taking,” he said.  He spoke highly of Cameron: “He is someone who values his friendships and has a deep appreciation of just how brief our time on earth is–and he’s determined to make the most of it.”  The feeling was mutual.  Of Paxton, Cameron wrote, “Bill has become the pitch-perfect explorer.  He acquired the clipped tone of a test pilot when he played Fred Haise in Apollo 13, and of course he played treasure hunter Brock Lovett in the Titanic movie, but if he’s playing a part now, it’s merged so perfectly with reality that there is no difference.  He’s now a real explorer, and this is a real mission, two and a half miles down.”  Indeed, half the fun of Exploring the Deep is following Paxton via his words and photographs in his adventure, adding his own insights and bits of humor along the way.

But it’s the knowledge learned by Cameron one hundred years after the Titanic sank that makes the book compelling and thrilling and even chilling at times.  Cameron, along with the other leading experts in Titanic history–Dan Lynch, Ken Marschall, and Parks Stephenson–lay out each expedition step by step, including development of the technological tools created by Cameron to be able to film the ship and eventually more easily maneuver the rooms inside the ship’s remains, something no one else had yet done.  The book includes a detailed log written by Cameron for the fifth dive in September 2001, including recollections of his historical research as he observed actual locations on the ship tied to known events and passengers, some famous, some members of the crew.  He uses photographs of the Titanic’s sister ship, the R MS Olympic, to highlight identical artifacts inside the ship.  Many artifacts surprisingly are still intact, like mirrors, windows, glassware, and dishes–and equipment in the Marconi Wireless Telegraph rooms, which were instrumental in saving the 706 survivors.  Where possible he includes rare photographs taken the day of or just before the Titanic went to sea on its maiden and only voyage, and otherwise he incorporates for reference Ken Marschall’s detailed paintings, Parks Stephenson’s computer-generated simulations, and his own recreations used in his film Titanic –all with an eye toward conveying to readers what Titanic looked like in 1912.

The final chapter of the book Cameron recounts a roundtable discussion put together just before the centennial anniversary of the disaster, where Cameron’s seventeen years of research established more than a dozen updates to what we thought about the causes and nature of the sinking of the ship.

A great addition to the collective knowledge of undersea archaeology and maritime history, a must for fans of James Cameron and Bill Paxton, and for anyone who ever marveled at the exploration of Jacques Cousteau,  Exploring the Deep: The Titanic Expeditions will be an absorbing read.   Exploring the Deep: The Titanic Expeditions is available this month in paperback, and you can order it now here at Amazon.  The hardcover edition is also still in print and available here .

For anyone whose interest in underwater archaeology and undersea exploration is piqued by this week’s events ,  check out these excellent books:   The Discovery of the Titanic ,  by Dr. Robert D. Ballard,  Robert Ballard’s Bismarck ,  Robert Ballard’s Lusitania ,  Ballard’s  Collision With History: The Search for John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 ,  Ballard’s  Return to Midway ,  and Curt Newport’s  Lost Spacecraft: The Search for Liberty Bell 7 .  For further works on the  Indianapolis,  check out Doug Stanton’s book  In Harm’s Way ,  Edgar Harrell’s  Out of the Depths ,  and Richard F. Newcomb’s  Abandon Ship!   Also look for the documentary  USS Indianapolis: The Legacy .

Finally, I tie all the above together, plus Jaws  and space travel in my discussion of Paul Allen’s explorations here at borg .

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What You’re Still Getting Wrong About Titanic, According to James Cameron

By Katey Rich

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In 1997, when James Cameron was finishing the most expensive film of his or anyone else’s career to date, he had a sharp reminder taped up to the screen in the edit bay. Next to a straight blade razor was a note bristling with sardonic humor: “Use in case film sucks.”

It’s hard now to imagine anyone, much less Cameron, was that worried about Titanic, the 26-year-old blockbuster that still has a bigger cultural impact than any of the films that have since surpassed its box office record. But in a new documentary accompanying the 4K Blu-ray release of Titanic, on sale December 5 , Cameron and his producers vividly recount the feverish, schadenfreude-filled press coverage that led up to Titanic ’s December 1997 release. “Everybody was just acting like this was the biggest boondoggle in cinema history,” Cameron recalls in a recent conversation with Vanity Fair. “There was a daily story running on the cover of Variety, ‘ Titanic Watch,’ and they were really trying to architect this dismal failure, sight unseen, of the movie.”

The solution turned out to be what Cameron calls “a bit of aikido,” moving the film’s release date from July to Christmas and taking more time in the edit bay, with that razor blade looming in front of them. Talking to then Fox chief Peter Chernin, in what he calls “one of the most memorable phone calls of my life,” Cameron convinced him: “They’ll go right past us and fall on their face. And then how are they going to resurrect that negative story five months later? And that’s exactly what we did, and that’s exactly what happened.”

Cameron and his Titanic producer Jon Landau have gone on to prove the skeptics wrong many times over on two even wilder bets: the first two Avatar movies, which are still numbers one and three on the list of lifetime worldwide grosses ( Titanic has settled, over time, for fourth place). But it’s striking how vividly both of them remember the moments when success seemed entirely out of reach. “I mean, when we were in the thick of it on that film, we just assumed we were doomed and we’d never work again,” Cameron says. “I mean, we were over budget before we shot a foot of film, and by three or four weeks in, we were wildly over budget. At a certain point you realize your only way out is through.”

The new 4K release—the first of new releases for six Cameron films, including The Abyss and True Lies in high definition for the first time—includes plenty of behind-the-scenes photos, including several shots of Landau looking both thrilled and overwhelmed by the scale of the full-size ship set behind him. “To me, [there are] two images that I remember of myself,” Landau says. “One is me standing on the barren land where we built the studio. And then standing essentially in that same spot 100 days later in front of the ship having been built. That to me is sort of the journey that we went on every step of the way. We were there on barren land, but somehow 100 days later we had the ship.”

“There’s this craziness to the film industry,” Cameron adds, remembering when he called the studio and asked them to buy the land in Baja California where the Titanic replica could be built. “[It] allows you to imagine something and then manifest it in the real world. There’s nothing else quite like it.”

Below, an exclusive clip from the 25th-anniversary collectors edition release of Titanic:

By Chris Murphy

The high-definition rereleases of Cameron’s films are part of a painstaking process that he didn’t undertake lightly. At a press event for Titanic ’s 3D rerelease back in 2012, I asked him when we’d finally get The Abyss on Blu-ray. “I’m finicky about my transfers,” Cameron admits now, saying it was only after last year’s release of Avatar: The Way of Water that he had the time to sit down and do them right. Though he makes all of his films for the big screen, he’s well aware that “in terms of actual eyeballs,” there will always be more people “seeing it in the home or on a device somewhere, or streaming .”

He doesn’t mention GIFs or TikToks as a way that people are seeing Titanic these days—I regrettably ran out of time before asking how often someone sends him the “It’s been 84 years” meme. But Cameron is well aware that a new generation has latched on to the film nearly as intently as we elder millennials did the first time around. “Teenage girls are still gravitating to the film. And if you think about it, they’re not going because of Leo,” he says. “Leo, what is he, 45 now? [ He is 49. ] They can’t even see him anymore. When you get to be 45, for teenage girls…you become invisible, right?”

The secret, he thinks, is actually the same thing that drove people to see Titanic over and over in 1997, and goes much deeper than a desire to be kissed on the bow of a boat at sunset. “It’s not the Leo factor. I believe it’s the empowerment factor, because that was built in. It’s innate to the story,” he says. “I think it was a misconception at the time that it was all just about some Beatlemania-type adoration of Leo. I think that was clearly a factor, don’t get me wrong, but I think that was backed up by a full orchestra playing these themes that young women responded to—and that was by intention.”

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Titanic: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About James Cameron's Epic Movie

There is no doubt about it, Titanic is one of the biggest movies to hit the big screen. Released in late 1997, James Cameron 's epic disaster period piece about the ill-fated maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, was one of the cultural touchstone of the decade and the made stars out of many members of the cast. But as beautiful, exciting, and the heartbreaking as the film is, the behind the scenes facts from the film's production are just as exciting.

Like any billion-dollar movie (especially when they weren't dime-a-dozen like they are now), there was a lot that went into Titanic . With some of the incidents that happened on the set of James Cameron's second most successful theatrical release, it's amazing that we are even able to debate whether or not Jack could fit on the board in the first place. Here are 10 behind the scenes facts from James Cameron's epic, Titanic .

Someone Spiked The Production Crew's Food With PCP

Starting things off, we have the time the production (cast and crew) on the Canadian set inadvertently ingested PCP (a hallucinogen) on the final night of shooting. According to a rather engaging Vice article on the incident, the cast and crew were taking a break from the dusk-to-dawn shooting to have a midnight lunch when someone noticed something was up with the clam chowder (which everyone had eaten with some going back for seconds and thirds). Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were not on set that day.

In the article, standby painter Marilyn McAvoy revealed that she first noticed something was up about 30 minutes after eating a bowl of the spiked-chowder when she started to feel dizzy and confused. Shortly thereafter, McAvoy noticed that other people on set were starting to feel the same effects, and they were all rushed to a nearby hospital, stating:

The crew vans came and picked everybody up and took us to the Dartmouth General Hospital. En masse, we went through these hospital doors at 1 AM in the morning. They did not know what to do with us. It became pretty chaotic. Some people were having a really hard time. I think maybe the people who had more experience with drugs were having flashbacks and bad trips.

James Cameron Was So Passionate About The Movie He Forfeited His Salary and Backend Pay

If you listen to James Cameron talk about Titanic long enough , you will see just how passionate the director was about the project. If years of pre-production, which included embarking upon several dives to the site of the wreckage, wasn't enough to the prove that this was more than just another movie for Cameron, then this next bit of information should do the trick.

Titanic was originally going to cost around $120 million to produce, but as the production carried on, that figure skyrocketed up to $200 million. During an interview around the time the movie was released in 1997, James Cameron appeared on The Howard Stern Show where he revealed that he gave all his money back as a sign of good faith, stating:

We told them $120 [million] and that's what we thought it was going to cost… That's why I wound up giving them back all my money because I said, 'Guys, I don't want you to think we lied to you just so we can get you to make this movie.'

Cameron went on to explain that while he still held the authorship of the movie, he did not receive a salary and wouldn't receive money on the backend after its release.

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The "I'm The King Of The World" Line Was Made Up On The Spot

Upon the release of Titanic to the end of the time, the line, "I'm the king of the world" will go down as one of the most iconic moments in cinematic history. But like all great things in movie-making, the actual words were made up on the spot.

During an interview with BBC Radio 1 in 2019, James Cameron explained that he had been working with Leonardo DiCaprio on the scene where he stands on the front of the ship for quite some time but couldn't come up with the right words to give the moment its extra flair until the final moment:

It was made up on the spot. I was in a crane basket and we were losing the light and we had tried this and we had tried that and tried this line and that line and nothing was really working. I literally was just coming up snake eyes and I said, 'Oh yeah, I got one for you. Just say, 'I'm the king of the world' and just spread your arms out wide and just be in the moment and love it and celebrate the moment.'

Titanic Was Considered A Failure Before It Was Even Released

It's crazy to think about now, but Titanic , one of the most successful movies of all time, was considered a failure before it even hit theaters. I know, crazy, right? But we have hindsight in our favor these days, unlike the press and studio in the months leading up to the film's release.

In a 2017 op-ed in The Hollywood Reporter , James Cameron recounted all the drama that surrounded the project early on in production all the way to the days leading up film's premiere. Cameron goes into great detail about the treatment he and the movie received from the press leading to the release, especially before Paramount pushed back the release:

We were also being pummeled relentlessly in the press, especially the industry trade papers — about epic cost overruns, set safety, delivery dates and just about everything. We were the biggest morons in Hollywood history and the press had the long knives out, sharpening them as we approached our summer release. It would have reached a crescendo of scorn just as we put the film in theaters.

The Film Was Initially Set To Take Sail In July 1997 But Was Delayed To Finalize The Special Effects

Up until the spring 1997, Titanic was scheduled to hit theaters over the July 4 weekend, but as the New York Times described it, the most expensive film ever made was pushed back as there was no way to fast-track the new and complicated computer effects that make up a large portion of the movie. According to the same article, pushing the movie back until the late fall of that year had a ripple effect on Hollywood after Paramount and 20th Century Fox (RIP) decided to vacate the July 2, 1997, opening date to work out the kinks in post-production.

James Cameron Actually Drew The Iconic Nude Drawing

One of the most talked about scenes in Titanic after its release was the iconic "Draw me like one of your French girls" scene in Rose's (Kate Winslet) first-class quarters. It was the moment where you got to see Jack Dawson's (Leonardo Dicaprio) artistry come to life, but it actually wasn't DiCaprio behind the pencil.

During a 2017 appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert , Kate Winslet answered a series of questions about the movie, which included one about this particular scene. In the middle of the interview, Winslet blurted

Jim Cameron actually drew that picture. Maybe no one even knows that until this moment right now. Jim Cameron actually drew that picture and he did actually sketch me in a bathing suit.

Matthew McConaughey Was Almost Jack Dawson

Before James Cameron and company decided to cast Leonardo DiCaprio as the leading man Jack Dawson in Titanic , another well-regarded and sought after actor was really close to being cast instead. Enter Matthew McConaughey . At the time of the casting, McConaughey wasn't the name he is today, but the Texan actor had already won audiences over in the 1993 Daze And Confused .

During a 2018 appearance on The Hollywood Reporter 's Awards Chatter podcast, the one-day Oscar-winning actor revealed that he even auditioned alongside Kate Winslet, which made him feel like he had the part, stating:

I went and auditioned for that. I wanted that. I auditioned with Kate Winslet. Had a good audition. Walked away from there pretty confident that I had it. I didn't get it. I never got offered that.

A Mishap With The Wooden Staircase Almost Ended In Tragedy

The grand wooden staircase was at the center of multiple scenes throughout Titanic , including one when water begins crashing in from the glass ceiling as the doomed ship makes its way to the depths of the frigid Atlantic Ocean. That scene could have been even more terrifying if filming hadn't been stopped by James Cameron, as the director explained in the documentary Titanic: 20 Years Later :

The staircase has got a steel footing, then when we sank the ship, it lifted. Wood is buoyant. It ripped off that footing and it all floated up, and it actually pinned two stunt players. Fortunately, they weren't hurt, but it was a pretty scary moment.

James Cameron Edited The 3D Re-Release After Talking To Neil deGrasse Tyson

Pretty much anytime a movie or television series that has anything or nothing to do with astronomy, famed astronomer and resident Debbie Downer Neil deGrasse Tyson is there to point out each and every flaw . James Cameron and Titanic were no different.

Ahead of 2012 3D re-release of Titanic , James Cameron revealed to The Telegraph that he had received a "snarky" email from Neil deGrasse Tyson about the much-debated driftwood scene, but it didn't have to deal with if there was room for Jack on the board, stating:

Neil deGrasse Tyson sent me quite a snarky email saying that, at that time of year, in that position in the Atlantic in 1912, when Rose is lying on the piece of driftwood and staring up at the stars, that is not the star field she would have seen. And with my reputation as a perfectionist, I should have known that and I should have put the right star field in. So I said 'All right, send me the right stars for that exact time and I’ll put it in the movie.'

That's right, an email from an astronomer convinced one of the greatest directors of our time to make a subtle and hard to find change to one of his most successful movies.

There Was An Alternate Ending, And The Late Bill Paxton Was Glad It Was Cut

After more than three hours of love and tragedy throughout the course of Titanic , audiences were given a fairytale ending with the older Rose (Gloria Stuart) dropping the "Heart Of The Ocean" into sea before passing in her sleep and joining her long-lost love on the ship where they first met. At one point, however, the scene of Rose letting go of her past was going to be much longer and involved Bill Paxton 's character Brock Lovett catching her tossing the diamond in the ocean.

Often described as one of the worst things you've ever seen , a lot of people weren't fond of the extended ending, including the late Bill Paxton , who once told Yahoo that it was totally unnecessary, and he was glad it was cut, even if it meant less screen time for him:

Coming back to us was a way to wrap it up and kind of tie up the old Rose's story and all that. But you didn't really need anything from us. Our job was done by then. So it became very evident in the cutting. If you're smart and you take the ego and the narcissism out of it, you'll listen to the film. The film will tell you what it needs and what it does not need. And the baby needs tough love. It just wasn't necessary.

The extended scene doesn't really make sense in the grand scheme of things and only makes an already long movie even longer. And if Bill Paxton said he was glad to see it go, then you have to just go with it.

Those are just 10 of the craziest behind the scenes facts from James Cameron's 1997 disaster epic, Titanic . Were any of these a surprise to you or is this stuff you already knew? Either way, make sure to leave a comment and check back for the latest movie and television news here at CinemaBlend.

Philip grew up in Louisiana (not New Orleans) before moving to St. Louis after graduating from Louisiana State University-Shreveport. When he's not writing about movies or television, Philip can be found being chased by his three kids, telling his dogs to stop barking at the mailman, or chatting about professional wrestling to his wife. Writing gigs with school newspapers, multiple daily newspapers, and other varied job experiences led him to this point where he actually gets to write about movies, shows, wrestling, and documentaries (which is a huge win in his eyes). If the stars properly align, he will talk about For Love Of The Game being the best baseball movie of all time.

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Titanic at 25: how James Cameron captured 1990s anxieties with pure golden-age Hollywood style

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Titanic (1997) arrived as disaster films were experiencing a comeback. Compared to the apocalypses visited on the world in Michael Bay’s Armageddon (1997) or Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day (1996), sinking a single ship may seem like small fry.

But James Cameron’s film played on the same worries about humanity’s fragility in the face of overwhelming forces (and the hubris of our technological prowess) that many films of the 1990s were exploring.

And yet, despite using pioneering techniques (computer animated figures, virtual environments), Titanic structurally harks back to older models of film making.

For all the film shares with other late-1990s blockbusters, as well as disaster movies of the 1970s, the genres Titanic most aligns with are from decades earlier still.

Titanic’s cinematic catastrophe reflected the pre-millennium anxieties that abounded towards the end of the century, from millenarianism (the fear that the year 2000 would bring about the end of days) to more mundane worries about the millennium bug .

In his 2016 documentary, Hypernormalisation, filmmaker Adam Curtis interprets the spate of late 1990s Hollywood disaster films as a “dark foreboding” His memorable movie montage, set to Suicide’s Dream Baby Dream , of upturned faces gawping at oncoming obliteration does not include Titanic. But, the film’s Edwardian setting aside, it would have fit right in.

Titanic is explicitly structured as a microcosm of wider society. The story takes Rose (Kate Winslet) and Jack ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) to all ends of the ship, from the first class dining room, through steerage class in the lower deck, to the cargo hold and even the infernal engine rooms. James Cameron crammed a world into his giant floating metaphor – then sent it to its destruction.

The director had already considered the threat of worldwide apocalypse in his Cold War era Terminator (1984) and The Abyss (1989).

Despite the historical setting, Cameron imbues his film with the feel of epic science fiction. He wows audiences and characters alike with the technological marvel of Titanic, the ship and the film, as it heads towards its doom.

Yet for all of the movie’s end-of-millennium unease, the scale of Titanic’s production in its narrative, budget and run time most clearly recalls the roadshow pictures of the 1950s and 1960s. These blockbuster productions were designed to wring the maximum experience from films, deploying widescreen formats, new colour film processes, stereo sound and extensive spectacular visual effects.

Roadshow pictures encompassed historical and biblical extravaganzas, lavish broadway musicals and other grand productions. Charging premium ticket prices and playing exclusively in upscale theatres, they featured overtures and intermissions with run times designed to justify their expense.

Titanic’s runtime is over three hours, but the ship does not hit the iceberg until 90 minutes in. In this manner the film resembles such roadshow epics as the nearly three hour musical, The Sound of Music (1964). Though remembered as a film about the Von Trapp family fleeing the Nazis, it is – for the first half – a light musical comedy in which Nazis feature little beyond some mild foreshadowing.

The woman’s film and the final girl

Framing scenes set around modern exploration of Titanic’s shipwreck aside, Titanic’s first hour and a half largely foregrounds Rose, the teenage daughter of a wealthy American family.

Rose struggles against the oppressive expectations of her family, especially her mother. In this regard she initially resembles the heroine of the “woman’s film”, a “phantom genre” name coined by film critic Molly Haskell to describe those golden age films which aimed to appeal to the fears and fantasies of an adult female audience.

With its plot of escape from the cosseting of a traditional marriage (Rose chafes against etiquette, family duty, traditional gender roles and even her clothing) Titanic replicates the woman’s film for the first 90 minutes. That is, until Rose’s world is overturned – and then destroyed – by the slowly sinking ship.

This disaster transforms Rose into a version of what professor of American film Carol Clover calls the “final girl”.

More common to horror films, the final girl is the plucky tomboy who survives the onslaught wrought by the monster. She was an archetype familiar to Cameron, having co-created Sarah Connor for the Terminator franchise and Ellen Ripley for Aliens (1986).

In the path Titanic set for the technological, digitally powered film making that went on to dominate 21st century production, it looked forward to the new millennium. But with its subject matter, structure and archetypes, Titanic kept one watchful eye firmly in the past.

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Titanic: 25 Years Later With James Cameron

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What James Cameron Wants to Bring Up From the Titanic

Preservationists such as Robert D. Ballard have long clashed with salvors such as Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who died in June on the Titan submersible. Is a third way possible?

By William J. Broad

Ocean experts have long clashed over whether artifacts from the world’s most famous shipwreck should be retrieved for exhibits that could help people better understand the Titanic tragedy or whether they should be left untouched in the sea’s depths as a monument to the more than 1,500 people who lost their lives. James Cameron, known for his 1997 movie “Titanic,” sees himself as negotiating a middle path through this complicated and often emotional dispute.

Mr. Cameron dove 33 times to the shipwreck from 1995 through 2005, giving him a window on its condition and likely fate. His perspective is timely because the United States government recently sought to exert control over the wreck, raising questions about whether a company that has recovered more than 5,500 artifacts will be allowed to gather more.

Mr. Cameron’s views are also deeply personal. He often debated the retrievals with Paul-Henri Nargeolet , a French submariner who died in June while descending to the shipwreck in the Titan submersible. Mr. Nargeolet also directed underwater research for RMS Titanic Inc. , the company that holds the exclusive salvage rights to the ship and its artifacts.

Mr. Cameron recently answered questions by email from The New York Times about his recovery views, the Titanic’s future and the Titan submersible. This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Did you see signs of natural decay during your 10 years of Titanic dives?

We’ve seen significant deterioration to thin-walled structures such as the deckhouse (the uppermost deck above the boat deck) and the forward mast. It was intact (in its fallen position) in 2001 but partially collapsed in 2005. New imaging by the Magellan company in 2022 shows that it has completely collapsed and broken open.

However, we’ve not seen any significant deterioration to the vast majority of the wreck, such as the hull plates. Their steel is one and a half inches thick. I believe the plates will still be standing for another two centuries at least.

How about damage by visitors? Anything obvious?

Based on my experience maneuvering around the wreck, and landing on top of it, the submersibles do nothing of significance. Up top, a submersible weighs several tons but down there, in order to fly around, it must be neutrally buoyant, which means it touches down with only a few pounds of force.

Besides, anything humans do is trivial compared to the relentless deterioration caused by biological activity, which goes on year after year. The Titanic is being eaten by living colonies of bacteria. They love it when humans drop giant piles of steel into the deep ocean, which we do with some regularity, especially in wars. It’s a feast for them.

On the Titanic’s artifacts, you describe yourself as a centrist between preservationists such as Robert D. Ballard and salvors such as Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who died in June on the Titan submersible. How so?

On one hand, I think it’s good to recover artifacts from the debris field. When Titanic broke in two at the surface, it became like two great piñatas. Over square miles, we see plates and wine bottles, suitcases, shoes — things people carried with them, touched and wore.

That humanizes the story and reminds us that the tragedy has a human face. So many artifacts have been recovered that poignantly connect us to this history — like the bell from the crow’s nest which was rung three times by lookout Frederick Fleet when he first spotted the iceberg. Now, millions of museumgoers can see it with their own eyes. I’ve even rung it myself. And there are so many examples of Titanic’s elegance — fine china, beaded chandeliers, the cherub statue from the Grand Staircase. It’s the ongoing public interest in these things that keeps the history alive, now, 111 years after the sinking.

A gray area that leaves me torn is whether we should recover artifacts from inside the bow and stern sections. One case I find compelling is recovery of the Marconi set. This wireless system sent the SOS signal that brought the rescue ship Carpathia to Titanic’s exact coordinates, and arguably saved the lives of over 700 people.

The Titanic’s wireless set was unique, very different from others in its day. I’ve flown my tiny remotely operated vehicles inside to survey the Marconi rooms, so we know where everything is and have done computer reconstructions.

But to actually put that instrument on public display would be very moving for millions of museumgoers. If it could be recovered without any harm done to the outer appearance of the wreck, I’d be in favor, because that area of the ship is deteriorating fast and within a few years the Marconi set will be buried deep inside the ruins, unrecoverable.

So anything goes?

Where I personally draw the line is changing the look of the wreck — such as raising its iconic bow (where Jack and Rose stood in the movie) or removing the mighty anchors or taking the bronze telemotor from the bridge where Quartermaster Hitchens desperately spun the ship’s wheel trying to avoid the iceberg. All these recoveries have been discussed by somebody at some point over the last quarter century. I think we shouldn’t take anything from the bow and stern sections that would disfigure them. They should stand as monuments to the tragedy.

You knew Mr. Nargeolet quite well. Did you have any disagreements with him and his company’s approach to artifact recovery?

He was a legendary sub pilot and explorer, and we spent many exciting hours going over our Titanic videos and comparing notes. He recovered many of the artifacts, such as the crow’s nest bell, that I find so moving in the various exhibits around the world.

That said, I disagreed with him about some of his plans to recover such things as the bow anchors, though it was always a friendly discussion. I’m glad some of those plans never came to fruition.

Around 2017, you joined with Dr. Ballard and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, in an unsuccessful attempt to buy the collection of Titanic artifacts and move them to Belfast, where the ship was built. Why? And would you try again if RMS Titanic once again declared bankruptcy?

Our concern at the time was that the collection could have been bought by a rich private collector and disappear from the public’s view. These artifacts belong to the world, as part of our shared cultural heritage — our collective history — and the artifacts help keep that history alive and the tragedy palpable. But only if they can be seen, and emotionally felt, through public access. If the collection is put at risk again, down the line, I would hope to have a voice in keeping it publicly accessible.

What do you make of the federal government’s recent effort to exert control over the Titanic?

The Titanic lies in international waters. I’m sure this tussle will go on indefinitely.

Do you think the Titan disaster will have an impact on Titanic visitors?

Do I believe it will stop people from wanting to witness Titanic in person? Absolutely not. Human curiosity is a powerful force, and the urge to go and bear witness with one’s own eyes is very strong for some people, myself included.

But citizen explorers must be more discerning about who they dive with. Is the sub fully certified by a recognized bureau? What is the safe operating record of the submersible company? These are the kinds of questions they need to ask.

Would you dive again?

I would get in a sub tomorrow — if it was certified, like Woods Hole Oceanographic’s storied Alvin sub, or the subs built by Triton submersibles. But there’s no rush to do anything. That familiar image of the bow will still be there, as it is, for another half century at least.

William J. Broad is a science journalist and senior writer. He joined The Times in 1983, and has shared two Pulitzer Prizes with his colleagues, as well as an Emmy Award and a DuPont Award. More about William J. Broad

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Experience James Cameron’s Titanic, the global box office phenomenon and winner of 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture (1997). Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet light up the screen in this unforgettable tale of forbidden love and courage set against the ill-fated maiden voyage of the “unsinkable” Titanic.

Over 15 hours of SPECIAL FEATURES including…

· NEW - TITANIC: Stories From The Heart

Director James Cameron, producer Jon Landau and star Kate Winslet share memories and favorite moments, and recount the challenges of making the greatest love story in cinema history. Go back in time with film clips, photos and behind-the-scenes moments.

· NEW - TITANIC: 25 YEARS LATER WITH JAMES CAMERON

James Cameron explores the enduring myths and mysteries of the shipwreck, and mounts tests to see whether Jack could have fit on that raft and survived.

· NEW - Fan Poster Gallery

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Experience James Cameron’s Titanic, the global box office phenomenon and winner of 11 Academy Awards® including Best Picture (1997)*. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet light up the screen in this unforgettable tale of forbidden love and courage set against the ill-fated maiden voyage of the "unsinkable" Titanic.

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• Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.78:1
• MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
• Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.78 x 5.43 x 0.63 inches; 4.16 ounces
• Director ‏ : ‎ James Cameron
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ 4K
• Release date ‏ : ‎ December 5, 2023
• Actors ‏ : ‎ Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet
• Dubbed: ‏ : ‎ French, Spanish
• Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English, French, Spanish
• Language ‏ : ‎ English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Studio ‏ : ‎ PARAMOUNT
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CK3ZWT7X
• Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ USA
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 2
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James Cameron says he only cast short extras on ‘Titanic’ to make it look bigger

"Anybody above five foot eight - we didn't cast them"

Director James Cameron has reflected on the making of Titanic   in a new interview, where he also revealed that he only cast short extras on the set in order to make the ill-fated ship look bigger.

• READ MORE: ‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ review: bold, beautiful and very, very blue

Cameron was talking to the  Los Angeles Times for the film’s 4K remastering and home video release as part of the film’s 25th anniversary celebrations before he opened up about the casting and the size of the set.

“The scale of everything was beyond anything we could imagine in terms of our prior experience,” he told the publication. “At the time we thought, ‘wow, there’s no way this movie could ever make its money back. It’s just impossible.’ Well, guess what?,” he joked, reflecting on the box office smash that the film became.

Titanic  became the highest grossing film of all time until 2009, where Cameron’s  Avatar broke  Titanic’s  record.

Speaking about the film’s casting, he continued: “We only cast short extras so it made our set look bigger. Anybody above five foot eight, we didn’t cast them. It’s like we got an extra million dollars of value out of casting,” he said, explaining how the strategy helped them to also save money.

“If the studio had had their way, they would have cut the entire ship sinking,” Cameron continued. “The smartest thing we did was do the sinking last. It wasn’t because of strategy — it was simply because you sink the set last because otherwise it doesn’t look so good the next morning when you bring it back up.”

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Elsewhere in the interview, Cameron said he didn’t believe the technology behind AI would be able to replace writers, saying: “It’s never an issue of who wrote it, it’s a question of, is it a good story?”

“I just don’t personally believe that a disembodied mind that’s just regurgitating what other embodied minds have said — about the life that they’ve had, about love, about lying, about fear, about mortality — and just put it all together into a word salad and then regurgitate it … I don’t believe that have something that’s going to move an audience,” Cameron continued.

James Cameron’s most recent film was the 2022 sci-fi epic Avatar: The Way of Water . That film scored a four-star review from  NME that said: “Bigger, bolder and definitely better than the original, Avatar: The Way Of Water pushes the technical boundaries of cinema without feeling like a science experiment.”

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James Cameron aims to finally put that 'Titanic' door debate to rest, 25 years later

Rachel Treisman

Fans have long debated whether there was room for both Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) on the makeshift raft in the 1997 blockbuster Titanic . CBS Photo Archive via Getty Images hide caption

Fans have long debated whether there was room for both Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) on the makeshift raft in the 1997 blockbuster Titanic .

Titanic director James Cameron wants to put an end to a debate that has gone on since the movie first hit theaters, exactly 25 years ago today.

Could Rose have scooched over to make room for Jack on that floating hunk of wood , keeping him out of the freezing water and saving his life?

James Cameron's epic movie 'Titanic' was released 25 years ago

Yes, many fans have argued with zeal — including the makers of MythBusters , who concluded after a 2012 experiment that both Jack and Rose could have plausibly fit on the door.

Cameron disagreed, saying in that episode that "the script says Jack dies, he has to die." He has long dismissed that the question is even up for debate, arguing in multiple interviews over the years that Jack's death was essential to the plot and that there was only room for one person on the makeshift raft.

The famously thorough director is hoping to close the door on that dispute for good, this time with an even more scientific approach.

While promoting his new movie Avatar: Way of Water , he told The Toronto Sun that he had commissioned a scientific study "to put this whole thing to rest and drive a stake through its heart once and for all."

Pop Culture Happy Hour

'titanic' was king of the world 25 years ago, and for good reason.

"We have since done a thorough forensic analysis with a hypothermia expert who reproduced the raft from the movie and we're going to do a little special on it that comes out in February," he explained. "We took two stunt people who were the same body mass of Kate [Winslet] and Leo [DiCaprio] and we put sensors all over them and inside them and we put them in ice water, and we tested to see whether they could have survived through a variety of methods, and the answer was, there was no way they both could have survived. Only one could survive."

Viewers will be able to see for themselves when the special runs on National Geographic, The Sun reports. That same month, a remastered version of Titanic will hit theaters just in time for Valentine's Day (so plan your date night or crying party accordingly).

Cameron maintains that Jack simply had to die, telling The Sun that "if I had to make the raft smaller, it would have been smaller."

"It's like Romeo and Juliet," he added. "It's a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality. The love is measured by the sacrifice."

Movie Reviews

Take the plunge: avatar's underwater scenes are immersive and extraordinary.

What do Jack and Rose have to say about all of this?

When asked during a 2019 MTV interview whether he thought Jack could have fit on the door, DiCaprio said repeatedly that he had "no comment."

Winslet has been more forthcoming, telling various late-night hosts in recent years that she thinks there could have been room for two.

But the question isn't whether two could fit, it's whether two could float, as she told "Happy Sad Confused" podcast host Josh Horowitz last week.

Winslet knows a bit about water, saying she spends a lot of time paddle boarding, surfing (board, kite and wind), scuba diving and cold water swimming. And if you put two adults on a stand-up paddleboard, she says, it becomes "immediately extremely unstable."

'The Six' Looks At How 6 Chinese Men's Lives Unfolded After They Survived The Titanic

"I have to be honest, right," she said. "I actually don't believe that we would have survived if we had both gotten on that door. I think he could have fit but it would have tipped and it would not have been a sustainable idea."

The solution may not have been sustainable, but the movie — which was the first to gross $1 billion dollars — sure has staying power.

NPR pop culture critic Linda Holmes said in 2017 that two decades on, what makes the movie as timely as ever is that "it's a slow-moving disaster of immodesty."

"The people who built the ship cannot see, will not see its flaws. By the time they figure it out, it's too late," she told NPR's All Things Considered . "There's no miracle. There aren't enough lifeboats. Twenty years later, all we can do is wonder: Rose, couldn't you have fit two people on a floating door?"

And now we know. Or at least that's what Cameron hopes.

"Maybe ... maybe ... after 25 years, I won't have to deal with this anymore," he said with a laugh.

• kate winslet
• James Cameron