Nominated for 14 Oscars, Titanic (1997) tied All About Eve (1950) for the most Oscar nominations and won 11, tying Ben-Hur (1959) for the most Oscars won by a single film. As mentioned, Titanic won 11 Oscars for Best Picture (James Cameron, Jon Landau), Best Director (James Cameron), Best Cinematography (Russell Carpenter), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Peter Lamont (art director), Michael Ford (set decorator)), Best Costume Design (Deborah Lynn Scott), Best Sound (Gary Rydstrom, Tom Johnson, Gary Summers, Mark Ulano), Best Film Editing (Conrad Buff IV, James Cameron, Richard A. Harris), Best Effects-Sound Effects Editing (Tom Bellfort, Christopher Boyes), Best Effects-Visual Effects (Robert Legato, Mark A. Lasoff, Thomas L. Fisher, Michael Kanfer), Best Music-Original Song (James Horner (music), Will Jennings (lyrics) For the song "My Heart Will Go On," performed by Céline Dion), and Best Music-Original Dramatic Score (James Horner). It was nominated for three more: Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Makeup. The movie amounted to 125 wins from 1997-2021, where it was added to the OFTA Film Hall of Fame for the song "My Heart Will Go On" and its musical score. The movie is a blend, incorporating both historical and fictionalized aspects. Directed by National Geographic sea explorer and the co-founder of Lightstorm Entertainment, Digital Domain, and Earthship Productions, James Cameron (remember, the same dude who directed The Terminator?) was inspired by shipwrecks when writing Titanic. He felt a love story interspersed with the human loss would be essential to convey the emotional impact of the disaster.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are the film's protagonists, playing Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater. They were supported by the performances by Billy Zane, the late Gloria Stuart, Bill Paxton, Kathy Bates, and Victor Garber. The movie was filmed in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and Fox Baja Studios in Rosarito, Mexico. The present-day boat scenes were shot on board the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, a ship they also used to film the underwater scenes of the Titanic. Yes, the footage of the Titanic underwater is real! Surprisingly, the film only has a rating of 7.8 on IMDb, making it ineligible for the IMDb Top 250. This could be because it was (and still is) considered a "statement" to hate on the film just because it's a romance. However, the American Film Institute puts the movie on the 83rd spot in 2007 in its Top 100 movies list. The film follows the story of seventeen-year-old Rose, who hails from an aristocratic family and is set to be married; however, when she boards the Titanic, she meets Jack Dawson, an artist, and falls in love with him. Rose's fiancé acquires the Heart of the Ocean as a wedding gift for her. It serves as an important symbol from its introduction to the movie's end. What does the Heart of the Ocean symbolize, and why did Rose throw it overboard?
The Heart of the Ocean, also known as La Coeur de la Mer, is a rare blue diamond necklace gifted from Caledon Hockley to Rose DeWitt Bukater. In the movie, the diamond was originally owned by Louis XVI and cut into a heart shape after the French Revolution and is of considerable value. Simply put, the Heart of the Ocean is a symbol of Rose's heart, as made evident in the line spoken by Rose herself (in the present) "a woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets." When she wore it during the portrait Jack took, it shows that she opened her heart to him and no one else. She hasn't worn the necklace since that moment, even though Cal gifted it to her earlier. We know that the Heart of the Ocean is a necklace that symbolizes Rose's heart, but it could also be Jack. Since Jack was Rose's first love and died tragically, it would make sense to assume that Jack is Rose's heart. And, morbidly, now he's in the ocean.
For Rose, the diamond's value is not determined by its size or cost. Instead, it holds for her as a memento of her time with Jack by the context and meaning. This is why she decides to drop the necklace into the North Atlantic rather than turn it over to the treasure hunters. By doing so, she symbolically reunites with Jack. She dies that night, dreaming that she is back with him aboard the Titanic (or she time travels back to the Titanic, depending on your position with conspiracy theories). Now that she's told the story of Jack and her whirlwind romance the day the Titanic sank, she's able to let go of the only evidence of the Titanic, knowing that they will live on in history.
It's clear that the Heart of the Ocean was something that reminded her of Jack and the Titanic, and now that she's told the story, she's able to pass away in her sleep peacefully. She's able to let the necklace reunite with Jack and the Titanic. On a different note, the necklace is pretty ugly, right? I can't be the only one who thinks that. If it wasn't cut into a heart, I might feel differently, but I understand the symbolic necessity of the cut. Overall, this movie is monumental. It's absolutely beautiful, blending fiction with history and bringing in elements of the modern-day. It shows that historical films don't have to be boring.
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