The sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic remains one of the worst disasters in maritime history, and one of the most tragic losses of human life in the 20th century. Its harrowing circumstances provided the source material for James Cameron’s 1997 epic Titanic which, like its namesake, made history worldwide. Its sweeping story and state-of-the-art special effects helped it gross $2.2 billion, and it launched the careers of both Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.
Over the last several decades, historians have debated the authenticity of Cameron’s masterpiece. While he took many creative liberties to create a more dramatic story, the vast majority of the actual tragedy he recreated was true to life. Some details were married to fiction, but there’s no doubt the film remains one of the best interpretations of the catastrophe ever made.
GOT RIGHT: THE DETAILS OF THE R.M.S. TITANIC
Perfectionist James Cameron recreated the R.M.S. Titanic exactly as it appeared on its maiden voyage on April 11th,1912, after 15,000 Irishman completed construction on the largest man-made moving object on Earth. Cameron’s ship was 744 feet long (about a hundred feet shy of the real Titanic), and its internal sets boasted all of the splendor seen in the film.
Cameron recreated Titanic’s indoor swimming pools, gymnasiums, and two libraries (one for the first-class passengers and one for everyone else), as well the resplendent dining halls and staterooms offered to its most elite passengers. Every attention to detail was made, right down to the china in Rose’s suite.
GOT WRONG: THE MINGLING OF PASSENGERS FROM DIFFERENT CLASSES
Quite frequently there are scenes involving the fraternizing of passengers from different classes. They’re both allowed to walk areas of the promenade that would ordinarily have been segregated, which wouldn’t have been possible on the real ship.
Rose strolling with Jack Dawson, each in garments that telegraphed their class, wouldn’t have been probable because they wouldn’t have ever encountered one another. Jack wouldn’t have been sketching in an area of the ship anywhere Rose could have seen him.
GOT RIGHT: THE ICEBERG
Right down to the fact that no one had binoculars in the crow’s nest (because no one had a key to the locker), every aspect of the ship’s collision with the iceberg was correct. From the time the real Mr. Fleet saw the shape rising from the water, “blacker than black”, there was only 37 seconds before Titanic made contact.
Had Titanic hit the berg straight-on, its reinforced bulkheads would have prevented as great a catastrophe. However, since it sliced its side, it took on more water than it was designed for. Eye-witness accounts from passengers who survived said it was “incredibly calm” before the event plunged all aboard into chaos.
GOT WRONG: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JACK AND ROSE
Jack and Rose might be praised as one of the most romantic couples of all time, but in all likelihood, they would never have become one during the real Titanic’s voyage. Based on the tickets they held, they wouldn’t have been permitted on the same parts of the ship, so they would have never “bumped” into each other on the stern or on the promenade.
The concept of a carefree steerage passenger and a stifled aristocrat meeting and falling in love days before a historic tragedy is certainly something out of a modern fairytale, but there were enough real emotional moments in the catastrophe to not need any additions.
