James Cameron has recreated the controversial floating door scene from Titanic to see if Jack could have survived. 25 years since the Oscar-winning blockbuster was released, the director has finally put to bed one of cinema’s most hotly debated topics: that there was enough room for both Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) to make it out alive.
Ahead of Titanic’s theatrical re-release later this month, Cameron and a team of scientists have tested several different scenarios in the upcoming National Geographic special, Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron. In it, the team and a pair of actors recreate the conditions endured by the ill-fated lovers following the ship’s demise.
In a clip shared by Good Morning America, it appears that should Jack have climbed onto the debris with Rose, he actually had a fairly good chance of survival – at least for a few hours. In the first test, the two actors embodying the couple both climb onto the ship’s door, but with Jack’s added weight, they find themselves both submerged in the freezing water – something neither would have survived.
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The next test sees the Jack and Rose doubles positioned on the door in such a way that their upper bodies – and importantly their vital organs – are lifted out of the water. According to Cameron, this scenario could have seen Jack survive after all.
“Out of the water, [Jack’s] violent shaking was helping him,” Cameron says. “Projecting it out, he could’ve made it pretty long. Like, hours.”
Finally, the actors are put through the same physical strain endured by Jack and Rose in those final scenes before finding the door – including Jack having to fight off another passenger as he tries to use Rose as a floatation device. As the couple both lie on the debris after struggling in the freezing water, Rose gives Jack a life-jacket – something that didn’t happen in the film – which suggests another scenario in which Jack may have lived happily-ever-after.
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.@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)
Cameron says: “He’s stabilised. 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 jeopardises her,’ and that’s 100 percent in character.”
Winslet also recently weighed in on the contentious scene while promoting her latest water-based film, Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water. Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast in December, she said: “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. So, you heard it here for the first time. Yes, he could have fit on that door, but it would not have stayed afloat.”
Titanic’s 25th anniversary 3D remaster is in cinema from February 10.
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