CBC Arts Presents: The 50 Greatest Films Directed By Canadians

The exchange clarifies, as much for us as for 100-year-old Rose, what actually happened the night of April 14, 1912 in terms of basic physics. But it also operates on a second level. Weve been watching as this research crew jokes around and plunders the wreck in pursuit of their ultimate payday: an 18th-century diamond they believe went down with the ship. Rose is here to shine any light whatsoever on whether thats true.

What she does instead is tell her passenger story in full, humanizing the more than 2000 souls on board at the time of the sinking, most of whom did not survive the glaring omission in what she sarcastically calls the crews fine, forensic analysis.

Titanic might be read as an extended self-drag. The Kapuskasing-born Cameron first pursued a film about the ship because he wanted to explore the wreck himself and, quite simply, have someone else pay for it. But upon making the dive, he was overcome by the human element that had gotten lost somewhere in his science geekdom.

Id been studying it for months, hes recalled, but now it wasnt at a remove These were real people. His three-hour epic which he wrote, produced, directed, and co-edited would weave these two threads, using a pair of imagined star-crossed lovers to hammer home a totally factual tragedy of human error and maritime climate.

The high-society melodrama of Titanics first half Cassette One of the worn-out VHS two-parter still sitting in my parents basement revolves around 17-year-old Rose (Kate Winslet), the suicidal fiance of an evil Pittsburgh steel tycoon (Billy Zane). Shes saved in every way that a person can be saved by the freewheeling Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio), a third-class passenger with whom shes resolved to disembark in New York City. But the couple meets their fate in Cassette Two, Camerons harrowing and extraordinary aqua-spectacle, for which he required millions of gallons of water and, famously, millions of unbudgeted studio dollars.

Though there was plenty of concern to say nothing of the simmering media schadenfreude that those dollars had been spent in vain, the films impact would quickly go far beyond ROI (though it was indeed the highest-grossing film of all time until Camerons own Avatar). The instant classic also made overnight superstars of its two leads, gave Cline Dion her spine-tingling signature song, and took home the coveted Best Picture among its 11 Oscar wins.

As for Cameron himself a just-okay screenwriter but the kind of unparalleled showman that made you forget to care hed be allowed to do virtually anything he wanted from then on (including make the film again on another planet). Titanic, like his work since, was a staggering cultural moment whose greatness you had to respect no matter how you felt about its goodness.