Question: At almost the end of the Titanic, they show pictures of Rose doing the things that she had talked about doing with Jack. EX. riding a horse with one leg on each side. Then they show "Old Rose." Is she asleep dreaming about Jack or is she dead and has gone to "be with Jack." I was wondering because they show Jack and Rose kissing by the clock, on the boat, at the very end. Then the screen goes white. So I figured that she had died. Am I correct?
Question: How did Cal manage to get into a lifeboat with the child that wasn't his? All the crew seem to know who he is so shouldn't have been fooled into thinking the child was his?
Answer: Not every crew member would have known him. He was in first class, the crew were lower deck officers, and there was so much confusion about, that nobody was paying close attention to who he was, just that he was a man with a baby.
Answer: While they probably did know that to be the case, they had to consider the possibility the child had already lost their parents. By refusing Cal onto the boat, they could easily have been sentencing the child to death. At least with an adult the child stands a chance of survival. Hence the hesitation by the guard. Let Cal in with a child that's not his and save the child or refuse him and the child and let them fight for survival. In that guard's position I know what I would do.
Question: When Cal and Jack escort Rose to a boat to get off the ship, we see a father saying goodbye to his wife and daughters. What is the name of this actor? Was he credited?
Answer: If you mean the one who says, "It's goodbye for a little while...", the actor's name is John Walcutt. He's credited as "1st Class Husband."
Question: When Cal and Lovejoy frame Jack for stealing the necklace, at one point during the scene Cal says something to the effective of two things dear to him having disappeared, one being the necklace obviously. So then was Rose the other "thing" he was referring to?
Answer: Yes, he meant Rose. He basically viewed her as a possession.
Question: This is probably a tedious task, but at what scenes were the songs "Rose," "A Life So Changed," "Unable to Stay, Unwilling to Leave," and "The Portrait" (the former three from the Titanic OST and the latter from Back to Titanic OST) played within the film? Most of the music in the film is so similar, it's hard for me to determine which song is which.
Answer: "Rose" was used in the flying seen at the bow of Titanic when Jack and Rose are flying. "A life so changed" was used when Rose is in a life boat after Jack dies at the end. Unable to Stay, Unwilling to Leave," was used when Jack gets Rose into a life boat and she looks up at him in slow mode and she jumps back on Titanic. "The Portrait" was used when Jack is drawing Rose.
Question: How far could the rudder panel on the Titanic actually turn? Could it turn 90 degrees, or 45, or something in the middle? I'm wondering, because this could have made a difference.
Chosen answer: The Titanic's rudder was capable of turning to about sixty degrees off the centreline, reaching that position in about six seconds from straight.
Question: During the dinner scene Jack throws something at Cal, and then later on in the scene Cal throws it back. What were they throwing?
Chosen answer: A box of matches. At 1:03:10, Cal is seen putting a cigarette in his mouth and then patting his coat pockets looking for a match to light it with.
Question: Following up on the answered question about Rose being Cal's "wife in practice", was sleeping together before marriage socially acceptable among that class of people at that time?
Answer: No, contrary to what movies lead us to believe now, it was highly inappropriate for intercourse before marriage until about after World War I.
Question: Did the real Titanic have a passenger named J. Dawson on board?
Answer: Not a passenger, no. There was, however, a 23-year-old Irish crewmember named Joseph Dawson who died in the tragedy. His body was recovered and is buried in Nova Scotia. According to James Cameron, he was not aware of this until after the script was finished.
Question: Over the course of the film we learn all the middle portion of Rose's life, but how did she get through life without any paperwork such as a birth certificate? Getting married, driving/flying, all need documentation the "renamed" version of herself wouldn't have.
Answer: Record keeping at the turn of the 20th century was still incomplete and inaccurate. Many people were born without a birth certificate being issued. Tens of thousands of immigrants entering the country often lacked those types of papers, and many had their surnames changed when they arrived. It was also much easier to get alternate documentation to prove one's identity or, in certain situations, may not have required proof, as it does now.
Question: At the end of the movie, when the crew member yells something and waves a green light, what is he saying? Not the scene where he's looking for survivors, the scene right before they reach the Carpathian.
Answer: Using my amateur lip-reading skills, it appears as though he is saying "Come on, put your backs into it, men. We've been saved! Row!"
Question: Do Rose and Cal ever sleep together? I've heard that they don't, but in one scene Cal says something like, "There's nothing I won't deny you if you don't deny me tonight," and we don't see how she responds. And in the scene where Cal blows up at her at breakfast, he says "You're my wife in practice if not yet in name, so you will honor me." That's pretty suggestive.
Chosen answer: When he says at breakfast "wife in practice" he's saying that yes, they indeed sleep together which is also why she isn't hesitant about sleeping with Jack so quickly. She obviously was not a virgin.
Question: I know that originally, Cal was supposed to kill Fabrizio with an oar, and this scene was even partially filmed, but it was abandoned. Why was it scrapped?
Answer: This was cut, and Fabrizio's death scene was re-edited because James Cameron felt Cal was turning into a cartoon villain by that point.
Question: Pardon me for asking a "what if" question, but this confuses me: what did Rose intend to do *before* the ship sunk? She had changed her mind about Jack, choosing him instead of Cal. However, she and her mother needed the security from Cal. They were in debt. Jack was poor. If Rose married Jack, Cal and his family would be offended by the broken engagement. They would not help Rose's mother. Would Rose just marry Jack and abandon her financially-burdened mother in New York?
Answer: Rose was strong-minded and determined but was thinking "in the moment" and had no real plan or idea about what to do if she'd left with Jack, had he survived. It's unknown if they would have stayed together and married. Rose had only told Jack she was going with him. At some point she might reconnect with her mother. Cal Hoxley probably would be so humiliated by Rose deserting him for a penniless artist, that he would have hushed it up and invented some story about the broken engagement. He likely had already paid off the DeWitt Bukater debts to clean-up any lingering complications or embarrassments before marrying Rose. He probably would also have made some minimal financial arrangement for Ruth, not from compassion but for appearances sake. As we saw, Rose faired quite well on her own once she did escape Cal and her mother.
Answer: Due to historical times, the "love birds" may have lucked out (had they survived). They would not have known WWI would start in 1914 (two years after the Titanic sank), but they would have hoped that their financial situation improved. Women were needed in the labor force.
Answer: That was her plan, assuming she would have been able to follow through with it. This would have left her mother high and dry, but that didn't seem to be a very big concern for her. However, in reality, between Cal, Lovejoy, and Ruth, Rose would find it very hard to even see Jack, much less marry him, if the Titanic had made it to New York in one piece. Women had very few legal rights in 1912, so once the marriage was performed, Cal could pretty much keep her imprisoned, for all intents and purposes, and Jack could do nothing about it, even if he wasn't a penniless vagrant...which he was.
Your last statement about Cal pretty much being able to keep Rose imprisoned has no factual basis. Women still had many legal rights, and while some states had more liberal divorce laws, by 1915, 1 in 7 marriages ended in divorce. By the 1920's, it had risen to 15%. Not to mention that in 1917, New York had given women full suffrage.
"Imprisonment" might be too strong of a word to use, but cultural norms at the time (such as those regarding marriage, the role of the wife/ homemaker, and divorce - taboo) didn't give women much freedom. Divorce statistics are notoriously inaccurate and, depending on the method used to calculate the number, percent, or rate, different figures are derived. Instead of 15%, the RATE of divorce (per 1000 PEOPLE) was 1.7 in the 1920s. Women's suffrage is hardly an indication of freedom, rights, or equality. [Just think how "effective" the 14th Amendment (1868) was in granting equal legal and civil rights.].
Regardless of any restrictions on "married" women, Rose was not yet wed to Cal. They were only engaged, and he had no legal right to impose anything on her at that point. If Rose wanted to walk off the ship with Jack, there was nothing Cal or her mother could legally do to stop her. If they tried to interfere, Rose could have the ship's officers or the White Star Line's personnel intervene.
Question: Why did the guy in the engine room turn that big wheel before throwing the engines into reverse?
Answer: In order to reverse the engines, they have to be completely stopped first. So first they shut the dampers so that the engines slow and turn the wheel to release pent up steam. Then they go into reverse.
Answer: According to the traditions of Anglo-Saxon cultures, a double surname is heritable, and mostly taken in order to preserve a family name which would have become extinct due to the absence of male descendants bearing the name. This is often connected to the inheritance of a family estate. In the case of Rose Dewitt Bukater, Dewitt is likely a name handed down from previous generations, and was probably the surname (sometimes referred to as a "double barreled" surname) shared by her father. Other notable people with double-barreled surnames include Kristen Scott Thomas, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen.
Michael Albert