This week, Titanic 3D was released on DVD and HD-DVD and VHS. Titanic 3D was the extremely successful digitally remastered re-release of the hit 1953 Barbara Stanwyck film Titanic. A lot has already been written about some of the more glaring inaccuracies in the film, so I decided I'd concentrate on some of the areas other writers are too scared to mention. Here is a list of 4 more truths THE MEDIA DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW!
1) Leonardo DiCaprio was never actually on the original R.M.S. Titanic!
Did you know that there is an entire list of passengers who were on board the Titanic? And that you can still look through it today? It's true! Go ahead and search it for yourself, and you'll find that nobody named Leonardo DiCaprio was even on board the R.M.S. Titanic, let alone died there. Talk about historical inaccuracy! You'd think that a director like Robert Wagner, who famously built a perfect 9/10 scale replica of the boat for Titanic 3D, would have been more keen on historical details.
2) Nobody was really that rude back then!
A lot has been said about how Titanic 3D's director was sued by the family of the ship's First Mate for defamation because the film depicted him as an irresponsible, selfish maniac when in reality he was a hero who took enormous risks to save as many people as possible. Well, not only did Leonardo DiCaprio not die on the Titanic, he didn't die away from the Titanic either! In fact, he didn't die at all! So why hasn't he sued the filmmakers for making him act like such a jerk in the movie?
See, a romantic gentleman at that time in history would have quietly sacrificed himself for the sake of a lady's comfort, but not jerkface DiCaprio! At the end of the film, when Rose is laying safely on a large piece of floating debris, Leo just clings to it, passive-aggressively shaming her! Rose never offers to share her space on the raft, even to see if it will support both their weight, nor does she volunteer to take turns being in and out of the water. Of course, Leonardo isn't so ungentlemanly as to make that suggestion himself (that would have been TOO unbelievable!) so he just floats there until he dies, forever letting her know that if she had taken her place on the real lifeboat, that comfy spot on the floating driftwood could be his. And all this after calling her stupid!
3) The musicians went down playing the wrong song!
Remember that scene where the boat is sinking and the band stops escaping just to play a song with Celine Dion? Well, I've done a little research and discovered yet another glaring inaccuracy: That Celine Dion song wasn't even written until several decades AFTER the ship sank! In reality, the musicians on board the Titanic stopped to play a cleverly dark yet comical number to try and boost everybody's spirits: Another One Bites the Dust by Queen. Also, I hate to be a nit-picker, but there are some historians who are skeptical that Celine Dion was even on board the real Titanic (some say it was likelier to have been a young Barbra Streisand.)
4) The twist ending: or was it?
The bulk of the film was told as a flashback narrated by Rose during a deep sea excavation meant to recover a priceless bracelet or something. After thousands of dollars and man hours are spent trying to recover the bracelet, Rose reveals to the crew that she's had it all along and then dumps it overboard. She has already let them know that she is more or less capable of murder, and they have no choice but to abandon their mission. It is one of the best twist-endings in movie history; like The Usual Suspects or Silence of the Lambs, where a cold-hearted psychopath gets away scot-free and rubs everyone's face in it. But how accurate is it?
A quick internet search reveals that the folklore regarding this sunken treasure didn't even exist until sometime around 1997, probably as some kind of internet glurge. In fact, the first time I heard it mentioned was in the Brittany Spears song Oops I did it Again, and again as a reference in an episode of Futurama. Somehow this story endured and ended up in Titanic 3D, but like most urban legends it seems almost impossible to track down its origin. In any case, the real-life Rose took the truth to her grave when she died in 2010. I guess some mysteries are better left unsolved.
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