It's been 20 years since Titanic premiered in theaters, and fans are still wondering if good old Jack Dawson was really doomed to die, or physics (and James Cameron) could have done something else for him. The director wanted to settle the controversy once and for all.
The truth is that since the film's premiere in 1997, fans of the film have attributed to Cameron his lack of scientific rigor when it comes to ending the protagonist, claiming that Rose and Jack could have shared the floating plank while waiting for the rescue .
The director acknowledged that Jack's death was "an artistic choice," mainly because the film "deals with death and separation." However, tired of so many years of speculation, this week he explained that he tested the board to measure its buoyancy. As he explained in an interview with Vanity Fair:
I was in the water with the piece of wood, placing people on it for about two days, and studying exactly if it was buoyant enough to support the weight of a person with full clearance, which means that their The body was not immersed in the water so it could survive the three hours it lasted until the rescue boat arrived.
Cameron during the filming of the end of the film. Inverse
The director believed then, and still does, "that this is what would have taken a person to survive". That said, his personal conviction (and his artistic license) did not prevent the famous Mythbusters from defying Cameron's claim in 2012.
The presenters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman made for the first time a simulation of test with dolls and a small recreation of the plank of the film. Sure enough, this one bowed, but when they both tried the feat with a full-scale replica, they discovered that Rose could have taken off her lifejacket and placed it under the board to add extra buoyancy. This trick lifted the board in such a way that about 80% of their bodies were out of the water while floating.
The presenters concluded that "Jack's death was unnecessary," to which Cameron responded that "they were losing meaning" with these tests.
Be that as it may, even if Jack could have survived with some ingenuity, Cameron can not be denied his commitment to scientific details. The director was in the water to check and determined that buoyancy made it impossible to share space. [Vanity Fair via ABC]