The fourth most profitable film of all time – and a true monument of cinema – contains an error that its director will not soon forget…
The cult film from 1997 is (still) relevant again! While it was just released in 4K on December 5, new content was revealed and among them, a featurette in which James Cameron returns to the mistake he made in one of the most legendary scenes of the feature film.
And if Kate Winslet remembers the filming of this scene that she shares with Leonardo DiCaprio as a “hilarious” moment, the director does not agree…
If you had to name just one scene from Titanic, it would surely be this one: Jack and Rose, perched at the front of the liner, and the iconic “I fly” by Rose. This emblematic scene, probably the best known in the film, however contains an error which is still disturbing James Cameroneven 26 years later.
We did two takes before we ran out of light. The first is completely unclear. The second is blurry for about four seconds, then everything is fine. This is the one that appears in the film.
Four seconds of blur that most spectators never noticed: the director, however, had no choice, the scene having been filmed with a real sunset in the background: the time was therefore limited, as remembers Kate Winslet.
“We did it with a real sunset. It was hilarious because Jim was like, ‘The sunset is amazing, go, go, go!’ We were like, ‘What?’ and all of a sudden Leo and I had to get on this long, long, long forklift and climb this fucking ladder.”
20th century Fox
She continues: “‘We’re going to miss it, we’re going to miss it…’, so we got there and all of a sudden we heard: ‘Action!’ And we had about two minutes to do this hug. God forbid we burst out laughing. It was really hilarious.”
A funny moment for the actress who also points out that if the sunset was real, the boat was not, having been added by computer later, which made the situation even funnier.
At the time, the production of Titanic having gotten out of control budget-wise, the scene could not be returned another day. With the amount spent getting higher and higher, many believed the film would end up becoming one of the biggest failures of all time. The rest, you know it.
Titanic can be seen streaming again on Disney+.
Check out the mismatches, gaffes and errors from the two-part film below: