How to Write Titanic

How to Write Titanic

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Pick a well publicized international disaster. Does not matter if multiple movies have already been made about the disaster. It just has to be a famous disaster. Become obsessed with it to a point that the only way you can fund your love of visiting the tragic site is to make a studio-financed movie about it.

2 – The Genre. Historic drama tragedy romance with a modern twist? Pretty much Romeo and Juliet, but on a real boat in 1912 for a 1997 movie audience.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? The disaster you picked. In this case, the boat sinks after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean. People die. Lots of people die. Like, rich and famous people die, as well as lots of poor people and workers trapped in the lower decks, and even some middle-class types. Also, modern-day people actually get hurt during the filming of some of the dangerous stunt scenes, but that won’t stop this sinking ship from winning a history-making eleven Oscars at the Academy Awards and won’t even stop James Cameron from quoting himself when accepting those Oscars. If you really feel like the King of the World, I guess you need to shout it to an ocean of people forced to watch you give a speech.  

4 – The Fun Stuff. Leonardo DiCaprio falls in love with Kate Winslet and then dies and falls to the bottom of the ocean after she lets him go. Like we said, this is Romeo and Juliet on a boat, so at least one of the young lovers needs to die. In this case it’s not warring families, it’s separated class systems. A rich girl and a grunt, Director Jim’s favorite thing to write about. There is a rival fiancé and a pushy parent, and an excuse to have our sexy couple do sexy stuff all over this big sexy boat. Oh I guess the sexy stuff is the fun stuff. Leo is dreamy and Kate shows her boobs.

5 – The Device. The thing that the disaster takes place on/with. In this case, the boat, Titanic. It was famous then, it was still famous when James Cameron became obsessed with it to actually visit it in real life. The entire contrived Romeo and Juliet thing is just to get teenage girls to cry and to get people interested in what is actually a history lesson of what happened on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. Director Jim knew that in order to get people to care about the boat sinking, the audience had to care about the people on board the boat. It’s as if the Titanic IS Leonardo DiCaprio, sinking to the bottom of the ocean, our Boat/Romeo forever enriching the lives of those who survived. Romantic, ain’t it?

6 – The Diamond.  The Heart of the Ocean drives the plot of the modern day story. Old Rose is flown out to meet the surveyors of the Titanic sight to hopefully gain insight on the location of this valuable jeweled necklace after they find a drawing of her wearing it, boobies out. It is the MacGuffin, the thing one of the characters seeks for most of the plot, only to be tossed into the ocean in the end. Not the boobies, the necklace. But both are tied to the villain, Rose’s fiancé Billy Zane, who gives the necklace to her on the ship, probably after feeling her boobies. Why a blue diamond? James Cameron loves the color blue is all. But it also represents the ocean. Heart of the Ocean. Blue. Obviously. 

7 – The Jokes. Not so much one-off jokes as it is in the charm of the lead actors, even during the attempted suicide scene when they first meet at the butt of the ship. The comedy is in the embarrassment of spittle upon DiCaprio’s chin, or the prideful pain in Winslet’s bare ballet tippy toes on a beer-covered third class floor, or in sly comments about how Americans don’t have fleas and the third class has hardly any rats. It is 1912, after all. There are only so many jokes that existed back then and it’s important to be historically accurate. You can put a theme of playing cards throughout as a fun add-on. Have Leo win his ticket in a game of cards, give the main characters the colorful card names of Jack (black) and Rose (red). Make the mom remind Rose of how their good name is the only card they have left to play. Playing cards. Those existed in 1912.

8 – The Title. Titanic. It’s the name of the boat. Or the most famous thing about the disaster. Unless it is “too soon” and the disaster was too tragic, then name it something else, like A Night to Remember or The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Or Futility. Wait, that’s the name of the novel about an unsinkable ship that hits an iceberg mid-April called the Titan by author Morgan Robertson released fourteen years before the sinking of the real ship Titanic. Yes, before. True story. Too complicated to include in our movie, though, so just let people find that on the internet on their own. Stick to Romeo and Juliet on a boat and what really happened in 1912 and the simplest title that doesn’t disturb people. Also predict the size of profits you want to make with this film. Titanic.

9 – The Ending. The boat sinks. We knew that. We also knew that Romeo and Juliet died at the end of the story when Shakespeare tells us about it in the opening monologue of his play. It’s not about what happens, it’s about how it happens. The movie Titanic, at three hours and fifteen minutes, especially when seen on the big screen, makes you feel like you are actually on the Titanic during its real life two hour and forty minute sinking. That’s what makes teenage girls like me go see Titanic in theaters five times in three weeks. That, and Leonardo DiCaprio. That’s over sixteen paid hours of watching a boat sink. It felt real. I cried a lot.

10 – The Heart. (will go on). Romeo and Juliet, remember? A love story for the ages, but modernized with today’s hottest actors. Also, James Cameron just tricked you into sitting in a three hour history lesson. You could totally ace a test on the Titanic after watching the movie. I mean, nothing about Jack and Rose or their supporting characters is true, nor is anything that takes place in Bill Paxton’s time, but everything else is historically accurate. Director Jim studied every nook, cranny, photograph, blueprint, artifact, and human story that entered that ship, and paid tribute to it in his film, dropping fictional star-crossed lovers into the historically-accurate background. Oh yeah and there’s a great song written by James Horner for Celine Dion at the end. My Heart Will Go On. As will my love for the movie Titanic. Just looking at the poster makes me want to see it again. 

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Titanic. James Cameron did.