I was about to start off this post by using the phrase “Titanic Truthers” and then I had to stop myself because I wondered if that would be offensive to the real-life Titanic tragedy. If we had social media back in 1912, there definitely would have been Titanic Truthers though, and they would have compared theories about icebergs and how President Taft secretly ordered the sinking of the Titanic and more. But for now, the Titanic Truthers are really just people on the internet obsessed with the idea that Jack could have fit on the door with Rose in the MOVIE Titanic. It’s a thing. People always talk about it now, whether Jack could have fit on the door and whether Jack should have lived or whatever. Kate Winslet has talked about it, and so has director James Cameron. But Leonardo DiCaprio really hasn’t participated in the conversation. So… he was asked about in a group interview during the promotion for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood:
DiCaprio, who shot to worldwide fame after starring in the flick, hadn’t publicly commented on the moment until he joined Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie for an interview with MTV News on Monday, July 15. While the bulk of the discussion was centered around their upcoming film Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, the conversation shifted as the Oscar winner was asked whether Jack could “have fit on that door at the end of Titanic.”
Robbie, who also starred with DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, recalled “bawling my eyes out when I was a girl” watching that scene in the film. When Pitt weighed in, he said he was “gonna go back and look” at the scene in question.
“That is the biggest controversy, I think, in modern cinema,” Robbie, 29, suggested as DiCaprio chimed in to add, “Ever.”
Pitt, 55, then teased his costar by asking: “Could you? Could you have squeezed in there? You could’ve, couldn’t you?” The 44-year-old laughed, and then said: “No comment, Brad.” When Robbie then inquired further to determine whether DiCaprio asked if the door should be made “smaller,” he replied: “Like I said, I have no comment.”
I’m including the clip below. It’s cute, and it’s clear that Leo really doesn’t want to talk about it, and I admire his strength in NOT chiming in. Let people online talk about it, and Leo will stay above the fray. He wasn’t in charge of props. He wasn’t the screenwriter. He wasn’t the director. He just did what he was told, which is “die” in the cold ocean when he really could have thrown a leg up on the door.
Photos courtesy of WENN, ‘Titanic’.
My favorite thoughts on the theory is when Mythbusters did it and James Cameron made an appearance.
And yes, I am on Team ‘Yeah, he could have fit’.
I mean he obviously could have fit. The problem was if their combined weight would have let it float. They quickly decided not, I mean it was a long movie they could have taken more than 2 seconds to show they tried after spending 90 minutes trying to live. It was too quick for that moment.
In MythBusters they need extra life vests to make it happen with both weights on top (as there weren’t enough on the boat for all passengers, it seems unlikely to be at their disposal).
I feel bad for people who don’t understand this and have also presumably never gone swimming or been to the beach.
lol he obviously could hop on it. The board was large enough and slim and it would have served them both and floating still plus the warm of two bodies. It was just an effect they made for tears but it didn’t fool me even as a 9 year old 😀 #toocynicalfortitanic
My two cents: it’s not that he couldn’t fit on the door, it’s that the door wasn’t buoyant enough to hold the weight of two people.
That has been my take on it as well. Its not a matter of fitting, its a matter of floating.
Yes, they show that in the movie. Most people don’t get it though,
Sof,
They DO right? I have not gone back to look…but every time I see this brought up, I picture him getting on the door with her and it starting to sink. I couldn’t remember if they actually SHOWED that in the film, or I had “imagined it” into a real memory. In any case, maybe they needed to focus on that longer…as many people definitely missed that aspect.
I watched it on Sunday, that’s why I’m sure that, at least in the tv version, they show Jack trying to climb after Rose.
100%.
I also believe the closest city it sank to was Halifax NS- and let me tell you, I have a hard enough time putting my feet in NS water in the middle of a summer heatwave (used to swim for HOURS in it as a kid). And it was still quite a ways off into the ocean where it sank – I can’t imagine how quickly you’d die if you weren’t floating pretty high on the water.
I read that most people did not drown, they died quickly of hypothermia, getting frozen in the water.
If Quentin Tarantino directed it…
Jack would have shot Rose off that door!
In his revisionist history: Jack would have blown up the iceberg with Billy Zane strapped to it.
Nah, they would have swindled some richer people out of a boat or something.
You’re all wrong, they would have both survived on a giant floating shoe.
Also he’d have harassed or assaulted all the women working on the film, used the N word constantly, and ripped off ideas from old films and taken credit for them.
The element of loss is a large part about what makes the entire story so so great, it wouldn’t have evoked the same feelings had he lived. The loss of life, loss of innocence, loss of something intangible and precious. Not just the character jack, but for all the people aboard that ship, their losses and sorrows cleverly contrast the truimph of the human spirit. Heroes almost always die in a tragic epic.
I’m not sure if the people who make such a big deal about this just don’t get it or they just don’t care. James Cameron made an argument that it’s like saying “Romeo should’ve never had that dagger with him!” It’s completely missing the point. If Jack didn’t die, it wouldn’t have been a movie. It wouldn’t have affected people the way it did or made billions of dollars.
Very well put! Jack’s death was essential to the story. It was a key event and had a powerful impact.
It’s like Shindler’s List. We can hear about tragedies and loss of life, but when you take these numbers and flesh them out into real human beings, the audience comes to grip with the horror of it all. It wasn’t just X amount of people that died…each of those people had people that loved them, had families, had reasons their lives should be valued.
Jack’s death gave the audience a window into the grief and mourning that should be given to all who lost their lives in this tragedy.
Oh there are plenty of Titanic truthers out there. I became aware of it because my 8-year-old, who is obsessed with everything Titanic, asked me about some YouTube video he saw that claimed there was no iceberg and it’s all a hoax. Everything is so exhausting all the time.
There are even Hitler deniers out there who believe Hitler never existed and that he is just a made up figure who was used to further the nazi ideoloy. Denying the existence of an ice berg seems really harmless in comparison lol
You can pretty much think of any outlandish theory on… just about anything, and there’s probably a good chunk of truthers out there haha.
A few years back I seem to remember them discovering that the ship had been on fire days before it struck the iceburg. Not sure if that’s still the prevailing theory, or if it’s been proven/debunked? But I think that was supposed to be why it sunk so fast – things that should have been watertight no longer were because of the coal fire.
It’s insane to me that people let children that age watch youtube. Pretty much everything directs to right wing nutter videos.
Fun fact, it wasn’t a door! It was actually a door frame.
This is more annoying to me than the “could he have fit?” How am I supposed to take any argument seriously when they don’t even know it’s not a door?
He could have fit, yes, but then their weight would have made it sink anyway. What they should have done was take turns.
Oh dang! New take!
That was really COLD water; I doubt either one would have had the strength to periodically pull themselves up.
the temperature of the water was supposedly around 28 º F, some, people were found frozen using vests, floating dead others died in the wreckage, and floated up. around 300 bodies were recovered, 1200 didn’t, 700 survived.
Lol, what? I didn’t know this was a thing. It’s strange that people try to rewrite the script to suit their needs, it’s a freaking movie! Plus, see how motivated you are after the trauma of almost drowning and being submerged in ice water.
My now husband and I saw this movie on our first date! The “could he or couldn’t he” question has been a source of intrigue for our entire relationship.
Oh man, this was a trip down memory lane. I remember all of the parodies that came out afterwards about it. Good times.
There have been Titanic triggers probably as early as the 1930’s. They believe that Titanic was switched with its sister ship Olympia in some insurance scheme by the White Star Line. There are others that believe the sinking ties in with the Federal Reserve and that John Jacob Astor and many other rich folks were the targets. Then there are the others who take Nazi Germany’s Titanic movie rather seriously and believe it had to do with a Jewish conspiracy.
I’m with James Cameron. Jack had to die. But it crushed my 20 year old soul when he did.
I didn’t get the headline first (English is not my first language), so I thought it was a referense to Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Like he couldn’t get his face through the door or something. Because in the picture with the shades, Jack Nicholson is all I see!