I'm so cold.
JACK
You're going to get out of this... you're going to go on and you're going to
make babies and watch them grow and you're going to die an old lady, warm in
your bed. Not here. Not this night. Do you understand me?
ROSE
I can't feel my body.
JACK
Rose, listen to me. Listen. Winning that ticket was the best thing that ever
happened to me.
Jack is having trouble getting the breath to speak.
JACK
It brought me to you. And I'm thankful, Rose. I'm thankful.
His voice is trembling with the cold which is working tis way to his heart.
But his eyes are unwavering.
JACK
You must do me this honor... promise me you will survive... that you will
never give up... no matter what happens... no matter how hopeless... promise
me now, and never let go of that promise.
ROSE
I promise.
JACK
Never let go.
ROSE
I promise. I will never let go, Jack. I'll never let go.
She grips his hand and they lie with their heads together. It is quiet now,
except for the lapping of the water.
CUT TO:
289 EXT. LIFEBOATS / OCEAN - NIGHT
Fifth Officer Lowe, the impetuous young Welshman, has gotten Boats 10, 12
and Collapsible D together with his own Boat 14. A demon of energy, he's had
everyone hold the boats together and is transferring passengers from 14 into
the others, to empty his boat for a rescue attempt.
As the women step gingerly across the other boats, Lowe sees a shawled
figure in too much of a hurry. He rips the shawl off, and finds himself
staring into the face of a man. He angrily shoves the stowaway into another
boat and turns to his crew of three.
LOWE
Right, man the oars.
CUT TO:
290 EXT. OCEAN / BOAT 14
The beam of an electric torch plays across the water like a searchlight as
boat 14 comes toward us.
ANGLE FROM THE BOAT as the torch illuminates floating debris, a poignant
trail of flotsam: a violin, a child's wooden soldier, a framed photo of a
steerage family. Daniel Marvin's wooden Biograph camera.
Then, their white lifebelts bobbing in the darkness like signposts, the
first bodies come into the torch's beam. The people are dead but not
drowned, killed by the freezing water. Some look like they could be
sleeping. Others stare with frozen eyes at the stars.
Soon bodies are so thick the seamen cannot row. They hit the oars on the
heads of floating men and women... a wooden trunk. One seaman throws up.
Lowe sees a mother floating with her arms frozen around her lifeless baby.
LOWE
(the worst moment of his life)
We waited too long.
CUT TO:
291 EXT. OCEAN
IN A HOVERING DOWNANGLE we see Jack and Rose floating in the black water.
The stars reflect in the mill pond surface, and the two of them seem to be
floating in interstellar space. They are absolutely still. Their hands are
locked together. Rose is staring upwards at the canopy of stars wheeling
above her. The music is transparent, floating... as the long sleep steals
over Rose, and she feels peace.
CLOSE ON Rose's face. Pale, like the faces of the dead. She seems to be
floating in a void. Rose is in a semi-hallucinatory state. She knows she is
dying. Her lips barely move as she sings a scrap of Jack's song:
ROSE
"Come Josephine in my flying machine..."
ROSE'S POV: The stars. Like you've never seen them. The Milky Way a glorious
band from horizon to horizon.
A SHOOTING STAR flares... a line of light across the heavens.
TIGHT ON ROSE again. We see that her hair is dusted with frost crystals. Her
breathing is so shallow, she is almost motionless. Her eyes track down from
the stars to the water.
ROSE'S POV... SLOW MOTION: The silhouette of a boat crossing the stars. She
sees men in it, rowing so slowly the oars lift out of the syrupy water,
leaving weightless pearls floating in the air. The VOICES of the men sound
slow and DISTORTED.
Then the lookout flashes his torch toward her and the light flares across
the water, silhouetting the bobbing corpses in between. It flicks past her
motionless form and moves on. The boat is 50 feet away, and moving past her.
The men look away.
Rose lifts her head to turn to Jack. We see that her hair has frozen to the
wood under her.
ROSE
(barely audible)
Jack.
She touches his shoulder with her free hand. He doesn't respond. Rose gently
turns his face toward her. It is rimed with frost.
He seems to be sleeping peacefully.
But he is not asleep.
Rose can only stare at his still face as the realization goes through her.
ROSE
Oh, Jack.
All hope, will and spirit leave her. She looks at the boat. It is further
away now, the voices fainter. Rose watches them go.
She closes her eyes. She is so weak, and there just seems to be no reason to
even try.
And then... her eyes snap open.
She raises her head suddenly, cracking the ice as she rips her hair off the
wood. She calls out, but her voice is so weak they don't hear her. The boat
is invisible now, the torch light a star impossibly far away. She struggles
to draw breath, calling again.
292 IN THE BOAT Lowe hears nothing behind him. He points to something ahead,
turning the tiller.
293 ROSE struggles to move. Her hand, she realizes, is actually frozen to
Jack's. She breaths on it, melting the ice a little, and gently unclasps
their hands, breaking away a thin tinkling film.
ROSE
I won't let go. I promise.
She releases him and he sinks into the black water. He seems to fade out
like a spirit returning to some immaterial plane.
Rose rolls off the floating staircase and plunges into the icy water. She
swims to Chief Officer Wilde's body and grabs his whistle. She starts to
BLOW THE WHISTLE with all the strength in her body. Its sound slaps across
the still water.
294 IN BOAT 14 Lowe whips around at the sound of the whistle.
LOWE
(turning the tiller)
Row back! That way! Pull!
Rose keeps blowing as the boat comes to her. She is still blowing when Lowe
takes the whistle from her mouth as they haul her into the boat. She slips
into unconsciousness and they scramble to cover her with blankets...
DISSOLVE TO:
295 INT. IMAGING SHACK / KELDYSH
EXTREME CLOSEUP of Rose's ancient, wrinkled face. Present day.
OLD ROSE
Fifteen hundred people went into the sea when Titanic sank from under us.
There were twenty boats floating nearby and only one came back. One. Six
were saved from the water, myself included. Six out of fifteen hundred.
As she speaks THE CAMERA TRACKS slowly across the faces of Lizzy and the
salvage crew on KELDYSH. Lovett, Bodine, Buell, the others... the reality of
what happened here 84 years before has hit them like never before. With her
story Rose has put them on Titanic in its final hours, and or the first
time, they do feel like graverobbers.
Lovett, for the first time, has even forgotten to ask about the diamond.
OLD ROSE
Afterward, the seven hundred people in the boats had nothing to do but
wait... wait to die, wait to live, wait for an absolution which would never
come.
DISSOLVE TO:
296 EXT. LIFEBOATS / OPEN SEA - PRE-DAWN
MATCHING MOVE as the camera tracks along the faces of the saved.
DISSOLVE TO: ANOTHER BOAT, and then ANOTHER, seeing faces we know among the
survivors: Ismay in a trance, just staring and trembling... Cal, sipping
from a hip flask offered to him by a black-faced stoker... Ruth hugging
herself, rocking gently.
IN BOAT 14: CLOSE ON ROSE, lying swaddled. Only her face is visible, white as
the moon. The man next to her jumps up, pointing and yelling. Soon everyone
is looking and shouting excitedly. In Rose's POV it is all silent, SLOW
MOTION.
IN SLOW-MOTION SILENCE we see Lowe light a green flare and wave it as
everyone shouts and cheers. Rose doesn't react. She floats beyond all human
emotion.
DISSOLVE TO:
298 EXT. LIFEBOATS / OPEN SEA - DAWN
Golden light washes across the white boats, which gloat in a calm sea
reflecting the rosy sky. All around them, like a flotilla of sailing ships,
are icebergs. The CARPATHIA sits nearby, as boats row toward her.
DISSOLVE TO:
299 EXT. LIFEBOATS / OCEAN / CARPATHIA MONTAGE - DAY
IMAGES DISSOLVE into one another: a ship's hull looming, with the letters
CARPATHIA visible on the bow... Rose watching, rocked by the sea, her face
blank... seamen helping survivors up the rope ladder to the Carpathia's
gangway doors... two women crying and hugging each other inside the ship...
ALL SILENT, ALL IN SLOW-MOTION. There is just music, so gentle and sad, part
elegy, part hymn, part aching song of love lost forever.
THE IMAGES CONTINUE to music... Rose, outside of time, outside of herself,
coming into Carpathia, barely able to stand... Rose being draped with warm
blankets and given hot tea... BRUCE ISMAY climbing aboard. He has the face
and eyes of a damned soul.
As Ismay walks along the hall, guided by a crewman toward the doctor's
cabin, he passes rows of seated and standing widows. He must run the
gauntlet of their accusing gazes.
CUT TO:
300 EXT. DECK / CARPATHIA - DAY
It is the afternoon of the 15th. Cal is searching the faces of the widows
lining the deck, looking for Rose. The deck of Carpathia is crammed with
huddled people, and even the recovered lifeboats of Titanic. On a hatch
cover sits an enormous pile of lifebelts.
He keeps walking toward the stern. Seeing Cal's tuxedo, a steward approaches
him.
CARPATHIA STEWARD
You won't find any of your people back here, sir. It's all steerage.
Cal ignores him and goes amongst this wrecked group, looking under shawls
and blankets at one bleak face after another.
Rose is sipping hot tea. Her eyes focus on him as he approaches her. He
barely recognizes her. She looks like a refugee, her matted hair hanging in
her eyes.
ROSE
Yes, I lived. How awkward for you.
CAL
Rose... your mother and I have been looking for you--
She holds up her hand, stopping him.
ROSE
Please don't. Don't talk. Just listen. We will make a deal, since that is
something you understand. From this moment you do not exist for me, nor I
for you. You shall not see me again. And you will not attempt to find me. In
return I will keep my silence. Your actions last night need never come to
light, and you will get to keep the honor you have carefully purchased.
She fixes him with a glare as cold and hard as the ice which changed their
lives.
ROSE
Is this in any way unclear?
CAL
(after a long beat)
What do I tell your mother?
ROSE
Tell her that her daughter died with the Titanic.
She stands, turning to the rail. Dismissing him. We see Cal stricken with
emotion.
CAL
You're precious to me, Rose.
ROSE
Jewels are precious. Goodbye, Mr. Hockley.
We see that in his way, the only way he knows, he does truly love her.
After a moment, he turns and walks away.
OLD ROSE (V.O.)
That was the last time I ever saw him. He married, of course, and inherited
his millions. The crash of 28 hit his interests hard, and he put a pistol in
his mouth that year. His children fought over the scraps of his estate like
hyenas, or so I read.
301 ANGLE ON ROSE, at the railing of the Carpathia, 9pm April 18th. She
gazes up at the Statue of Liberty, looking just as it does today, welcoming
her home with her glowing torch. It is just as Fabrizio saw it, so clearly,
in his mind.
302 LATER CARPATHIA DISGORGES THE SURVIVORS at the Cunard pier, Pier 54.
Over 30,000 people line the dock and fill the surrounding streets. The
magnesium flashes of the photographers go off like small bombs, lighting an
amazing tableau.
Several hundred police keep the mob back. The dock is packed with friends
and relatives, officials, ambulances, and the press--
Reporters and photographers swarm everywhere... 6 deep at the foot of the
gangways, lining the tops of cars and trucks... it is the 1912 equivalent of
a media circus. They jostle to get close to the survivors, tugging on them
as they pass and shouting over each other to ask them questions.
Rose is covered with a woollen shawl and walking with a group of steerage
passengers. Immigration officers are asking them questions as they come off
the gangway.
IMMIGRATION OFFICER
Name?
ROSE
Dawson. Rose Dawson.
The officer steers her toward a holding area for processing. Rose walks
forward with the dazed immigrants. The BOOM! of photographer's magnesium
flashes cause them to flinch, and the glare is blinding. There is a sudden
