is calling up the file, he keeps talking.
BODINE
We've put together the world's largest database on the Titanic. Okay,
here...
LOVETT
Rose might not want to see this, Lewis.
ROSE
No, no. It's fine. I'm curious.
Bodine starts a COMPUTER ANIMATED GRAPHIC on the screen, which parallels his
rapid-fire narration.
BODINE
She hits the berg on the starboard side and it sort of bumps along...
punching holes like a morse code... dit dit dit, down the side. Now she's
flooding in the
BODINE (cont'd)
forward compartments... and the water spills over the tops of the bulkheads,
going aft. As her bow is going down, her stern is coming up... slow at
first... and then faster and faster until it's lifting all that weight,
maybe 20 or 30 thousand tons... out of the water and the hull can't deal...
so SKRTTT!!
(making a sound in time with the animation)
... it splits! Right down to the keel, which acts like a big hinge. Now the
bow swings down and the stern falls back level... but the weight of the bow
pulls the stern up vertical, and then the bow section detaches, heading for
the bottom. The stern bobs like a cork, floods and goes under about 2:20
a.m. Two hours and forty minutes after the collision.
The animation then follows the bow section as it sinks. Rose watches this
clinical dissection of the disaster without emotion.
BODINE
The bow pulls out of its dive and planes away, almost a half a mile, before
it hits the bottom going maybe 12 miles an hour. KABOOM!
The bow impacts, digging deeply into the bottom, the animation now follows
the stern.
BODINE
The stern implodes as it sinks, from the pressure, and rips apart from the
force of the current as it falls, landing like a big pile of junk.
(indicating the simulation)
Cool huh?
ROSE
Thank you for that fine forensic analysis, Mr. Bodine. Of course the
experience of it was somewhat less clinical.
LOVETT
Will you share it with us?
Her eyes go back to the screens, showing the sad ruins far below them.
A VIEW from one of the subs TRACKING SLOWLY over the boat deck. Rose
recognizes one of the Wellin davits, still in place. She hears ghostly waltz
music. The faint and echoing sound of an officer's voice, English accented,
calling "Women and children only".
30 FLASH CUTS of screaming faces in a running crowd. Pandemonium and terror.
People crying, praying, kneeling on the deck. Just impressions... flashes in
the dark.
31 Rose Looks at another monitor. SNOOP DOG moving down a rusted,
debris-filled corridor. Rose watches the endless row of doorways sliding
past, like dark mouths.
32 IMAGE OF A CHILD, three years old, standing ankle deep in water in the
middle of an endless corridor. The child is lost alone, crying.
33 Rose is shaken by the flood of memories and emotions. Her eyes well up
and she puts her head down, sobbing quietly.
LIZZY
(taking the wheelchair)
I'm taking her to rest.
ROSE
No!
Her voice is surprisingly strong. The sweet little old lady is gone,
replaced by a woman with eyes of steel. Lovett signals everyone to stay
quiet.
LOVETT
Tell us, Rose.
She looks from screen to screen, the images of the ruined ship.
ROSE
It's been 84 years...
LOVETT
Just tell us what you can--
ROSE
(holds up her hand for silence)
It's been 84 years... and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had
never been used. The sheets had never been slept in.
He switches on the minirecorder and sets it near her.
ROSE
Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams. And it was. It really was...
As the underwater camera rises past the rusted bow rail, WE DISSOLVE / MATCH
MOVE to that same railing in 1912...
MATCH DISSOLVE:
34 EXT. SOUTHAMPTON DOCK - DAY
SHOT CONTINUES IN A FLORIOUS REVEAL as the gleaming white superstructure of
Titanic rises mountainously beyond the rail, and above that the buff-colored
funnels stand against the sky like the pillars of a great temple. Crewmen
move across the deck, dwarfed by the awesome scale of the steamer.
Southampton, England, April 10, 1912. It is almost noon on ailing day. A
crowd of hundreds blackens the pier next to Titanic like ants on a jelly
sandwich.
IN FG a gorgeous burgundy RENAULT TOURING CAR swings into frame, hanging
from a loading crane. It is lowered toward HATCH #2.
On the pier horse drawn vehicles, motorcars and lorries move slowly through
the dense throng. The atmosphere is one of excitement and general giddiness.
People embrace in tearful farewells, or wave and shout bon voyage wishes to
friends and relatives on the decks above.
A white RENAULT, leading a silver-gray DAIMLER-BENZ, pushes through the
crowd leaving a wake in the press of people. Around the handsome cars people
are streaming to board the ship, jostling with hustling seamen and stokers,
porters, and barking WHITE STAR LINE officials.
The Renault stops and the LIVERIED DRIVER scurries to open the door for a
YOUNG WOMAN dressed in a stunning white and purple outfit, with an enormous
feathered hat. She is 17 years old and beautiful, regal of bearing, with
piercing eyes.
It is the girl in the drawing. ROSE. She looks up at the ship, taking it in
with cool appraisal.
ROSE
I don't see what all the fuss is about. It doesn't look any bigger than the
Mauritania.
A PERSONAL VALET opens the door on the other side of the car for CALEDON
HOCKLEY, the 30 year old heir to the elder Hockley's fortune. "Cal" is
handsome, arrogant and rich beyond meaning.
CAL
You can be blase about some things, Rose, but not about Titanic. It's over a
hundred feet longer than Mauritania, and far more luxurious. It has squash
courts, a Parisian cafe... even Turkish baths.
Cal turns and fives his hand to Rose's mother, RUTH DEWITT BUKATER, who
descends from the touring car being him. Ruth is a 40ish society empress,
from one of the most prominent Philadelphia families. She is a widow, and
rules her household with iron will.
CAL
Your daughter is much too hard to impress, Ruth.
(indicating a puddle)
Mind your step.
RUTH
(gazing at the leviathan)
So this is the ship they say is unsinkable.
CAL
It is unsinkable. God himself couldn't sink this ship.
Cal speaks with the pride of a host providing a special experience.
This entire entourage of rich Americans is impeccably turned out, a
quintessential example of the Edwardian upper class, complete with servants.
Cal's VALET, SPICER LOVEJOY, is a tall and impassive, dour as an undertaker.
Behind him emerge TWO MAIDS, personal servants to Ruth and Rose.
A WHITE STAR LINE PORTER scurries toward them, harried by last minute
loading.
PORTER
Sir, you'll have to check your baggage through the main terminal, round that
way--
Cal nonchalantly hands the man a fiver. The porter's eyes dilate. Five
pounds was a monster tip in those days.
CAL
I put my faith in you, good sir.
(MORE)
CAL (CONT'D)
(curtly, indicating Lovejoy)
See my man.
PORTER
Yes, sir. My pleasure, sir.
Cal never tires of the effect of money on the unwashed masses.
LOVEJOY
(to the porter)
These trunks here, and 12 more in the Daimler. We'll have all this lot up in
the rooms.
The White Star man looks stricken when he sees the enormous pile of steamer
trunks and suitcases loading down the second car, including wooden crates
and steel safe. He whistles frantically for some cargo-handlers nearby who
come running.
Cal breezes on, leaving the minions to scramble. He quickly checks his
pocket watch.
CAL
We'd better hurry. This way, ladies.
He indicates the way toward the first class gangway. They move into the
crowd. TRUDY BOLT, Rose's maid, hustles behind them, laden with bags of her
mistress's most recent purchases... things too delicate for the baggage
handlers.
Cal leads, weaving between vehicles and handcarts, hurrying passengers
(mostly second class and steerage) and well-wishers. Most of the first class
passengers are avoiding the smelly press of the dockside crowd by using an
elevated boarding bridge, twenty feet above.
They pass a line of steerage passengers in their coarse wool and tweeds,
queued up inside movable barriers like cattle in a chute. A HEALTH OFFICER
examines their heads one by one, checking scalp and eyelashes for lice.
They pass a well-dressed young man cranking the handle of a wooden Biograph
"cinematograph" camera mounted on a tripod. NANIEL MARVIN (whose father
founded the Biograph Film Studio) is filming his young bride in front of the
Titanic. MARY MARVIN stands stiffly and smiles, self conscious.
DANIEL
Look up at the ship, darling, that's it. You're amazed! You can't believe
how big it is! Like a mountain. That's great.
Mary Marvin, without an acting fiber in her body, does a bad Clara Bow
pantomime of awe, hands raised.
Cal is jostled by two yelling steerage boys who shove past him. And he is
bumped again a second later by the boys' father.
CAL
Steady!!
MAN
Sorry squire!
The Cockney father pushes on, after his kids, shouting.
CAL
Steerage swine. Apparently missed his annual bath.
RUTH
Honestly, Cal, if you weren't forever booking everything at the last
instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along
the dock like some squalid immigrant family.
CAL
All part of my charm, Ruth. At any rate, it was my darling fiancee's beauty
rituals which made us late.
ROSE
You told me to change.
CAL
I couldn't let you wear black on sailing day, sweetpea. It's bad luck.
ROSE
I felt like black.
Cal guides them out of the path of a horse-drawn wagon loaded down with two
tons of OXFORD MARMALADE, in wooden cases, for Titanic's Victualling
Department.
CAL
Here I've pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in
history, in her most luxurious suites... and you act as if you're going to
your execution.
Rose looks up as the hull of Titanic looms over them...a great iron wall,
Bible black and sever. Cal motions her forward, and she enters the gangway
to the D Deck doors with a sense of overwhelming dread.
OLD ROSE (V.O.)
It was the ship of dreams... to everyone else. To me it was a slave ship,
taking me back to America in chains.
CLOSE ON CAL'S HAND IN SLOW-MOTION as it closes possessively over Rose's
arm. He escorts her up the gangway and the black hull of Titanic swallows
them.
OLD ROSE (V.O.)
Outwardly I was everything a well brought up girl should be. Inside, I was
screaming.
35 CUT TO a SCREAMING BLAST from the mighty triple steam horns on Titanic's
funnels, bellowing their departure warning.
CUT TO:
36 EXT. SOUTHAMPTON DOCKS / TITANIC - DAY
A VIEW OF TITANIC from several blocks away, towering above the terminal
buildings like the skyline of a city. The steamer's whistle echoes across
Southampton.
PULL BACK, revealing that we were looking through a window, and back further
to show the smoky inside of a pub. It is crowded with dockworkers and ship;s
crew.
Just inside the window, a poker game is in progress. FOUR MEN, in working
class clothes, play a very serious hand.
JACK DAWSON and FABRIZIO DE ROSSI, both about 20, exchange a glance as the
other two players argue in Swedish. Jack is American, a lanky drifter with
his hair a little long for the standards of the times. He is also unshaven,
and his clothes are rumpled from sleeping in them. He is an artist, and has
adopted the bohemian style of art scene in Paris. He is also very
self-possessed and sure-footed for 20, having lived on his own since 15.
The TWO SWEDES continue their sullen argument, in Swedish.
OLAF
(subtitled)
You stupid fishhead. I can't believe you bet our tickets.
SVEN
(subtitled)
You lost our money. I'm just trying to get it back. Now shutup and take a
card.
JACK
(jaunty)
Hit me again, Sven.
Jack takes the card and slips it into his hand.
ECU JACK'S EYES. They betray nothing.
CLOSE ON FABRIZIO licking his lips nervously as he refuses a card.
