鐵達尼號 Titanic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then two faint lights appear, close together... growing brighter. They resolve into two DEEP SUBMERSIBLES, free-falling toward us like express elevators.

One is ahead of the other, and passes close enough to FILL FRAME, looking like a spacecraft blazing with lights, bristling with insectile manipulators.

INSIDE, it is a cramped seven foot sphere, crammed with equipment. ANATOLY MIKAILAVICH, the sub's pilot, sits hunched over his controls... singing softly in Russian.

On the other side, crammed into the remaining space is a bearded wide-body named LEWISBODINE, sho is also asleep. Lewis is an R.O.V. (REMOTELY OPERATED VEHICLE) pilot and is the resident Titanic expert.

A pale, dead-flat lunar landscape. It gets brighter, lit from above, as MIR ONE enters FRAME and drops to the seafloor in a downblast from its thrusters. It hits bottom after its two hour free-fall with a loud BONK.

TIGHT ON THE EYEPIECE MONITOR of a video camcorder. Brock Lovett's face fills the BLACK AND WHITE FRAME.

OUTSIDE THE SUB, the ROV, a small orange and black robot called SNOOP DOG, lifts from its cradle and flies forward.

Its lights play across the floor, revealing a champagne bottle, then some WHITE STAR LINE china... a woman's high-top "granny shoe". Then something eerie: what looks like a child's skull resolves into the porcelain head of a doll.

As the ROV deploys its MANIPULATOR ARMS and starts moving debris aside. A lamp is lifted, its ceramic colors as bright as they were in 1912.

In the glare of the lights, is the object of their quest: a small STEEL COMBINATION SAFE.

THE SAFE, dripping wet in the afternoon sun, is lowered onto the deck of a ship by a winch cable.

We are on the Russian research vessel AKADEMIK MISTISLAV KELDYSH. A crowd has gathered, including most of the crew of Keldysh, the sub crews, and a hand-wringing money guy named BOBBY BUELL who represents the limited partners. There is also a documentary video crew, hired by Lovett to cover his moment of glory.

Buell is on the satellite phone with the INVESTORS. Lovett is yelling at the video crew.

A CNN NEWS STORY: a live satellite feed from the deck of the Keldysh, intercut with the CNN studio.

PANNING to show a glassed-in studio attached to the house. Outside it is a quiet morning in Ojai, California. In the studio, amid incredible clutter, an ANCIENT WOMAN is throwing a pot on a potter's wheel. The liquid red clay covers her hands... hands that are gnarled and age-spotted, but still surprisingly strong and supple. A woman in her early forties assists her.

The old woman's name is ROSE CALVERT. Her face is a wrinkled mass, her body shapeless and shrunken under a one-piece African-print dress.

The younger soman, LIZZY CALVERT, rushes to help her.

The video camera pans off Brock to the drawing, in a tray of water. The image of the woman with the necklace FILLS FRAME.

ROSE is galvanized by this image. Her mouth hangs open in amazement.

SMASH CUT TO AN ENORMOUS SEA STALLION HELICOPTER thundering across the ocean. PAN 180 degrees as it roars past. There is no land at either horizon. The Keldysh is visible in the distance.

IN A THUNDERING DOWNBLAST the helicopter's wheels bounce down on the helipad.

Lovett, Buell and Bodine watch as the HELICOPTER CREW CHIEF hands out about ten suitcases, and then Rose is lowered to the deck in a wheelchair by Keldysh crewmen. Lizzy, ducking unnecessarily under the rotor, follows her out, carrying FREDDY the Pomeranian. The crew chief hands a puzzled Keldysh crewmember a goldfish bowl with several fish in it. Rose does not travel light.

Lizzy is unpacking Rose's things in the small utilitarian room. Rose is placing a number of FRAMED PHOTOS on the bureau, arranging them carefully next to the fishbowl. Brock and Bodine are in the doorway.

FLASHCUT of a man's eyes, just visible over the top of a sketching pad. They look up suddenly right into the LENS. Soft eyes, but fearlessly direct.

Rose picks up an ornate art-nouveau HAIR COMB. A jade butterfly takes flight on the ebony handle of the comb. She turns it slowly, remembering. We can see that Rose is experiencing a rush of images and emotions that have lain dormant for eight decades as she handles the butterfly comb.

It is a darkened room lined with TV monitors. IMAGES OF THE WRECK fill the screens, fed from Mir One and Two, and the two ROVs, Snoop Dog and DUNCAN.

Bodine starts a COMPUTER ANIMATED GRAPHIC on the screen, which parallels his rapid-fire narration.

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".

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.

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.

As the underwater camera rises past the rusted bow rail, WE DISSOLVE / MATCH MOVE to that same railing in 1912...

IN FOREGROUND a gorgeous burgundy RENAULT TOURING CAR swings into frame, hanging from a loading crane. It is lowered toward HATCH #2.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the middle of the table. Bills and coins from four counrties. This has been going on for a while. Sitting on top of the money are two 3RD CLASS TICKETS for RMS TITANIC.

Fabrizio runs back and grabs Jack, and they sprint toward the third class gangway aft, at E deck. They reach the bottom of the ramp just as SIXTH OFFICER MOODY detaches it at the top. It starts to swing down from the gangway doors.

Moody has QUARTERMASTER ROWE reattach the gangway. Jack and Fabrizio come aboard. Moody glances at the tickets, then passes Jack and Fabrizio through to Rowe. Rowe looks at the names on the tickets to enter them in the passenger list.

The mooring lines, as big around as a man's arm, are dropped into the water. A cheer goes up on the pier as SEVEN TUGS pull the Titanic away from the quay.

JACK AND FABRIZIO burst through a door onto the aft well deck. TRACKING WITH THEM as they run across the deck and up the steel stairs to the poop deck. They get to the rail and Jack starts to yell and wave to the crowd on the dock.

IN A LONG LENS SHOT the prow of Titanic FILLS FRAME behind the lead tug, which is dwarfed. The bow wave spreads before the mighty plow of the liner's hull as it moves down the River Test toward the English Channel.

They find their berth. It is a modest cubicle, painted enamel white, with four bunks. Exposed pipes overhead. The other two guys are already there. OLAUS and BJORN GUNDERSEN.

Entering the first class reception room from the tender are a number of prominent passengers. A BROAD-SHOULDERED WOMAN in an enormous feathered hat comes up the gangway, carrying a suitcase in each hand, a spindly porter running to catch up with her to take the bags.

At 45, MOLLY BROWN is a tough talking straightshooter who dresses in the finery of her genteel peers but will never be one of them.

ON THE BRIDGE, CAPTAIN SMITH turns from the binnacle to FIRSTOFFICER WILLIAMMURDOCH.

On the catwalk THOMAS ANDREWS, the shipbuilder, watches carefully as the engineers and greasers scramble to adjust valves. Towering above them are the twin RECIPROCATING engines, four stories tall, their ten-foot-long connecting rods surging up and down with the turning of the massive crankshafts. The engines thunder like the footfalls of marching giants.

The STOKERS chant a song as they hurl coal into the roaring furnaces. The "black gang" are covered with sweat and coal dust, their muscles working like part of the machinery as they toil in the hellish glow.

Smith accepts a cup of tea from FIFTH OFFICER LOWE. He contentedly watches the white V of water hurled outward from the bows like an expression of his own personal power. They are invulnerable, towering over the sea.

AT THE BOW Jack and Fabrizio lean far over, looking down.

THE CAMERA ARCS around them, until they are framed against the sea.

NOW WE PULL BACK, across the forecastle deck. Rising, as we continue back, and the ships rolls endlessly forward underneath. Over the bridge wing, along the boat deck until her funnels come INTO FRAME besides us and march past like the pillars of heaven, one by one. We pull back and up, until we are looking down the funnels, and the people strolling on the decks and standing at the rail become antlike.

He indicates a handsome 39 year old Irish gentlemen to his right, THOMAS ANDREWS, of Harland and Wolf Shipbuilders.

THE SKETCH captures them perfectly, with a great sense of the humanity of the moment. Jack is good. Really good. Fabrizio looks over Jack's shoulder. He nods appreciatively.

TOMMY RYAN, a scowling young Irish emigrant, watches as a crewmember comes by, walking three small dogs around the deck. One of them, a BLACK FRENCH BULLDOG, is among the ugliest creatures on the planet.

SLOWLY PUSHING IN ON ROSE as she sits, flanked by people in heated conversation. Cal and Ruth are laughing together, while on the other side LADY DUFF-GORDON is holding forth animatedly. We don't hear what they are saying. Rose is staring at her plate, barely listening to the inconsequential babble around her.

Hearing something, he turns as Rose runs up the stairs from the well deck. They are the only two on the stern deck, except for QUARTERMASTER ROWE, twenty feet above them on the docking bridge catwalk. She doesn't see Jack in the shadows, and runs right past him.

She plunges, letting out a piercing SHRIEK. Jack, gripping her hand, is jerked toward the rail. Rose barely grabs a lower rail with her free hand.

QUARTERMASTER ROWE, up on the docking bridge hears the scream and heads for the ladder.

Jack holds her hand with all his strength, bracing himself on the railing with his other hand. Rose tries to get some kind of foothold on the smooth hull. Jack tries to lift her bodily over the railing. She can't get any footing in her dress and evening shoes, and she slips back. Rose SCREAMS again.

A few minutes later. Jack is being detained by the burly MASTER AT ARMS, the closest thing to a cop on board. He is handcuffing Jack. Cal is right in front of Jack, and furious. He has obviously just rushed out here with Lovejoy and another man, and none of them have coats over their black tie evening dress. The other man is COLONEL ARCHIBALD GRACIE, a mustachioed blowhard who still has his brandy snifter. He offers it to Rose, who is hunched over crying on a bench nearby, but she waves it away. Cal is more concerned with Jack. He grabs him by the lapels.

CAMERA begins to TRACK IN ON ROSE. Closer and closer, during the following:

Finally, when Rose's eyes FILL FRAM, we MORPH SLOWLY to her eyes as the are now... transforming through 84 years of life...

Bodine starts the tape recorder. Rose is gazing at the screen seeing THE LIVE FEED FROM THE WRECK – SNOOP DOG is moving along the starboard side of the hull, heading aft. The rectangular windows of A deck (forward) march past on the right.

MATCH DISSOLVE from the rusting hulk to the gleaming new Titanic in 1912, passing the end of the enclosed promenade just as Rose walks into the sunlight right in front of us. She is stunningly dressed and walking with purpose.

IT IS SATURDAY APRIL 13, 1912. Rose unlatches the gate to go down into third class. The steerage men on the deck stop what they're doing and stare at her.

Three boys, shrieking and shouting, are scrambling around chasing a rat under the benches, trying to whomp it with a shoe and causing general havoc. Jack is playing with 5 year old CORA CARTMELL, drawing funny faces together in his sketchbook.

Fabrizio is struggling to get a conversation going with an attractive Norwegian girl, HELGA DAHL, sitting with her family at a table across the room.

The question is rhetorical because she has already grabbed the book. She sits on a deck chair and opens the sketchbook. ON JACK'S sketches... each one an expressive little bit of humanity: an old woman's hands, a sleeping man, a father and daughter at the rail. The faces are luminous and alive. His book is a celebration of the human condition.

Ruth is having tea with NOEL LUCY MARTHA DYER-EDWARDES, the COUNTESS OF ROTHES, a 35ish English blue-blood with patirician features. Ruth sees someone coming across the room and lowers her voice.

Ruth grits her teeth as the three of them head for the Grand Staircase to go up. TRACKING WITH THEM, as they cross the room, the SHOT HANDS OFF to Bruce Ismay and Captain Smith at another table.

DANIEL AND MARY MARVIN. Daniel is cranking the big wooden movie camera as she poses stiffly at the rail.

SUDDENLY Rose shoots into the shot and strikes a theatrical pose at the rail next to Mary. Mary bursts out laughing. Rose pulls Jack into the picture and makes him pose.

Marvin grins and starts yelling and gesturing. We see this in CUTS, with music and no dialogue.

They all jump as a BUGLER sounds the meal call right behind them.

A purple sky, shot with orange, in the west. Drifting strains of classic music. We TRACK WITH JACK along the deck. By Edwardian standards he looks badass. Dashing in his borrowed white-tie outfit, right down to his pearl studs.

CUT TO THE RECEPTION ROOM ON D-DECK, as the party descends to dinner. They encounter Molly Brown, looking good in a beaded dress, in her own busty broad-shouldered way. Molly grins when she sees Jack. As they are going into the dining saloon she walks next to him, speaking low:

SUNDAY APRIL 14, 1912. A bright clear day. Sunlight splashing across the promenade. Rose and Cal are having breakfast in silence. The tension is palpable. Trudy Bolt, in her maid's uniform, pours the coffee and goes inside.

T.W. McCAULEY, the gym instructor, is a bouncy little man in white flannels, eager to show off his modern equipment, like his present-day counterpart on an "Abflex" infomercial. He hits a switch and a machine with a saddle on it starts to undulate. Rose puts her hand on it, curious.

HAROLD BRIDE, the 21 year old Junior Wireless Operator, hustles in and skirts around Andrews' tour group to hand a Marconigram to Captain Smith.

Andrews scowls slightly before motioning the group toward the door. They exit just as SECOND OFFICER CHARLES HERBERT LIGHTOLLER comes out of the chartroom, stopping next to First Officer Murdoch.

A tabeau of MOTHER and DAUGHTER having tea. The four year old girl, wearing white gloves, daintily picking up a cookie. The mother correcting her on her posture, and the way she holds the teacup. The little girl is trying so hard to please, her expression serious. A glimpse of Rose at that age, and we see the relentless conditioning... the pain to becoming an Edwardian geisha.

TITANIC STEAMS TOWARD US, in the dusk light, as if lit by the embers of a giant fire. As the ship looms, FILLING FRAME, we push in on the bow. Jack is there, right at the apex of the bow railing, his favorite spot. He closes his eyes, letting the chill wind clear his head.

IN THE CROW'S NEST, high above and behind them, lookout FREDERICK FLEET nudges his mate, REGINALD LEE, pointing down at the figures in the bow.

Embracing at the bow rail, DISSOLVE SLOWLY AWAY, leaving the ruined bow of the WRECK –

OLD ROSE blinks, seeming to come back to the present. She sees the wreck on the screen, the sad ghost ship deep in the abyss.

Rose is ignoring this conversation. She has the art-nouveau comb with the jade butterfly on the handle in her hands, turning it slowly. She is watching a monitor, which shows the ruins of Suite B-52/56. PUSH IN until the image fills frame.

ON THE BUTTERFLY COMB as Rose draws it out of her hair. She shakes her head and her hair falls free around her shoulders.

PUSH SLOWLY IN ON ROSE'S FACE...

BACK TO 1912. Jack is signing the drawing. Rose, wearing her kimono again, is leaning on his shoulder, watching.

TITANIC glides across an unnatural sea, blakc and calm as a pool of oil. The ships lights are mirrored almost perfectly in the black water. The sky is brilliant with stars. A meteor traces a bright line across the heavens.

Captain Smith peers out at the blackness ahead of the ship. QUARTERMASTER HITCHINS brings him a cup of hot tea with lemon. It steams in the bitter cold of the open bridge. Second Officer Lightoller is next to him, staring out at the sheet of black glass the Atlantic has become.

She and Jack break into a run, surprising the few ladies and gentlemen about. Rose leads him past the stairs to the bank of elevators. They run into one, shocking the hell out of the OPERATOR.

They enter a roaring RAN ROOM, with no way out but a ladder going down. Jack latches the deadbolt on the door, and Lovejoy slams against it a moment later. Jack grins at Rose, pointing to the ladder.

They run through the open watertight door into BOILER ROOM SIX. Jack pulls her through the fiercely hot alley between two boilers and they wind up in the dark, out of sight of the working crew. Watching from the shadows, they see the stokers working in the hellish glow, shovelling coal into the insatiable maws of the furnaces. The whole place thunders with the roar of the fires.

They come upon William Carter's brand new RENAULT touring car, lashing down to a pallet. It looks like a royal coach from a fairy tale, its brass trim and headlamps nicely set off by its deep burgundy color.

A BRILLIANT ARC OF ELECTRICITY fills frame – the sparks gap of the Marconi instrument as SENIOR WIRELESS OPERATOR JACK PHILLIPS (24) rapidly keys out a message. Junior Operator Bride looks through the huge stack of outgoing messages swamping them.

Phillips start to receive an incoming message from a nearby ship, the Leyland frieghter CALIFORNIAN, which jams his outgoing signal. At such close range, the beeps are deafening.

Wireless Operater CYRIL EVANS pulls his earphone off his ear as the Titanic's spark deafens him. he translates the message for THIRD OFFICER GROVES.

As Evans wearily switches off his generator, Groves goes out on deck. PAN OFF Him to reveal the ship is stopped fifty yards from the edge of a field of pack ice and icebergs stretching as far as the eye can see.

The bow sweeps under us, and the CAMERA CLIMBS toward the foremast and the tiny half-cylinder of the crow's nest, which grows as we push in on lookouts Fleet and Lee. They are stamping their feet and swinging their arms, trying to keep warm in the 22 knot freezing wind, which whips capor of their breath away behind.

Without hearing hte words over the roar of the furnaces, we see stokers telling TWO STEWARDS which way Rose and Jack went. The stewards move off toward the forward holds.

UP ABOVE THEM, IN THE CROW'S NEST, lookout Fleet hears the disturbance below and looks around and back down to the well deck, where he can see two figures embracing.

Inside the enclosed wheelhous, SIXTH OFFICER MOODY walks unhurriedly to the telephone, picking it up.

CHIEF ENGINEER BELL is just checking the soup he has warming on a steam manifold when the engine telegraph clangs, then goes... incredibly... to FULL SPEED ASTERN. He and the other ENGINEERS just stare at it a second, unbelieving. Then Bell reacts.

Leading Stoker FREDERICK BARRETT is standing with 2nd Engineer JAMES HESKETH when the red warning light and "STOP" indicator come on.

 

Barret and Hesketh stagger as they hear the ROLLING THUNDER of the collision. They see the starboard side of the ship buckle in toward them and are almost swept off their feet by a rush of water coming in about two feet above the floor.

Hear the DOOR ALARM and scramble through the swirling water to the watertight door between Boiler Rooms 6 and 5. The room is full of water vapor as the cold sea strikes the red hot furnaces. Barrett yells to the stokers scrambling through the door as it comes down like a slow guillotine.