title: Mel Gibson

text: While a student at NIDA, Gibson made his film debut in the 1977 film "Summer City", for which he was paid $400. Gibson then played the title character in the film "Mad Max" (1979). He was paid $15,000 for this role. Shortly after making the film he did a season with the South Australian Theatre Company. During this period he shared a $30 a week apartment in Adelaide with his future wife Robyn. After "Mad Max", Gibson also played a mentally slow youth in the film "Tim" (also 1979). During this period Gibson also appeared in Australian television series guest roles. He appeared in serial "The Sullivans" as naval lieutenant Ray Henderson, in police procedural "Cop Shop", and in the pilot episode of prison serial "Punishment" which was produced in 1980, screened 1981.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson joined the cast of the World War II action film "Attack Force Z", which was not released until 1982 when Gibson had become a bigger star. Director Peter Weir cast Gibson as one of the leads in the World War I drama "Gallipoli" (1981), which earned Gibson another Best Actor Award from the Australian Film Institute. "Gallipoli" also helped to earn Gibson the reputation of a serious, versatile actor and gained him the Hollywood agent Ed Limato. The sequel "Mad Max 2" (1982) was his first hit in America, where it was released as "The Road Warrior". Gibson again received positive notices for his role in Peter Weir's romantic thriller "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982). Following a one-year hiatus from film acting after the birth of his twin sons, Gibson took on the role of Fletcher Christian in "The Bounty" (1984). Gibson earned his first million dollar salary for playing Max Rockatansky for the third time, in "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" (1985).


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson's first American film was Mark Rydell's drama "The River" (1984), in which he and Sissy Spacek played struggling Tennessee farmers. Gibson then starred in the Gothic romance "Mrs. Soffel" (also 1984) for Australian director Gillian Armstrong. He and Matthew Modine played condemned convict brothers opposite Diane Keaton as the warden's wife who visits them to read the Bible. In 1985, after working on four films in a row, Gibson took almost two years off at his Australian cattle station. He returned to play the role of Martin Riggs in "Lethal Weapon" (1987), a film which helped to cement his status as a Hollywood "leading man". Gibson's next film was Robert Towne's "Tequila Sunrise" (1988), followed by "Lethal Weapon 2" (1989). Gibson next starred in three films back-to-back, all released in 1990: "Bird on a Wire", "Air America", and "Hamlet".


title: Mel Gibson

text: During the 1990s, Gibson alternated between commercial and personal projects. His films in the first half of the decade were "Forever Young", "Lethal Weapon 3", "Maverick", and "Braveheart". He then starred in "Ransom", "Conspiracy Theory", "Lethal Weapon 4", and "Payback". Gibson also served as the speaking and singing voice of John Smith in Disney's "Pocahontas".


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson was paid a record salary of $25 million to appear in "The Patriot" (2000). It grossed over $100 million, as did two other films he featured in that year, "Chicken Run" and "What Women Want". In 2002, Gibson appeared in the Vietnam War drama "We Were Soldiers" and M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs", which became the highest-grossing film of Gibson's acting career. While promoting "Signs", Gibson said that he no longer wanted to be a movie star and would only act in film again if the script were truly extraordinary. In 2010, Gibson appeared in "Edge of Darkness", which marked his first starring role since 2002 and was an adaptation of the BBC miniseries, "Edge of Darkness". In 2010, following an outburst at his ex-girlfriend that was made public, Gibson was dropped from the talent agency of William Morris Endeavor.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson also played two villains: Luther Voz in "Machete Kills" in 2013, opposite Danny Trejo, and Conrad Stonebanks in "The Expendables 3" opposite Sylvester Stallone in 2014.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson appeared in the lead role of director S. Craig Zahler's police brutality-themed film "Dragged Across Concrete", released in 2018. He then starred in "The Professor and the Madman" – he and the director both disowned the film.


title: Mel Gibson

text: After his success in Hollywood with the "Lethal Weapon" series, Gibson began to move into producing and directing. With partner Bruce Davey, Gibson formed Icon Productions in 1989 in order to make "Hamlet". In addition to producing or co-producing many of Gibson's own star vehicles, Icon has turned out many other small films, ranging from "Immortal Beloved" to "An Ideal Husband". Gibson has taken supporting roles in some of these films, such as "The Million Dollar Hotel" and "The Singing Detective". Gibson has also produced a number of projects for television, including a biopic on the Three Stooges and the 2008 PBS documentary "Carrier". Icon has grown from being just a production company to also be an international distribution company and film exhibitor in Australia and New Zealand.


title: Mel Gibson

text: In June 2010, Gibson was in Brownsville, Texas, filming scenes for the film "How I Spent My Summer Vacation", about a career criminal put in a tough prison in Mexico. In October 2010, it was reported that Gibson would have a small role in "The Hangover Part II", but he was removed from the film after the cast and crew objected to his involvement.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson has credited his directors, particularly George Miller, Peter Weir, and Richard Donner, with teaching him the craft of filmmaking and influencing him as a director. According to Robert Downey Jr., studio executives encouraged Gibson in 1989 to try directing, an idea he rebuffed at the time. Gibson made his directorial debut in 1993 with "The Man Without a Face", followed two years later by "Braveheart", which earned Gibson the Academy Award for Best Director. Gibson had long planned to direct a remake of "Fahrenheit 451", but in 1999 the project was indefinitely postponed because of scheduling conflicts. Gibson was scheduled to direct Robert Downey Jr. in a Los Angeles stage production of "Hamlet" in January 2001, but Downey's drug relapse ended the project. In 2002, while promoting "We Were Soldiers" and "Signs" to the press, Gibson mentioned that he was planning to pare back on acting and return to directing. In September 2002, Gibson announced that he would direct a film called "The Passion" in Aramaic and Latin with no subtitles because he hoped to "transcend language barriers with filmic storytelling." In 2004, he released the controversial film "The Passion of the Christ", with subtitles, which he co-wrote, co-produced, and directed. The film went on to become the highest-grossing rated R film at the time with $370,782,930 in U.S. box office sales. Gibson directed a few episodes of "Complete Savages" for the ABC network. In 2006, he directed the action-adventure film "Apocalypto", his second film to feature sparse dialogue in a non-English language. In November 2016, film critic Matt Zoller Seitz named Gibson as "the pre-eminent religious filmmaker in the United States".


title: Mel Gibson

text: As a director, Gibson sometimes breaks the tension on set by having his actors perform serious scenes wearing a red clown nose. Helena Bonham Carter, who appeared alongside him in "Hamlet", said of him, "He has a very basic sense of humor. It's a bit lavatorial and not very sophisticated." During the filming of "Hamlet", Gibson would relieve pressure on the set by mooning the cast and crew, directly following a serious scene. Gibson inserted a single frame of himself smoking a cigarette into the 2005 teaser trailer of "Apocalypto".


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson has expressed an intention to direct a movie set during the Viking Age, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Like "The Passion of the Christ" and "Apocalypto", he wants this speculative film to feature dialogue in period languages. However, DiCaprio ultimately opted out of the project. In a 2012 interview, Gibson announced that the project, which he has titled "Berserker", was still moving forward.


title: Mel Gibson

text: In 2011, it was announced that Gibson had commissioned a screenplay from Joe Eszterhas about the Maccabees. The film is to be distributed by Warner Brothers Pictures. The announcement generated significant controversy. In April 2012, Eszterhas wrote a letter to Gibson accusing him of sabotaging their film about the Maccabees because he "hates Jews", and cited a series of private incidents during which he allegedly heard Gibson express extremely racist views. Although written as a private letter, it was subsequently published on a film industry website. In response, Gibson stated that he still intends to make the film, but will not base it upon Eszterhas's script, which he called substandard. Eszterhas then claimed his son had secretly recorded a number of Gibson's alleged "hateful rants". In a 2012 interview, Gibson explained that the Maccabees film was still in preparation. He explained that he was drawn to the Biblical account of the uprising due to its similarity to the American Old West genre.


title: Mel Gibson

text: In June 2016, Gibson announced that he will reunite with "Braveheart" screenwriter Randall Wallace to make a sequel for "The Passion of the Christ", focusing on the resurrection of Jesus. In early November 2016, Gibson revealed on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" that the sequel's title will be "The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection". He also stated that the project could "probably be three years off" because "it's a big subject".


title: Mel Gibson

text: In May 2018, it was announced that Gibson would be directing a WWII film titled "Destroyer". "Destroyer", similar to "Hacksaw Ridge", will also deal with the Battle of Okinawa in the Pacific Theater, although from a different front. It will be based on the heroic story of the crew belonging to USS "Laffey" (DD-724), who defended their ship from 22 kamikaze attacks.


title: Mel Gibson

text: As of 2019, Gibson's cancelled projects included a Richard Donner–helmed film with the working title "Sam and George".


title: Mel Gibson

text: After the death of "Lethal Weapon" director Richard Donner, Gibson has stated that he will direct, and also star, in a "Lethal Weapon 5".


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson's screen acting career began in 1976, with a role on the Australian television series "The Sullivans". In his career, Gibson has appeared in 43 films, including the "Mad Max" and "Lethal Weapon" film series. In addition to acting, Gibson has also directed four films, including "Braveheart" and "The Passion of the Christ"; produced 11 films; and written two films. Films either starring or directed by Mel Gibson have earned over US$2.5 billion, in the United States alone. Gibson's filmography includes television series, feature films, television films, and animated films.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson got his breakthrough role as the leather-clad post-apocalyptic survivor in George Miller's "Mad Max". The independently financed blockbuster helped to make him an international star. In the United States, the actors' Australian accents were dubbed with American accents. The original film spawned two sequels: "Mad Max 2" (known in North America as "The Road Warrior") and "Mad Max 3" (known in North America as "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome"). A fourth movie, "" (2015), was made with Tom Hardy in the title role.


title: Mel Gibson

text: The 1981 Peter Weir film "Gallipoli" is about a group of young men from rural Western Australia who enlist in the Australian Imperial Force during World War I. They are sent to invade the Ottoman Empire, where they take part in the 1915 Gallipoli campaign. During the course of the movie, the young men slowly lose their innocence about the war. The climax of the movie centers on the catastrophic Australian offensive known as the Battle of the Nek.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Peter Weir cast Gibson in the role of Frank Dunne, an Irish-Australian drifter with an intense cynicism about fighting for the British Empire. Newcomer Mark Lee was recruited to play the idealistic Archy Hamilton after participating in a photo session for the director. Gibson later recalled:


title: Mel Gibson

text: I'd auditioned for an earlier film and he told me right up front, "I'm not going to cast you for this part. You're not old enough. But thanks for coming in, I just wanted to meet you." He told me he wanted me for "Gallipoli" a couple of years later because I wasn't the archetypal Australian. He had Mark Lee, the angelic-looking, ideal Australian kid, and he wanted something of a modern sensibility. He thought the audience needed someone to relate to of their own time.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson later said that "Gallipoli" is, "Not really a war movie. That's just the backdrop. It's really the story of two young men."


title: Mel Gibson

text: The critically acclaimed film helped to further launch Gibson's career. He won the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role from the Australian Film Institute.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson played a naïve but ambitious journalist opposite Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt in Peter Weir's atmospheric 1982 film "The Year of Living Dangerously", based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Koch. The movie was both a critical and commercial success, and the upcoming Australian actor was heavily marketed by MGM studio. In his review of the film, Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" wrote, "If this film doesn't make an international star of Mr. Gibson, then nothing will. He possesses both the necessary talent and the screen presence." According to John Hiscock of "The Daily Telegraph", the film did, indeed, establish Gibson as an international talent.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson was initially reluctant to accept the role of Guy Hamilton. "I didn't necessarily see my role as a great challenge. My character was, like the film suggests, a puppet. And I went with that. It wasn't some star thing, even though they advertised it that way." Gibson saw some similarities between himself and the character of Guy. "He's not a silver-tongued devil. He's kind of immature and he has some rough edges and I guess you could say the same for me."


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson followed the footsteps of Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, and Marlon Brando by starring as Fletcher Christian in a cinematic retelling of the Mutiny on the "Bounty". The resulting 1984 film "The Bounty" is considered to be the most historically accurate version. However, Gibson has expressed a belief that the film's revisionism did not go far enough. He has stated that his character should have been portrayed as the film's antagonist. He has further praised Anthony Hopkins's performance as Lieutenant William Bligh as the best aspect of the film.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson moved into more mainstream commercial filmmaking with the popular action comedy film series "Lethal Weapon", which began with the 1987 original. In the films he played LAPD Detective Martin Riggs, a recently widowed Vietnam veteran with a death wish and a penchant for violence and gunplay. In the films, he is partnered with a reserved family man named Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) and starting with the second film, they're joined by a hyperactive informant named Leo Getz (Joe Pesci). Following the success of "Lethal Weapon", director Richard Donner and principal cast revisited the characters in three sequels, "Lethal Weapon 2" (1989), "Lethal Weapon 3" (1993), and "Lethal Weapon 4" (1998). With its fourth installment, the "Lethal Weapon" series embodied "the quintessence of the buddy cop pic".


title: Mel Gibson

text: The film series has since been rebooted with a television adaptation, which aired for three seasons on FOX.


title: Mel Gibson

text: On November 15, 2021, Gibson confirmed that he will direct the fifth "Lethal Weapon" film following the death of director Richard Donner. "The man who directed all the 'Lethal films', Richard Donner, he was a big guy. He was developing the screenplay and he got pretty far along with it. And he said to me one day, 'Listen kid, if I kick the bucket you will do it.' And I said: 'Shut up.' But he did indeed pass away. But he did ask me to do it and at the time I didn't say anything. He said it to his wife and to the studio and the producer. So I will be directing the fifth one" Gibson said.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson made the unusual transition from action to classical drama, playing William Shakespeare's Danish prince in Franco Zeffirelli's "Hamlet". Gibson was cast alongside experienced Shakespearean actors Ian Holm, Alan Bates, and Paul Scofield. He compared working with Scofield to being "thrown into the ring with Mike Tyson". Scofield said of Gibson "Not the sort of actor you'd think would make an ideal Hamlet, but he had enormous integrity and intelligence."


title: Mel Gibson

text: In 1995, Gibson directed, produced, and starred in "Braveheart", a biographical film of Sir William Wallace, a Scottish nationalist who was executed in 1305 for "high treason" against King Edward I of England. Gibson received two Academy Awards, Best Director and Best Picture, for his second directorial effort. In winning the Academy Award for Best Director, Gibson became only the sixth actor-turned-filmmaker to do so. "Braveheart" influenced the Scottish nationalist movement and helped to revive the film genre of the historical epic; the Battle of Stirling Bridge sequence is considered by critics to be one of the all-time best-directed battle scenes.


title: Mel Gibson

text: The film's depiction of the Prince of Wales as an effeminate homosexual caused the film to be attacked by the Gay Alliance. The Gay Alliance was especially enraged by a scene in which King Edward I murders his son's male lover by throwing him out of a castle window.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson, who had previously been reported making several homophobic statements, now replied, "The fact that King Edward throws this character out a window has nothing to do with him being gay ... He's terrible to his son, to everybody."


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson asserted that the reason that King Edward I kills his son's lover is because the king is a "psychopath". Gibson also expressed bewilderment that some filmgoers laughed at this murder:


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson directed, produced, co-wrote, and funded the film "The Passion of the Christ" (2004), which chronicled the passion and death of Jesus (Jim Caviezel). The film was shot exclusively in Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew. Gibson originally intended to release the film without subtitles, but eventually relented for theatrical exhibition. The film sparked divergent reviews, ranging from high praise to criticism of the violence. The Anti-Defamation League accused Gibson of anti-semitism over the film's unflattering depiction of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.


title: Mel Gibson

text: In "The Nation", reviewer Katha Pollitt wrote: "Gibson has violated just about every precept of the (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) conference's own 1988 'Criteria' for the portrayal of Jews in dramatizations of the Passion (no bloodthirsty Jews, no rabble, no use of Scripture that reinforces negative stereotypes of Jews, etc.) ... The priests have big noses and gnarly faces, lumpish bodies, yellow teeth; Herod Antipas and his court are a bizarre collection of oily-haired, epicene perverts. The 'good Jews' look like Italian movie stars (Magdalene actually is an Italian movie star, the lovely Monica Bellucci); Mary, who would have been around 50 and appeared 70, could pass for a ripe 35."


title: Mel Gibson

text: Among those to defend Gibson were Orthodox Jewish rabbi Daniel Lapin and radio personality Michael Medved. Referring to ADL National Director Abraham Foxman, Rabbi Lapin said that by calling "The Passion of the Christ" anti-semitic, "what he is saying is that the only way (for Christians) to escape the wrath of Foxman is to repudiate (their own) faith."


title: Mel Gibson

text: In an interview with "The Globe and Mail", Gibson stated: "If anyone has distorted Gospel passages to rationalize cruelty towards Jews or anyone, it's in defiance of repeated Papal condemnation. The Papacy has condemned racism in any form... Jesus died for the sins of all times, and I'll be the first on the line for culpability".


title: Mel Gibson

text: Eventually, the continued media attacks began to anger Gibson. After Hutton Gibson's Holocaust denial was used to attack his son's film in print by "The New York Times" writer Frank Rich, an enraged Mel Gibson retorted, "I want to kill him. I want his intestines on a stick... I want to kill his dog."


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson's Traditionalist Catholic upbringing was also the target of criticism. In a 2006 interview with Diane Sawyer, Gibson stated that he feels that his "human rights were violated" by the often vitriolic attacks on his person, his family, and his religious beliefs which were sparked by "The Passion".


title: Mel Gibson

text: The film grossed US$611,899,420 worldwide and $370,782,930 in the U.S. alone, surpassing any motion picture starring Gibson. In U.S. box offices, it became the seventh-highest-grossing (at the time) film in history and the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards and won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Dramatic Motion Picture.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson received further critical acclaim for his directing of the 2006 action-adventure film "Apocalypto". Gibson's fourth directorial effort is set in Mesoamerica during the early 16th century against the turbulent end times of a Maya civilization. The sparse dialogue is spoken in the Yucatec Maya language by a cast of Native American descent.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson himself has stated that the film is an attempt at making a deliberate point about great civilizations and what causes them to decline and disintegrate. Gibson said, "People think that modern man is so enlightened, but we're susceptible to the same forces—and we are also capable of the same heroism and transcendence." This theme is further explored by a quote from Will Durant, which is superimposed at the very beginning of the film: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson starred in "The Beaver", a domestic drama about a depressed alcoholic directed by former "Maverick" costar Jodie Foster. "The Beaver" premiered at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas on March 16, 2011. The opening weekend in 22 theaters was considered a flop; it made $104,000 which comes to a per-theater average of $4,745. The film's distributor, Summit Entertainment, had originally planned for a wide release of "The Beaver" for the weekend of May 20, but after the initial box-office returns for the film, the company changed course and decided instead to give the film a "limited art-house run". Michael Cieply of "The New York Times" observed on June 5, 2011, that the film had cleared just about $1 million, making it a certified "flop". Director Jodie Foster opined that the film did not do well with American audiences because it was a dramedy, and "very often Americans are not comfortable with [that]".


title: Mel Gibson

text: Before its release, much of the coverage focussed on the unavoidable association between the protagonist's issues and Mel Gibson's own well-publicized personal and legal problems (see ), including a conviction of battery of his ex-girlfriend. Wrote "Time" magazine, ""The Beaver" is a somber, sad domestic drama featuring an alcoholic in acute crisis ... It's hard to separate Gibson's true-life story from what's happening onscreen."


title: Mel Gibson

text: In 2014, Gibson signed on to direct "Hacksaw Ridge", a World War II drama based on the true story of conscientious objector Desmond T. Doss, played by Andrew Garfield. The film premiered at the 73rd Venice Film Festival in September 2016 and received what "The New Zealand Herald" calls "rave reviews". It has won or been nominated for many awards, including Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture, Best Director for Gibson, and Best Actor for Garfield. "Hacksaw Ridge" was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Film Editing. The film grossed $164 million worldwide, four times its production costs.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson met Robyn Denise Moore in the late 1970s, soon after filming "Mad Max", in Adelaide, South Australia. At the time, Robyn was a dental nurse and Mel was an unknown actor working for the South Australian Theatre Company. On June 7, 1980, Mel and Robyn were married in a Catholic church in Forestville, New South Wales. They have one daughter, Hannah (b. 1980), and six sons: Edward (b. 1982), Christian (b. 1982), William (b. 1985), Louis (b. 1988), Milo (b. 1990), and Thomas (b. 1999); and three grandchildren .


title: Mel Gibson

text: After 26 years of marriage, Gibson and Robyn separated on July 29, 2006. In a 2011 interview, Gibson stated that the separation began the day following his arrest for drunk driving in Malibu. Robyn Gibson filed for divorce on April 13, 2009, citing irreconcilable differences. In a joint statement, the Gibsons declared, "Throughout our marriage and separation we have always striven to maintain the privacy and integrity of our family and will continue to do so." The divorce filing followed the March 2009 release of photographs appearing to show him on a beach embracing Russian songwriter and pianist Oksana Grigorieva.


title: Mel Gibson

text: In a 2010 interview, Grigorieva stated that, when she first began being wooed by Gibson, the actor-director and his wife had been separated for more than 18 months. Grigorieva added, “He wrote me a lot of poetry. It was very beautiful, impressionistic, like an edgy, modern iambic pentameter. Mel has a really good grasp of language, he’s fantastic with words."


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson's divorce was finalized on December 23, 2011, and the settlement with his ex-wife was said to be the highest in Hollywood history at over $400 million. The couple reportedly did not have a prenuptial agreement; because California is a community property state, Robyn was entitled to half of everything earned during the marriage.


title: Mel Gibson

text: On April 28, 2009, Gibson made a red carpet appearance with Grigorieva. Grigorieva, who had previously had a son with actor Timothy Dalton, gave birth to Gibson's daughter Lucia on October 30, 2009. By April 2010, Gibson and Grigorieva had split. On June 21, 2010, Grigorieva filed a restraining order against Gibson to keep him away from her and their child. The restraining order was modified the next day regarding Gibson's contact with their child. Gibson obtained a restraining order against Grigorieva on June 25, 2010.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Grigorieva accused Gibson of domestic violence, leading to an investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in July 2010. On July 9, 2010, some audio recordings of a rant, allegedly directed by Gibson toward Grigorieva, were posted on the internet. The same day Gibson was dropped by his agency, William Morris Endeavor. Gibson's estranged wife Robyn filed a court statement declaring that she never experienced any abuse from Gibson while forensic experts have questioned the validity of some of the tapes, Gibson himself did not deny they were accurate at the time. In March 2011, Mel Gibson agreed to plead no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge. In April 2011, Gibson finally broke his silence about the incident in question. In an interview with "Deadline Hollywood", Gibson expressed gratitude to longtime friends Whoopi Goldberg and Jodie Foster, both of whom had spoken publicly in his defense. About the recordings, Gibson said,


title: Mel Gibson

text: In August 2011, Gibson settled with Grigorieva, who was awarded $750,000, joint legal custody, and a house in Sherman Oaks, California until their daughter Lucia turns 18. In 2013, Grigorieva sued her attorneys accusing them of advising her to sign a bad agreement, including a term that taking legal action against Gibson would compromise her financial settlement.


title: Mel Gibson

text: As of 2014, Gibson is in a relationship with former champion equestrian vaulter and writer Rosalind Ross. Ross gave birth to their son, and Gibson's ninth child, Lars Gerard, on January 20, 2017, in Los Angeles.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson is a property investor, with multiple properties in Malibu, California, several locations in Costa Rica, a private island in Fiji, and properties in Australia. In December 2004, Gibson sold his Australian farm in the Kiewa Valley for $6 million. Also in December 2004, Gibson purchased Mago Island in Fiji from Tokyu Corporation of Japan for $15 million. Descendants of the original native inhabitants of Mago, who were displaced in the 1860s, have protested the purchase. Gibson stated it was his intention to retain the pristine environment of the undeveloped island. In early 2005, he sold his Montana ranch to a neighbor. In April 2007, he purchased a ranch in Costa Rica for $26 million, and, in July 2007, he sold his Tudor estate in Connecticut (which he purchased in 1994 for $9 million) for $40 million to an unnamed buyer. Also that month, he sold a Malibu property for $30 million that he had purchased for $24 million two years before. In 2008, he purchased the Malibu home of actors David Duchovny and Téa Leoni.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Records of Gibson using offshore accounts and business were revealed in the Jersey Leaks, records of more than 20,000 individuals held with the wealth management firm Kleinwort Benson.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson and his former wife have contributed a substantial amount of money to various charities, one of which is Healing the Children. According to Cris Embleton, one of the founders, the Gibsons gave millions to provide lifesaving medical treatment to needy children worldwide. They also supported the restoration of Renaissance artwork and gave millions of dollars to NIDA.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson donated $500,000 to the El Mirador Basin Project to protect the last tract of virgin rain forest in Central America and to fund archeological excavations in the "cradle of Mayan civilization". In July 2007, Gibson again visited Central America to make arrangements for donations to the indigenous population. Gibson met with Costa Rican President Óscar Arias to discuss how to "channel the funds". During the same month, Gibson pledged to give financial assistance to a Malaysian company named Green Rubber Global for a tire recycling factory located in Gallup, New Mexico. While on a business trip to Singapore in September 2007, Gibson donated to a local charity for children with chronic and terminal illnesses. Gibson is also a supporter of Angels at Risk, a nonprofit organization focusing on education about drug and alcohol abuse among teens.


title: Mel Gibson

text: In a 2011 interview, Gibson said of his philanthropic works, "It gives you perspective. It's one of my faults, you tend to focus on yourself a lot. Which is not always the healthiest thing for your psyche or anything else. If you take a little time out to think about other people, it's good. It's uplifting."


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson was raised a sedevacantist traditionalist Catholic (who reject the sitting pope, and usually several prior). During the filming of "The Passion of The Christ", he had daily visits from both local priests and priests from the Institute of Christ the King (a non-sedevacantist group) in France.


title: Mel Gibson

text: When asked about the Catholic doctrine of "Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus", Gibson replied, "There is no salvation for those outside the Church ... I believe it. Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She's a much better person than I am. Honestly. She's ... Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it's just not fair if she doesn't make it, she's better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it." When he was asked whether John 14:6 is an intolerant position, he said that "through the merits of Jesus' sacrifice ... even people who don't know Jesus are able to be saved, but "through" him."


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson's acquaintance Fr. William Fulco said in 2009 that Gibson denies neither the pope nor Vatican II; even so, as of 2021, Gibson attended the Church of the Holy Family, a sedevacantist church he founded and funds in Southern California. Gibson has told Diane Sawyer that he believes non-Catholics and non-Christians can go to Heaven.


title: Mel Gibson

text: In a 1990 interview with Barbara Walters, Gibson said: "God is the only one who knows how many children we should have, and we should be ready to accept them. One can't decide for oneself who comes into this world and who doesn't. That decision doesn't belong to us."


title: Mel Gibson

text: In a July 1995 interview with "Playboy", Gibson said President Bill Clinton was a "low-level opportunist" and someone was "telling him what to do". He said that the Rhodes Scholarship was established for young men and women who want to strive for a "new world order" and this was a campaign for Marxism. Gibson later backed away from such conspiracy theories saying, "It was like: 'Hey, tell us a conspiracy'... so I laid out this thing, and suddenly, it was like I was talking the gospel truth, espousing all this political shit like I believed in it." In the same 1995 "Playboy" interview, Gibson argued against ordaining women to the priesthood.


title: Mel Gibson

text: In 2004, he publicly spoke out against taxpayer-funded embryonic stem-cell research that involves the cloning and destruction of human embryos. In March 2005, he condemned the outcome of the Terri Schiavo case, referring to Schiavo's death as "state-sanctioned murder".


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson questioned the Iraq War in March 2004. In 2006, Gibson said that the "fearmongering" depicted in his film "Apocalypto" "reminds me a little of President Bush and his guys." He later said in 2016 that he is anti-war but has an appreciation for the sacrifices made by "warriors".


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson complimented filmmaker Michael Moore and his documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" when he and Moore were recognized at the 2005 People's Choice Awards. Gibson's Icon Productions originally agreed to finance Moore's film, but later sold the rights to Miramax Films. Moore said that his agent Ari Emanuel claimed that "top Republicans" called Mel Gibson to tell him, "don't expect to get more invitations to the White House". Icon's spokesman dismissed this story, saying "We never run from a controversy. You'd have to be out of your mind to think that of the company that just put out "The Passion of the Christ"."


title: Mel Gibson

text: The whole notion of politics is they always present you with this or this or this. I'll get a newspaper to read between the lines. Why do you have to adhere to prescribed formulas that they have and people argue over them and they're all in a box. And you watch Fox claw CNN, and CNN claw Fox. Sometimes I catch a piece of the news and it seems insanity to me. I quietly support candidates. I'm not out there banging a drum for candidates. But I have supported a candidate and it's a whole other world. Once you've been exposed to it, once or twice or however many times, if you know the facts and see how they're presented, it's mind-boggling. It's a very scary arena to be in, but I do vote. I go in there and pull the lever. It's kind of like pulling the lever and watching the trap door fall out from beneath you. Why should we trust any of these people? None of them ever deliver on anything. It's always disappointing.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson revealed in a 2016 interview with Jorge Ramos that he voted for neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton in the 2016 United States presidential election. In July 2021, Gibson was filmed saluting Trump while attending UFC 264, which went viral over the Internet.


title: Mel Gibson

text: In October 2020, Gibson released a statement regarding the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and expressing solidarity with the Armenian people.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson has said that he started drinking at the age of 13. In a 2002 interview about his time at NIDA, Gibson said, "I had really good highs but some very low lows. I found out recently I'm manic depressive."


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson was banned from driving in Ontario, Canada, for three months in 1984, after rear-ending a car in Toronto while under the influence of alcohol. He retreated to his Australian farm for over a year to recover, but he continued to struggle with drinking. Despite this problem, Gibson gained a reputation in Hollywood for professionalism and punctuality such that frequent collaborator Richard Donner was shocked when Gibson confided that he was drinking five pints of beer for breakfast. Reflecting in 2003 and 2004, Gibson said that despair in his mid-30s led him to contemplate suicide, and he meditated on Christ's Passion to heal his wounds. He took more time off acting in 1991 and sought professional help. That year, Gibson's attorneys were unsuccessful at blocking the "Sunday Mirror" from publishing what Gibson shared at AA meetings. In 1992, Gibson provided financial support to Hollywood's Recovery Center, saying, "Alcoholism is something that runs in my family. It's something that's close to me. People do come back from it, and it's a miracle."


title: Mel Gibson

text: On August 17, 2006, Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge and was sentenced to three years' probation. He was ordered to attend self-help meetings five times a week for four-and-a-half months and three times a week for the remainder of the first year of his probation. He was also ordered to attend a First Offenders Program and fined $1,300, and his license was restricted for 90 days.


title: Mel Gibson

text: The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) accused Gibson of homophobia after a December 1991 interview in the Spanish newspaper "El País" in which he made derogatory comments about homosexuals. Gibson later defended his comments and rejected calls to apologize even as he faced fresh accusations of homophobia in the wake of his film "Braveheart". However, Gibson joined GLAAD in hosting 10 lesbian and gay filmmakers for an on-location seminar on the set of the movie "Conspiracy Theory" in January 1997. In 1999, when asked about the comments to "El País", Gibson said, "I shouldn't have said it, but I was tickling a bit of vodka during that interview, and the quote came back to bite me on the ass."


title: Mel Gibson

text: On July 28, 2006, Gibson was arrested by Sheriff's Deputy James Mee of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for driving under the influence (DUI) while speeding in his vehicle with an open container of alcohol. According to a 2011 article in "Vanity Fair", Gibson first told the arresting officer, "My life is over. I'm fucked. Robyn's going to leave me." According to the arrest report, Gibson exploded into an angry tirade when the arresting officer would not allow him to drive home. In what "Vanity Fair" was later told was an attempt to commit suicide by cop, Gibson said to the arresting officer, "Fucking Jews... the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?"


title: Mel Gibson

text: After the arrest report was leaked on TMZ.com, Gibson issued two apologies through his publicist, and—in a televised interview with Diane Sawyer—he affirmed the accuracy of the quotations. He further apologized for his "despicable" behavior, saying that the comments were "blurted out in a moment of insanity", and asked to meet with Jewish leaders to help him "discern the appropriate path for healing." After Gibson's arrest, his publicist said he had entered a recovery program to battle alcoholism.


title: Mel Gibson

text: In July 2010, Gibson had been recorded during a phone call with Oksana Grigorieva suggesting that if she got "raped by a pack of niggers", she would be to blame. Grigorieva said the voices on the multiple recordings leaked were of herself and Gibson, according to CNN. He was barred from coming near Grigorieva or their daughter due to a domestic violence-related restraining order. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department launched a domestic violence investigation against Gibson, later dropped when Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge.


title: Mel Gibson

text: Gibson's controversial statements resulted in his being blacklisted in Hollywood for almost a decade. Both Robert Downey Jr. and journalist Allison Hope Weiner advocated for forgiveness for Gibson in 2014. In 2016, Gibson's film "Hacksaw Ridge", which received six Academy Award nominations, resulted in what was perceived as a "thaw" in his reputation and both actors and agencies immediately became eager to work with Gibson again.


title: Mel Gibson

text: In 1985, Gibson was named the "Sexiest Man Alive" by "People", the first person to be named so. Gibson quietly declined the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government in 1995 as a protest against France's resumption of nuclear testing in the Southwest Pacific. On July 25, 1997, Gibson was named an honorary Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), in recognition of his "service to the Australian film industry". The award was honorary because substantive awards are made only to Australian citizens.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. Incorporating both historical and fictionalized aspects, it is based on accounts of the sinking of the RMS "Titanic" and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. Also starring are Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Hyde, Victor Garber, and Bill Paxton.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Cameron's inspiration for the film came from his fascination with shipwrecks; he felt a love story interspersed with the human loss would be essential to convey the emotional impact of the disaster. Production began on September 1, 1995, when Cameron shot footage of the actual "Titanic" wreck. The modern scenes on the research vessel" "were shot on board the "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh", which Cameron had used as a base when filming the wreck. Scale models, computer-generated imagery, and a reconstruction of the "Titanic" built at Baja Studios were used to re-create the sinking. The film was co-financed by Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox; the former handled distribution in North America while the latter released the film internationally. It was the most expensive film ever made at the time, with a production budget of $200 million.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Upon its release on December 19, 1997, "Titanic" achieved significant critical and commercial success, and then received numerous accolades. It was praised for its visual effects, performances (particularly DiCaprio, Winslet, and Stuart), production values, Cameron's direction, musical score, cinematography, story, and emotional depth. Nominated for 14 Academy Awards, it tied "All About Eve" (1950) for the most Oscar nominations, and won 11, including the awards for Best Picture and Best Director, tying "Ben-Hur" (1959) for the most Oscars won by a single film. With an initial worldwide gross of over $1.84 billion, "Titanic" was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark. It remained the highest-grossing film of all time until another Cameron film, "Avatar", surpassed it in 2010. A 3D re-release version of "Titanic," released on April 4, 2012, to commemorate the centennial of the sinking, earned it an additional $343.6 million worldwide, pushing the film's worldwide total to $2.195 billion and making it the second film to gross more than $2 billion worldwide (after "Avatar"). In 2017, the film was re-released for its 20th anniversary and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: In 1996, aboard the research vessel "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh", Brock Lovett and his team search the wreck of RMS "Titanic". They recover a safe they hope contains a necklace with a large diamond known as the Heart of the Ocean. Instead, they only find a drawing of a young nude woman wearing the necklace. The sketch is dated April 14, 1912, the same day the "Titanic" struck the iceberg that caused it to sink. Rose Dawson Calvert, the woman in the drawing, is brought aboard "Keldysh". She recounts her experiences aboard "Titanic".


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: In 1912 Southampton, 17-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater, her wealthy fiancé Caledon "Cal" Hockley, and Rose's widowed mother, Ruth, board the "Titanic". Ruth emphasizes that Rose's marriage to Cal will resolve the family's financial problems and maintain their upper-class status. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson, a poor young artist, wins a third-class "Titanic" ticket in a poker game. After setting sail, Rose, distraught over her loveless engagement, climbs over the stern railing, intending to jump overboard. Jack appears and coaxes her back onto the deck. The two develop a tentative friendship, but when Cal and Ruth strongly object, Rose acquiesces and discourages Jack's attention. She soon realizes she has feelings for Jack.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Rose brings Jack to her state room and pays him a coin to sketch her nude, wearing only the Heart of the Ocean necklace. They later evade Cal's servant, Lovejoy, and have sex in a Renault Towncar inside the cargo hold. On the forward deck, they witness the ship's collision with an iceberg and overhear its officers and builder discussing the serious situation. Cal discovers Jack's sketch and Rose's insulting note left inside his safe, along with the necklace. When Jack and Rose return to warn the others about the collision, Cal has Lovejoy slip the necklace into Jack's pocket to frame him for theft. Jack is then confined in the master-at-arms' office. Cal then puts the necklace into his own overcoat pocket.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: With the ship sinking, Rose flees Cal and her mother, who has boarded a lifeboat. Rose finds and frees Jack, and they barely make it back to the boat deck. Cal and Jack urge Rose to board a lifeboat. Having arranged to save himself, Cal falsely claims he can get Jack safely off the ship. As her lifeboat is lowered, Rose, unable to abandon Jack, jumps back on board. Cal grabs Lovejoy's pistol and chases Rose and Jack into the flooding first-class dining saloon. They get away, and Cal realizes that he gave his coat, and consequently the necklace, to Rose; he later boards a lifeboat posing as a lost child's father.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Jack and Rose return to the boat deck. The lifeboats have departed and the ship's stern is rising as the flooded bow sinks. As passengers fall to their deaths, Jack and Rose desperately cling to the stern rail. The upended ship breaks in half and the bow section dives downward. The remaining stern slams back onto the ocean, then upends again before it, too, sinks. In the freezing water, Jack helps Rose onto a wooden panel buoyant enough for only one person and makes her promise to survive. Jack dies of hypothermia, and Rose is saved by a returning lifeboat, keeping her promise.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: The RMS "Carpathia" rescues the survivors; Rose avoids Cal by hiding among the steerage passengers and gives her name as Rose Dawson. Still wearing Cal's overcoat, she discovers the necklace tucked inside the pocket. In the present, Rose says she later heard that Cal committed suicide after losing his fortune in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Lovett abandons his search after hearing Rose's story. Alone on the stern of "Keldysh", Rose takes out the Heart of the Ocean, which has been in her possession all along, and drops it into the sea over the wreck site. While she is seemingly asleep in her bed, her photos on the dresser depict a life of freedom and adventure inspired by her early conversations with Jack. A young Rose reunites with Jack at "Titanic" Grand Staircase, applauded by those who died on the ship.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Although not intended to be an entirely accurate depiction of events, the film includes portrayals of several historical figures:


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Several crew members of the "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh" appear in the film, including Anatoly Sagalevich, creator and pilot of the "MIR" self-propelled Deep Submergence Vehicle. Anders Falk, who filmed a documentary about the film's sets for the "Titanic" Historical Society, makes a cameo appearance in the film as a Swedish immigrant whom Jack Dawson meets when he enters his cabin; Edward Kamuda and Karen Kamuda, then President and Vice President of the Society, who served as film consultants, were cast as extras in the film.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: James Cameron has long had a fascination with shipwrecks, and for him the RMS "Titanic" was "the Mount Everest of shipwrecks". He was almost past the point in his life when he felt he could consider an undersea expedition, but said he still had "a mental restlessness" to live the life he had turned away from when he switched from the sciences to the arts in college. So when an IMAX film was made from footage shot of the wreck itself, he decided to seek Hollywood funding to "pay for an expedition and do the same thing". It was "not because I particularly wanted to make the movie," Cameron said. "I wanted to dive to the shipwreck."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Cameron wrote a scriptment for a "Titanic" film, met with 20th Century Fox executives including Peter Chernin, and pitched it as "Romeo and Juliet on the "Titanic"". Cameron stated, "They were like, 'Oooooohkaaaaaay – a three-hour romantic epic? Sure, that's just what we want. Is there a little bit of "Terminator" in that? Any Harrier jets, shoot-outs, or car chases?' I said, 'No, no, no. It's not like that. The studio was dubious about the idea's commercial prospects, but, hoping for a long-term relationship with Cameron, they gave him a greenlight.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Cameron convinced Fox to promote the film based on the publicity afforded by shooting the "Titanic" wreck itself, and organized several dives to the site over a period of two years. "My pitch on that had to be a little more detailed," said Cameron. "So I said, 'Look, we've got to do this whole opening where they're exploring the "Titanic" and they find the diamond, so we're going to have all these shots of the ship." Cameron stated, "Now, we can either do them with elaborate models and motion control shots and CG and all that, which will cost X amount of money – or we can spend X plus 30 per cent and actually go shoot it at the real wreck."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: The crew shot at the real wreck in the Atlantic Ocean twelve times in 1995. At that depth, with a water pressure of 6,000 pounds per square inch, "one small flaw in the vessel's superstructure would mean instant death for all on board." Not only were the dives high-risk, but adverse conditions prevented Cameron from getting the high-quality footage that he wanted. During one dive, one of the submersibles collided with "Titanic"s hull, damaging both sub and ship, and leaving fragments of the submersible's propeller shroud scattered around the superstructure. The external bulkhead of Captain Smith's quarters collapsed, exposing the interior. The area around the entrance to the Grand Staircase was also damaged.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Descending to the actual site made both Cameron and crew want "to live up to that level of reality ... But there was another level of reaction coming away from the real wreck, which was that it wasn't just a story, it wasn't just a drama," he said. "It was an event that happened to real people who really died. Working around the wreck for so much time, you get such a strong sense of the profound sadness and injustice of it, and the message of it." Cameron stated, "You think, 'There probably aren't going to be many filmmakers who go to "Titanic." There may never be another one – maybe a documentarian." Due to this, he felt "a great mantle of responsibility to convey the emotional message of it – to do that part of it right, too".


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: After filming the underwater shots, Cameron began writing the screenplay. He wanted to honor the people who died during the sinking, so he spent six months researching all of the "Titanic"s crew and passengers. "I read everything I could. I created an extremely detailed timeline of the ship's few days and a very detailed timeline of the last night of its life," he said. "And I worked within that to write the script, and I got some historical experts to analyze what I'd written and comment on it, and I adjusted it." He paid meticulous attention to detail, even including a scene depicting the "Californian"s role in "Titanic" demise, though this was later cut (see below). From the beginning of the shoot, they had "a very clear picture" of what happened on the ship that night. "I had a library that filled one whole wall of my writing office with "Titanic" stuff, because I wanted it to be right, especially if we were going to dive to the ship," he said. "That set the bar higher in a way – it elevated the movie in a sense. We wanted this to be a definitive visualization of this moment in history as if you'd gone back in a time machine and shot it."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Cameron was influenced in his crafting of the film by the 1958 British production "A Night to Remember", which he had seen as a youth. He liberally copied some dialogue and scenes from that film, including the lively party of the passengers in steerage, and the musicians playing on the deck during the sinking of the ship.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Cameron felt the "Titanic" sinking was "like a great novel that really happened", but that the event had become a mere morality tale; the film would give audiences the experience of living the history. The treasure hunter Brock Lovett represented those who never connected with the human element of the tragedy, while the blossoming romance of Jack and Rose, Cameron believed, would be the most engaging part of the story: when their love is finally destroyed, the audience would mourn the loss. He said: "All my films are love stories, but in "Titanic" I finally got the balance right. It's not a disaster film. It's a love story with a fastidious overlay of real history."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Cameron framed the romance with the elderly Rose to make the intervening years palpable and poignant. While Winslet and Stuart stated their belief that, instead of being asleep in her bed, the character dies at the end of the film, Cameron said that he would rather not reveal what he intended with the ending because "[t]he answer has to be something you supply personally; individually."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Harland and Wolff, the RMS "Titanic" builders, opened their private archives to the crew, sharing blueprints that were thought lost. For the ship's interiors, production designer Peter Lamont's team looked for artifacts from the era. The newness of the ship meant every prop had to be made from scratch. Fox acquired 40 acres of waterfront south of Playas de Rosarito in Mexico, and began building a new studio on May 31, 1996. A horizon tank of seventeen million gallons was built for the exterior of the reconstructed ship, providing 270 degrees of ocean view. The ship was built to full scale, but Lamont removed redundant sections on the superstructure and forward well deck for the ship to fit in the tank, with the remaining sections filled with digital models. The lifeboats and funnels were shrunken by ten percent. The boat deck and A-deck were working sets, but the rest of the ship was just steel plating. Within was a fifty-foot lifting platform for the ship to tilt during the sinking sequences. The 60 foot 1/8th scale model of the stern section was designed by naval architect Jay Kantola utilizing plans of the "Titanic" sister ship RMS "Olympic". Towering above was a tower crane on of rail track, acting as a combined construction, lighting, and camera platform.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: The sets representing the interior rooms of the "Titanic" were reproduced exactly as originally built, using photographs and plans from the "Titanic" builders. The Grand Staircase, which features prominently in the film, was recreated to a high standard of authenticity, though it was widened 30% compared to the original and reinforced with steel girders. Craftsmen from Mexico and Britain sculpted the ornate paneling and plaster-work based on "Titanic" original designs. The carpeting, upholstery, individual pieces of furniture, light fixtures, chairs, cutlery and crockery with the White Star Line crest on each piece were among the objects recreated according to original designs. Cameron additionally hired two "Titanic" historians, Don Lynch and Ken Marschall, to authenticate the historical detail in the film.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Principal photography for "Titanic" began on July 31, 1996 at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with the filming of the modern-day expedition scenes aboard the "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh". In September 1996, the production moved to the newly built Fox Baja Studios in Rosarito, Mexico, where a full-scale RMS "Titanic" had been constructed. The poop deck was built on a hinge which could rise from zero to 90 degrees in a few seconds, just as the ship's stern rose during the sinking. For the safety of the stuntmen, many props were made of foam rubber. By November 15, the boarding scenes were being shot. Cameron chose to build his RMS "Titanic" on the starboard side as a study of weather data revealed it was a prevailing north-to-south wind which blew the funnel smoke aft. This posed a problem for shooting the ship's departure from Southampton, as it was docked on its port side. Implementation of written directions, as well as props and costumes, had to be reversed; for example, if someone walked to their right in the script, they had to walk left during shooting. In post-production, the film was flipped to the correct direction.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: A full-time etiquette coach was hired to instruct the cast in the manners of the upper class gentility in 1912. Despite this, several critics picked up on anachronisms in the film, not least involving the two main stars.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Cameron sketched Jack's nude portrait of Rose for a scene which he feels has the backdrop of repression. "You know what it means for her, the freedom she must be feeling. It's kind of exhilarating for that reason," he said. The nude scene was DiCaprio and Winslet's first scene together. "It wasn't by any kind of design, although I couldn't have designed it better. There's a nervousness and an energy and a hesitance in them," Cameron stated. "They had rehearsed together, but they hadn't shot anything together. If I'd had a choice, I probably would have preferred to put it deeper into the body of the shoot." Cameron said he and his crew "were just trying to find things to shoot" because the big set "wasn't ready for months, so we were scrambling around trying to fill in anything we could get to shoot." After seeing the scene on film, Cameron felt it worked out considerably well.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Other times on the set were not as smooth. The shoot was an arduous experience that "cemented Cameron's formidable reputation as 'the scariest man in Hollywood'. He became known as an uncompromising, hard-charging perfectionist" and a "300-decibel screamer, a modern-day Captain Bligh with a megaphone and walkie-talkie, swooping down into people's faces on a 162ft crane". Winslet chipped a bone in her elbow during filming and had been worried that she would drown in the 17m-gallon water tank in which the ship was to be sunk. "There were times when I was genuinely frightened of him. Jim has a temper like you wouldn't believe," she said. "'God damn it!' he would yell at some poor crew member, 'that's exactly what I didn't want!'" Her co-star, Bill Paxton, was familiar with Cameron's work ethic from his earlier experience with him. "There were a lot of people on the set. Jim is not one of those guys who has the time to win hearts and minds," he said. The crew felt Cameron had an evil alter ego and so nicknamed him "Mij" (Jim spelled backwards). In response to the criticism, Cameron stated, "Film-making is war. A great battle between business and aesthetics."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: On August 9, 1996, during the "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh" shoot in Canada, an unknown person, likely a crew member, put the dissociative drug PCP into the soup that Cameron and various others ate one night in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. It sent more than 50 people to the hospital, including Paxton. "There were people just rolling around, completely out of it. Some of them said they were seeing streaks and psychedelics," said actor Lewis Abernathy. Cameron managed to vomit before the drug took a full hold. Abernathy was shocked at the way he looked. "One eye was completely red, like the Terminator eye. A pupil, no iris, beet red. The other eye looked like he'd been sniffing glue since he was four." The Nova Scotia Department of Health confirmed that the soup had contained PCP on August 27, and the Halifax Regional Police Service announced a criminal investigation the next day. The investigation was closed in February 1999. The person behind the poisoning was never caught.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: The filming schedule was intended to last 138 days but grew to 160 (officially wrapped on March 23, 1997). Many cast members came down with colds, flu, or kidney infections after spending hours in cold water, including Winslet. In the end, she decided she would not work with Cameron again unless she earned "a lot of money". Several others left the production, and three stuntmen broke their bones, but the Screen Actors Guild decided, following an investigation, that nothing was inherently unsafe about the set. Additionally, DiCaprio said there was no point when he felt he was in danger during filming. Cameron believed in a passionate work ethic and never apologized for the way he ran his sets, although he acknowledged:


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: The costs of filming "Titanic" eventually began to mount and finally reached $200 million, a bit over $1 million per minute of screen time. Fox executives panicked and suggested an hour of specific cuts from the three-hour film. They argued the extended length would mean fewer showings, thus less revenue, even though long epics are more likely to help directors win Oscars. Cameron refused, telling Fox, "You want to cut my movie? You're going to have to fire me! You want to fire me? You're going to have to kill me!" The executives did not want to start over, because it would mean the loss of their entire investment, but they also initially rejected Cameron's offer of forfeiting his share of the profits as an empty gesture, as they predicted profits would be unlikely.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Cameron explained forfeiting his share as complex. "...the short version is that the film cost proportionally much more than "" and "True Lies." Those films went up seven or eight percent from the initial budget. "Titanic" also had a large budget to begin with, but it went up a lot more," he said. "As the producer and director, I take responsibility for the studio that's writing the checks, so I made it less painful for them. I did that on two different occasions. They didn't force me to do it; they were glad that I did."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Cameron wanted to push the boundary of special effects with his film, and enlisted Digital Domain and Pacific Data Images to continue the developments in digital technology which the director pioneered while working on "The Abyss" and "". Many previous films about the RMS "Titanic" shot water in slow motion, which did not look wholly convincing. Cameron encouraged his crew to shoot their miniature of the ship as if "we're making a commercial for the White Star Line". Afterwards, digital water and smoke were added, as were extras captured on a motion capture stage. Visual effects supervisor Rob Legato scanned the faces of many actors, including himself and his children, for the digital extras and stuntmen. There was also a model of the ship's stern that could break in two repeatedly, the only miniature to be used in water. For scenes set in the ship's engines, footage of the SS "Jeremiah O'Brien"s engines were composited with miniature support frames, and actors shot against a greenscreen. In order to save money, the first-class lounge was a miniature set incorporated into a greenscreen backdrop behind the actors. The miniature of the Lounge would later be crushed to simulate the destruction of the room and a scale model of a First-Class corridor flooded with jets of water while the camera pans out.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: An enclosed tank was used for sinking interiors, in which the entire set could be tilted into the water. In order to sink the Grand Staircase, of water were dumped into the set as it was lowered into the tank. Unexpectedly, the waterfall ripped the staircase from its steel-reinforced foundations, although no one was hurt. The exterior of the RMS "Titanic" had its first half lowered into the tank, but as the heaviest part of the ship it acted as a shock absorber against the water; to get the set into the water, Cameron had much of the set emptied and even smashed some of the promenade windows himself. After submerging the dining saloon, three days were spent shooting Lovett's ROV traversing the wreck in the present. The post-sinking scenes in the freezing Atlantic were shot in a tank, where the frozen corpses were created by applying on actors a powder that crystallized when exposed to water, and wax was coated on hair and clothes.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: The climactic scene, which features the breakup of the ship directly before it sinks as well as its final plunge to the bottom of the Atlantic, involved a tilting full-sized set, 150 extras, and 100 stunt performers. Cameron criticized previous "Titanic" films for depicting the liner's final plunge as a graceful slide underwater. He "wanted to depict it as the terrifyingly chaotic event that it really was". When carrying out the sequence, people needed to fall off the increasingly tilting deck, plunging hundreds of feet below and bouncing off of railings and propellers on the way down. A few attempts to film this sequence with stunt people resulted in some minor injuries, and Cameron halted the more dangerous stunts. The risks were eventually minimized "by using computer-generated people for the dangerous falls".


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: There was one "crucial historical fact" Cameron chose to omit from the film – the SS "Californian" was close to the "Titanic" the night she sank but had turned off its radio for the night, did not hear her crew's SOS calls, and did not respond to their distress flares. "Yes, the [SS] "Californian." That wasn't a compromise to mainstream filmmaking. That was really more about emphasis, creating an emotional truth to the film," stated Cameron. He said there were aspects of retelling the sinking that seemed important in pre- and post-production, but turned out to be less important as the film evolved. "The story of the "Californian" was in there; we even shot a scene of them switching off their Marconi radio set," said Cameron. "But I took it out. It was a clean cut, because it focuses you back onto that world. If "Titanic" is powerful as a metaphor, as a microcosm, for the end of the world in a sense, then that world must be self-contained."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: During the first assembly cut, Cameron altered the planned ending, which had given resolution to Brock Lovett's story. In the original version of the ending, Brock and Lizzy see the elderly Rose at the stern of the boat and fear she is going to commit suicide. Rose then reveals that she had the "Heart of the Ocean" diamond all along but never sold it, in order to live on her own without Cal's money. She tells Brock that life is priceless and throws the diamond into the ocean, after allowing him to hold it. After accepting that treasure is worthless, Brock laughs at his stupidity. Rose then goes back to her cabin to sleep, whereupon the film ends in the same way as the final version. In the editing room, Cameron decided that by this point, the audience would no longer be interested in Brock Lovett and cut the resolution to his story, so that Rose is alone when she drops the diamond. He also did not want to disrupt the audience's melancholy after the "Titanic" sinking. Paxton agreed that his scene with Brock's epiphany and laugh was unnecessary, stating that "I would have shot heroin to make the scene work better ...you didn't really need anything from us. Our job was done by then ... If you're smart and you take the ego and the narcissism out of it, you'll listen to the film, and the film will tell you what it needs and what it does not need".


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: The version used for the first test screening featured a fight between Jack and Lovejoy which takes place after Jack and Rose escape into the flooded dining saloon, but the test audiences disliked it. The scene was written to give the film more suspense, and featured Cal (falsely) offering to give Lovejoy, his valet, the "Heart of the Ocean" if he can get it from Jack and Rose. Lovejoy goes after the pair in the sinking first-class dining room. Just as they are about to escape him, Lovejoy notices Rose's hand slap the water as it slips off the table behind which she is hiding. In revenge for framing him for the "theft" of the necklace, Jack attacks him and smashes his head against a glass window, which explains the gash on Lovejoy's head that can be seen when he dies in the completed version of the film. In their reactions to the scene, test audiences said it would be unrealistic to risk one's life for wealth, and Cameron cut it for this reason, as well as for timing and pacing reasons. Many other scenes were cut for similar reasons.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Cameron wrote "Titanic" while listening to the work of Irish new-age musician Enya. He offered Enya the chance to compose for the film, but she declined. Cameron instead chose James Horner to compose the film's score. The two had parted ways after a tumultuous working experience on "Aliens," but "Titanic" cemented a successful collaboration that lasted until Horner's death. For the vocals heard throughout the film, subsequently described by Earle Hitchner of "The Wall Street Journal" as "evocative", Horner chose Norwegian singer Sissel Kyrkjebø, commonly known as "Sissel". Horner knew Sissel from her album "Innerst i sjelen", and he particularly liked how she sang ""Eg veit i himmerik ei borg"" ("I Know in Heaven There Is a Castle"). He had tried twenty-five or thirty singers before he finally chose Sissel as the voice to create specific moods within the film.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Horner additionally wrote the song "My Heart Will Go On" in secret with Will Jennings because Cameron did not want any songs with singing in the film. Céline Dion agreed to record a demo with the persuasion of her husband René Angélil. Horner waited until Cameron was in an appropriate mood before presenting him with the song. After playing it several times, Cameron declared his approval, although worried that he would have been criticized for "going commercial at the end of the movie". Cameron also wanted to appease anxious studio executives and "saw that a hit song from his movie could only be a positive factor in guaranteeing its completion".


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: For the Heart of the Ocean design, London-based jewelers Asprey & Garrard used cubic zirconias set in white gold to create an Edwardian-style necklace to be used as a prop in the film. Asprey & Garrard produced and designed the necklaces: the result was three different and unique designs. Two of their designs were used in the film while the other went unused until after the film had been released. The three necklaces are commonly known as the original prop, the J. Peterman necklace, and the Asprey necklace. The three necklaces are all very similar but have distinguishable differences.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: The third and final design was not used in the film. After the film's success, Asprey & Garrard were commissioned to create an authentic Heart of the Ocean necklace using the original design. The result was a platinum-set, heart-shaped Ceylon sapphire surrounded by 103 diamonds. This design featured a much larger inverted pear-shaped Ceylon sapphire with a subtle cleft to resemble a heart. The chain for this necklace also featured a mix of round, pear, and marquise cut white diamonds. The bail also featured a heart cut white diamond with another round cut diamond attached to an inverted pear shape diamond which was then attached to the cage of the main stone. The necklace was donated to Sotheby's auction house in Beverly Hills for an auction benefiting the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and Southern California's Aid For AIDS. It was sold to an unidentified Asprey client for $1.4 million, under the agreement that Dion would wear it two nights later at the 1998 Academy Awards ceremony. This necklace has since not been made available for public viewing.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures co-financed "Titanic", with Paramount handling the North American distribution and Fox handling the international release. They expected Cameron to complete the film for a release on July 2, 1997. The film was to be released on this date "to exploit the lucrative summer season ticket sales when blockbuster films usually do better". In April, Cameron said the film's special effects were too complicated and that releasing the film for summer would not be possible. With production delays, Paramount pushed back the release date to December 19, 1997. "This fueled speculation that the film itself was a disaster." A preview screening in Minneapolis on July 14 "generated positive reviews" and "[c]hatter on the internet was responsible for more favorable word of mouth about the [film]". This eventually led to more positive media coverage.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: The film premiered on November 1, 1997, at the Tokyo International Film Festival, where reaction was described as "tepid" by "The New York Times". Positive reviews started to appear back in the United States; the official Hollywood premiere occurred on December 14, 1997, where "the big movie stars who attended the opening were enthusiastically gushing about the film to the world media".


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Including revenue from the 2012 and 2017 reissues, "Titanic" earned $659.4 million in North America and $1.812 billion in other countries, for a worldwide total of $2.195 billion. It became the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide in 1998, beating "Jurassic Park" (1993). The film remained so for twelve years, until "Avatar" (2009), also written and directed by Cameron, surpassed it in 2010. On March 1, 1998, it became the first film to earn more than $1 billion worldwide and on the weekend April 13–15, 2012—a century after the original vessel's foundering, "Titanic" became the second film to cross the $2 billion threshold during its 3D re-release. Box Office Mojo estimates that "Titanic" is the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time in North America when adjusting for ticket price inflation. The site also estimates that the film sold over 128 million tickets in the US in its initial theatrical run.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: "Titanic" was the first foreign-language film to succeed in India, which claims to have the largest movie-going audience in the world. A "Hindustan Times" report attributes this to the film's similarities and shared themes with most Bollywood films.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: The film received steady attendance after opening in North America on Friday, December 19, 1997. By the end of that same weekend, theaters were beginning to sell out. The film earned $8,658,814 on its opening day and $28,638,131 over the opening weekend from 2,674 theaters, averaging to about $10,710 per venue, and ranking number one at the box office, ahead of "Mouse Hunt", "Scream 2" and the eighteenth James Bond film, "Tomorrow Never Dies". It would go on to surpass "The Godfather Part III"s record for having the highest Christmas Day gross, generating a total of $9.2 million. For its second weekend, the film made $35.6 million, making it the biggest December weekend gross, surpassing "Scream 2". By New Year's Day, "Titanic" had made over $120 million, had increased in popularity and theaters continued to sell out. In just 44 days, it became the fastest film to approach the $300 million mark at the domestic box office, surpassing the former record held by "Jurassic Park", which took 67 days to do so. "Titanic" would hold this record until 1999 when it was taken by "". Its highest grossing single day was Saturday, February 14, 1998, on which it earned $13,048,711, more than eight weeks after its North American debut. It stayed at number one for 15 consecutive weeks in North America, a record for any film. By April 1998, the film's number one spot would be overtaken by "Lost in Space", dropping into second place. The film stayed in theaters in North America for almost 10 months before finally closing on Thursday, October 1, 1998, with a final domestic gross of $600,788,188, equivalent to $  million in . Outside North America, the film made double its North American gross, generating $1,242,413,080 and accumulating a grand total of $1,843,201,268 worldwide from its initial theatrical run.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Before "Titanic"s release, various film critics predicted the film would be a significant disappointment at the box office, especially since it was the most expensive film ever made at the time. When it was shown to the press in autumn of 1997, "it was with massive forebodings", since the "people in charge of the screenings believed they were on the verge of losing their jobs – because of this great albatross of a picture on which, finally, two studios had to combine to share the great load of its making". Cameron also thought he was "headed for disaster" at one point during filming. "We labored the last six months on "Titanic" in the absolute knowledge that the studio would lose $100 million. It was a certainty," he stated. As the film neared release, "particular venom was spat at Cameron for what was seen as his hubris and monumental extravagance". A film critic for the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that "Cameron's overweening pride has come close to capsizing this project" and that the film was "a hackneyed, completely derivative copy of old Hollywood romances".


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: When the film became a success, with an unprecedented box-office performance, it was credited for being a love story that captured its viewers' emotions. The film was playing on 3,200 screens ten weeks after it opened, and out of its fifteen straight weeks on top of the charts, jumped 43% in total sales in its ninth week of release. It earned over $20 million for each of its first 10 weekends, and after 14 weeks was still bringing in more than $1 million on weekdays. 20th Century Fox estimated that seven percent of American teenage girls had seen "Titanic" twice by its fifth week. Although young women who saw the film several times and subsequently caused "Leo-Mania" were often credited with having primarily propelled the film to its all-time box office record, other reports have attributed the film's success to positive word of mouth and repeat viewership due to the love story combined with the ground-breaking special effects. "The Hollywood Reporter" estimated that after a combined production and promotion cost of $487 million, the film turned a net profit of $1.4 billion, with a modern profit of as much as $4 billion after ancillary sources.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: "Titanic"s impact on men has also been especially credited. It is considered one of the films that make men cry, with MSNBC's Ian Hodder stating that men admire Jack's sense of adventure and his ambitious behavior to win over Rose, which contributes to their emotional attachment to Jack. The film's ability to make men cry was briefly parodied in the 2009 film "Zombieland", where character Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), when recalling the death of his young son, states: "I haven't cried like that since "Titanic"."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: In 2010, the BBC analyzed the stigma over men crying during "Titanic" and films in general. "Middle-aged men are not 'supposed' to cry during movies," stated Finlo Rohrer of the website, citing the ending of "Titanic" as having generated such tears, adding that "men, if they have felt weepy during [this film], have often tried to be surreptitious about it." Professor Mary Beth Oliver, of Penn State University, stated, "For many men, there is a great deal of pressure to avoid expression of 'female' emotions like sadness and fear. From a very young age, males are taught that it is inappropriate to cry, and these lessons are often accompanied by a great deal of ridicule when the lessons aren't followed." Rohrer said, "Indeed, some men who might sneer at the idea of crying during "Titanic" will readily admit to becoming choked up during "Saving Private Ryan" or "Platoon."" For men in general, "the idea of sacrifice for a 'brother' is a more suitable source of emotion".


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Scott Meslow of "The Atlantic" stated while "Titanic" initially seems to need no defense, given its success, it is considered a film "for 15-year-old girls" by its main detractors. He argued that dismissing "Titanic" as fodder for teenage girls fails to consider the film's accomplishment: "that [this] grandiose, 3+ hour historical romantic drama is a film for everyone—including teenage boys." Meslow stated that despite the film being ranked high by males under the age of 18, matching the ratings for teenage boy-targeted films like "Iron Man", it is common for boys and men to deny liking "Titanic". He acknowledged his own rejection of the film as a child while secretly loving it. "It's this collection of elements—the history, the romance, the action—that made (and continues to make) "Titanic" an irresistible proposition for audiences of all ages across the globe," he stated. ""Titanic" has flaws, but for all its legacy, it's better than its middlebrow reputation would have you believe. It's a great movie for 15-year-old girls, but that doesn't mean it's not a great movie for everyone else too."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Quotes in the film aided its popularity. "Titanic" catchphrase "I'm the king of the world!" became one of the film industry's more popular quotations. According to Richard Harris, a psychology professor at Kansas State University, who studied why people like to cite films in social situations, using film quotations in everyday conversation is similar to telling a joke and a way to form solidarity with others. "People are doing it to feel good about themselves, to make others laugh, to make themselves laugh", he said.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Cameron explained the film's success as having significantly benefited from the experience of sharing. "When people have an experience that's very powerful in the movie theatre, they want to go share it. They want to grab their friend and bring them, so that they can enjoy it," he said. "They want to be the person to bring them the news that this is something worth having in their life. That's how "Titanic" worked." Media Awareness Network stated, "The normal


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: repeat viewing rate for a blockbuster theatrical film is about 5%. The repeat rate for "Titanic" was over 20%." The box office receipts "were even more impressive" when factoring in "the film's 3-hour-and-14-minute length meant that it could only be shown three times a day compared to a normal movie's four showings". In response to this, "[m]any theatres started midnight showings and were rewarded with full houses until almost 3:30 am".


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: "Titanic" held the record for box office gross for 12 years. Cameron's follow-up film, "Avatar", was considered the first film with a genuine chance at surpassing its worldwide gross, and did so in 2010. Various explanations for why the film was able to successfully challenge "Titanic" were given. For one, "Two-thirds of "Titanic" haul was earned overseas, and "Avatar" [tracked] similarly... "Avatar" opened in 106 markets globally and was no. 1 in all of them" and the markets "such as Russia, where "Titanic" saw modest receipts in 1997 and 1998, are white-hot today" with "more screens and moviegoers" than ever before. Brandon Gray, president of Box Office Mojo, said that while "Avatar" may beat "Titanic" revenue record, the film is unlikely to surpass "Titanic" in attendance. "Ticket prices were about $3 cheaper in the late 1990s." In December 2009, Cameron had stated, "I don't think it's realistic to try to topple "Titanic" off its perch. Some pretty good movies have come out in the last few years. "Titanic" just struck some kind of chord." In a January 2010 interview, he gave a different take on the matter once "Avatar" performance was easier to predict. "It's gonna happen. It's just a matter of time," he said.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: Author Alexandra Keller, when analyzing "Titanic"s success, stated that scholars could agree that the film's popularity "appears dependent on contemporary culture, on perceptions of history, on patterns of consumerism and globalization, as well as on those elements experienced filmgoers conventionally expect of juggernaut film events in the 1990s – awesome screen spectacle, expansive action, and, more rarely seen, engaging characters and epic drama."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: "Titanic" garnered mostly positive reviews from film critics, and was positively reviewed by audiences and scholars, who commented on the film's cultural, historical, and political impacts. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 87% based on 232 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A mostly unqualified triumph for James Cameron, who offers a dizzying blend of spectacular visuals and old-fashioned melodrama." Metacritic, which assigned a weighted average rating of 75 out of 100, based on 35 critics, reports the film has "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare "A+" grade, one of fewer than 60 films in the history of the service from 1982 to 2011 to earn the score.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: With regard to the film's overall design, Roger Ebert stated, "It is flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted, and spellbinding... Movies like this are not merely difficult to make at all, but almost impossible to make well." He credited the "technical difficulties" with being "so daunting that it's a wonder when the filmmakers are also able to bring the drama and history into proportion" and "found [himself] convinced by both the story and the sad saga". He named it his ninth best film of 1997. On the television program "Siskel & Ebert", the film received "two thumbs up" and was praised for its accuracy in recreating the ship's sinking; Ebert described the film as "a glorious Hollywood epic" and "well worth the wait," and Gene Siskel found Leonardo DiCaprio "captivating".


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: James Berardinelli stated, "Meticulous in detail, yet vast in scope and intent, "Titanic" is the kind of epic motion picture event that has become a rarity. You don't just watch "Titanic", you experience it." It was named his second best film of 1997. Joseph McBride of "Boxoffice Magazine" concluded, "To describe "Titanic" as the greatest disaster movie ever made is to sell it short. James Cameron's recreation of the 1912 sinking of the 'unsinkable' liner is one of the most magnificent pieces of serious popular entertainment ever to emanate from Hollywood."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: The romantic and emotionally charged aspects of the film were equally praised. Andrew L. Urban of "Urban Cinefile" said, "You will walk out of "Titanic" not talking about budget or running time, but of its enormous emotive power, big as the engines of the ship itself, determined as its giant propellers to gouge into your heart, and as lasting as the love story that propels it." Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" described the film as "a lush and terrifying spectacle of romantic doom. Writer-director James Cameron has restaged the defining catastrophe of the early 20th century on a human scale of such purified yearning and dread that he touches the deepest levels of popular moviemaking." Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" commented that "Cameron's magnificent "Titanic" is the first spectacle in decades that honestly invites comparison to "Gone With the Wind"." Adrian Turner of "Radio Times" awarded it four stars out of five, stating "Cameron's script wouldn't have sustained Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh for 80 minutes, but, somehow, he and his magical cast revive that old-style studio gloss for three riveting hours. "Titanic" is a sumptuous assault on the emotions, with a final hour that fully captures the horror and the freezing, paralysing fear of the moment. And there are single shots, such as an awesome albatross-like swoop past the steaming ship, when you sense Cameron hugging himself with the fun of it all."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: "Titanic" suffered backlash in addition to its success. Some reviewers felt that while the visuals were spectacular, the story and dialogue were weak. Richard Corliss of "Time" magazine wrote a mostly negative review, criticizing the lack of interesting emotional elements. Kenneth Turan's review in the "Los Angeles Times" was particularly scathing. Dismissing the emotive elements, he stated, "What really brings on the tears is Cameron's insistence that writing this kind of movie is within his abilities. Not only is it not, it is not even close", and later argued that the only reason that the film won Oscars was because of its box office total. Barbara Shulgasser of "The San Francisco Examiner" gave "Titanic" one star out of four, citing a friend as saying, "The number of times in this unbelievably badly written script that the two [lead characters] refer to each other by name was an indication of just how dramatically the script lacked anything more interesting for the actors to say."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: According to Dalin Rowell of "/Film", "With complaints about its lengthy runtime, observations that certain characters could have easily fit onto pieces of floating furniture, and jokes about its melodramatic nature, "Titanic" is no stranger to modern-day criticism." In 2002, filmmaker Robert Altman called it "the most dreadful piece of work I've ever seen in my entire life". Similarly, French New Wave director and former Cahiers du Cinéma editor Jacques Rivette referred to it as "garbage" in a 1998 interview with Frédéric Bonnaud and was particularly critical of Winslet's performance, who he said was "unwatchable, the most slovenly girl to appear on the screen in a long, long time." In 2003, the film topped a poll of "Best Film Endings", but it also topped a poll by "Film 2003" as "the worst movie of all time". In his 2012 study of the lives of the passengers on the "Titanic", historian Richard Davenport-Hines said, "Cameron's film diabolized rich Americans and educated English, anathematizing their emotional restraint, good tailoring, punctilious manners and grammatical training, while it made romantic heroes of the poor Irish and the unlettered". The British film magazine "Empire" reduced their rating of the film from the maximum five stars and an enthusiastic review, to four stars with a less positive review in a later edition, to accommodate its readers' tastes, who wanted to disassociate themselves from the hype surrounding the film, and the reported activities of its fans, such as those attending multiple screenings. In addition to this, positive and negative parodies and other such spoofs of the film abounded and were circulated on the internet, often inspiring passionate responses from fans of various opinions of the film. Benjamin Willcock of DVDActive.com did not understand the backlash or the passionate hatred for the film. "What really irks me...," he said, "are those who make nasty stabs at those who do love it." Willcock stated, "I obviously don't have anything against those who dislike "Titanic", but those few who make you feel small and pathetic for doing so (and they do exist, trust me) are way beyond my understanding and sympathy."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: In 1998, Cameron responded to the backlash, and Kenneth Turan's review in particular, by writing ""Titanic" is not a film that is sucking people in with flashy hype and spitting them out onto the street feeling let down and ripped off. They are returning again and again to repeat an experience that is taking a 3-hour and 14-minute chunk out of their lives, and dragging others with them, so they can share the emotion." Cameron emphasized people from all ages (ranging from 8 to 80) and from all backgrounds were "celebrating their own essential humanity" by seeing it. He described the script as earnest and straightforward, and said it intentionally "incorporates universals of human experience and emotion that are timeless – and familiar because they reflect our basic emotional fabric" and that the film was able to succeed in this way by dealing with archetypes. He did not see it as pandering. "Turan mistakes archetype for cliché," he said. "I don't share his view that the best scripts are only the ones that explore the perimeter of human experience, or flashily pirouette their witty and cynical dialogue for our admiration."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: In 2000, Almar Haflidason of the BBC wrote that "the critical knives were out long before James Cameron's "Titanic" was complete. Spiralling costs that led to it becoming the most expensive motion picture of the 20th Century, and a cast without any big stars seemed to doom the film before release. But box office and audience appreciation proved Cameron right and many critics wrong." He added that "the sinking of the great ship is no secret, yet for many exceeded expectations in sheer scale and tragedy" and that "when you consider that [the film] tops a bum-numbing three-hour running time, then you have a truly impressive feat of entertainment achieved by Cameron". "Empire" eventually reinstated its original five-star rating of the film, commenting: "It should be no surprise[,] then[,] that it became fashionable to bash James Cameron's "Titanic" at approximately the same time it became clear that this was the planet's favourite film. Ever."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: In 2017, on the 20th anniversary of its release, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It was listed among the 100 best films in an "Empire" poll and in a later poll of members of the film industry. In 2021, Dalin Rowell of "/Film" ranked it the third-best film of Cameron's career, stating that it is "easily one of his best films, simply because it defied the odds", and considering it "a legitimately remarkable achievement — one that, despite its large budget, has a humble, earnest center. Even with all of the jokes the Internet loves to throw its way, "Titanic" demonstrates that Cameron is truly capable of everything he can imagine."


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: "Titanic" began its awards sweep starting with the Golden Globes, winning four: Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song. Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart were also nominees. The film garnered fourteen Academy Award nominations, tying the record set in 1950 by Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "All About Eve" and won eleven: Best Picture (the second film about the "Titanic" to win that award, after 1933's "Cavalcade"), Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Sound (Gary Rydstrom, Tom Johnson, Gary Summers, Mark Ulano), Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Original Song. Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart and the make-up artists were the three nominees that did not win, ultimately losing to Helen Hunt in "As Good as It Gets", Kim Basinger in "L.A. Confidential" and "Men in Black" simultaneously. James Cameron's original screenplay and Leonardo DiCaprio were not nominees. It was the second film to receive eleven Academy Awards, after "Ben-Hur". "" would also match this record in 2004.


title: Titanic (1997 film)

text: "Titanic" won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Original Song, as well as four Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The film's soundtrack became the best-selling primarily orchestral soundtrack of all time, and became a worldwide success, spending sixteen weeks at number-one in the United States, and was certified diamond for over eleven million copies sold in the United States alone. The soundtrack also became the best-selling album of 1998 in the U.S. "My Heart Will Go On" won the Grammy Awards for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television.