Second, by introducing the character of Old Rose, the bookend device connects this story of another time with our own day, and reminds us that the Titanic disaster was not so long ago, within the span of one human life. Old Rose dramatizes the fact that there are many people alive today who remember the Titanic, and a few who actually survived it.
Third, the framing device creates mystery — who is this elderly woman who claims to be a Titanic survivor, and what happened to the jewel the explorer is so eager to get? Did Rose find love and did her lover survive? These question marks are hooks that engage the audience's attention and create suspense even though we know the general outcome of the Titanic story.
Titanic begins by introducing us to one HERO of this mini-story, the very contemporary figure of Brock Lovett, the scientist/businessman/explorer who can't quite decide how to present himself to the public. His ORDINARY WORLD is that of a showman trying to raise money for his expensive scientific adventures. His OUTER PROBLEM is trying to find a treasure, a diamond thought to have been lost on the Titanic; his INNER PROBLEM is trying to find an authentic voice and a better system of values.
The figure of the scientist-explorer is common enough to have become an archetype, expressed as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creation, Professor Challenger; Allan Quartermain of King Solomon's Mines; the explorer-showman Carl Denning of King Kong, and the contemporary Indiana Jones. These fictional characters are reflections of real adventuring archaeologists and researchers like Howard Carter, Hein-rich Schlieman, Roy Chapman Andrews, and Jacques Cousteau. Robert Ballard, the scientist-adventurer-businessman who actually found the wreck of the Titanic, is one model for Lovett in the movie, and actually went through his own Hero's Journey in choosing how to regard the ship. At first he came as a kind of scientific conqueror, but gradually was moved deeply by the human tragedy and decided the wreck site was a sacred place that should be left undisturbed as a memorial to those who died on the ship.
In this plot thread, the young scientist is following a prime directive: find the treasure. But through the magic of the old woman's story, a tale that occupies the body of the film, the explorer is transformed from a money-driven capitalist to a true explorer of the heart, who comes to understand that there are more important treasures in life than jewels and money.
THE OBJECT OF THE QUEST
What is the Holy Grail Lovett seeks in his quest? It's a diamond called "The Heart of the Ocean," a name that links the theme of love with the setting of the film. The jewel is a true MacGuffin — something small and concrete to focus the audience's attention and symbolize the hopes and aspirations of the characters. A diamond is a symbol of perfection, of the immortal, eternal power of the gods. Its facets, with their mathematical precision, are physical proof of the grand design, of the creative hand and mind of the gods. Like the gods, certain substances, such as gold, silver, and jewels, seem to be immortal. Where flesh and bone, leaf and tree, even copper and steel, corrode away, jewels remain, untouched, unchanged. They miraculously survive the crushing power of the bottom of the sea in perfect condition. Jewels and precious metals have always been used, along with incense, perfumes, beautiful flowers, and divine music, to connect religious and dramatic presentations to the world of the gods. They are little pieces of heaven, islands of perfection in an imperfect world, "doors of perception" giving a glimpse of Paradise. "The Heart of the Ocean" is a symbol for the idealized notions of love and honor that the movie reveres.
Lovett ransacks the ship with his remote-controlled robot but doesn't find the bit of heaven he's seeking, at least not in the way he anticipated. Opening the safe he's retrieved, he finds rotted pulp that was once money and a miraculously preserved drawing of a beautiful young woman, wearing nothing but the diamond he is looking for. Lovett makes a CNN broadcast that is a CALL heard by Old Rose and her granddaughter Lizzy Calvert.
Old Rose's ORDINARY WORLD is that of an elderly but active artist living in Ojai, California. She is a HERO in her own drama, bringing her long life to a climax and conclusion, but she also serves as a MENTOR for Lovett and the audience, guiding us through the special world of the Titanic and teaching a higher system of values. Her OUTER PROBLEM is how to get across the Titanic experience; her INNER PROBLEM is dredging up these strong memories that for a long time have been swimming in her unconscious. She issues her own CALL to Lovett, claiming to be the woman in the drawing he has found, and asserting that she knows something about the diamond. After some REFUSAL to accept her story, he accepts and brings her out to his research vessel, where she begins to tell her story of the Titanic's first and last days at sea.
MAIN STORY — ORDINARY WORLD
Now the movie leaves the framing device to fully enter the main story and the world of the Titanic. We see the ship in her new-minted glory for the first time. The bustling dock is the ORDINARY WORLD stage on which the main protagonists or HEROES, young Rose and Jack, are introduced. Rose gets an elaborate ENTRANCE as one of the beautiful possessions in the entourage of Cal Hockley, her fiance and the SHADOW or villain of the piece, a sneering "heavy" straight out of a Victorian melodrama. We also meet the sub-villain, Hockley's henchman Lovejoy, who executes Cal's arrogant wishes.
Our first sight of Rose is her hand in a delicate white glove, emerging from the motorcar. The hands of the lovers, twining and separating, will become a continuing visual thread. She is elegantly dressed but feels a prisoner, as Old Rose tells us in voice-over. She is a HERO on a journey, but at this moment wears the mask of the VICTIM archetype, a damsel in distress, beautiful but powerless.
Cal represents the arrogance and bigotry of his class and also the dark, Shadow side of manhood and marriage. He is at one extreme of a POLARITY, representing repression and tyranny, with Jack as his polar opposite representing liberation and love. Although the Titanic is a great feat of the imagination, built by honest laboring men, it has deep, fatal flaws, the fault of arrogant men like Cal. He has bought into and identified with the hubristic aspects of the Titanic, believing fully that it is unsinkable because it was created by men of Cal's exalted class, by "gentlemen." He claims that "not even God himself could sink her." In the world of myth, a statement like that is sure to bring down the wrath of the gods, who listen carefully and punish swiftly.
Rose's mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, is another SHADOW figure, representing the dark side of femininity, the repressive, smothering potential of motherhood, a witchy, scheming queen like Medea or Clytemnestra.
Rose has received a dark CALL TO ADVENTURE, being manipulated into marrying a man she doesn't love. As Rose CROSSES THE THRESHOLD of the gangway with her mother and Cal it is a kind of royal procession, but Rose experiences it as a march to slavery, and the Titanic as a slave ship taking her to captivity in America. She doesn't quite REFUSE THE CALL but is certainly a reluctant hero.
Now we meet the second principal HERO, Jack, who with his ALLY, the young Italian immigrant Fabrizio, is gambling, risking everything on fate or chance. A clock is ticking, setting up a MOTIF of time running out, of the general shortness and preciousness of life. Jack's ORDINARY WORLD is that of drifting and adventure, trusting to luck and his own skills and gifts. The CALL TO ADVENTURE comes, on one level, as he wins the card game and a pair of third-class tickets on the Titanic. He shows no RELUCTANCE or fear at this level — he's not the reluctant kind of hero. However, the IRONY is thick as he declares himself and Fabrizio to be "the luckiest sons-of-bitches alive." If he knew what awaits him, he might have cause to be afraid.