Titanic: James Cameron explains why Rose didn't share the door with Jack

'It’s all kind of silly, really, that we’re having this discussion 20 years later'

Twenty years after reaching cinemas and people are still questioning why Rose (Kate Winslet) wouldn’t make room for Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) on the floating door in Titanic.

Winslet has spoken at length about the issue, once saying: “I think he could have actually fit on that bit of door.” She’s also commended DiCaprio’s feelings towards the controversial ending: “He really doesn't care about the door.”

Still, people keep questioning the ending, with James Cameron being asked about Jack’s death in an interview with Vanity Fair. “The answer is very simple because it says on page 147 [of the script] that Jack dies,” the director said. “Very simple.”

Cameron went on to express dismay at being still asked about the artistic choice: “I think it’s all kind of silly, really, that we’re having this discussion 20 years later. But it does show that the film was effective in making Jack so endearing to the audience that it hurts them to see him die.

“Had he lived, the ending of the film would have been meaningless. The film is about death and separation; he had to die. So whether it was that, or whether a smoke stack fell on him, he was going down. It’s called art, things happen for artistic reasons, not for physics reasons.”

Cameron made similar comments earlier this year, going on to talk about the Mythbusters episode where the show both Jack and Rose could have stayed on the door.

“Let’s really play that out: you’re Jack, you’re in water that’s 28 degrees, your brain is starting to get hypothermia. Mythbusters asks you to now go take off your life vest, take hers off, swim underneath this thing, attach it in some way that it won’t just wash out two minutes later—which means you’re underwater tying this thing on in 28-degree water, and that’s going to take you five to ten minutes, so by the time you come back up you’re already dead. So that wouldn’t work.

"His best choice was to keep his upper body out of the water and hope to get pulled out by a boat or something before he died. They’re fun guys and I loved doing that show with them, but they’re full of s**t."

Meanwhile, Cameron and Winslet will reunite in the future for the upcoming Avatar sequels, the director recently explaining why those films have taken so long to come about.