Why James Cameron was initially against using ‘My Heart Willl Go On’ in ‘Titanic’
The 1990s was a great decade for independent cinema, with many new filmmakers rising to become cinema’s most important new voices. Still, many blockbusters were far from extinct, and the biggest by a country mile was Titanic. Created on a massive budget of $200million, the movie was no small feat, with extensive sets and a massive cast of extras used to recreate the tragic night that the ‘unsinkable’ ship sadly hit an iceberg.
The film follows the wealthy Rose DeWitt Bukater, portrayed by Kate Winslet, a 17-year-old girl who is unhappily engaged to a businessman, causing her to almost attempt suicide by jumping off the ship. Yet, she is persuaded to remain on board by the lower-class Jack Dawson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who wins the tickets by playing a game of poker shortly before the ship sets sail. Despite being from wildly different class backgrounds, the pair instantly fall for each other, their love becoming a saving grace as disaster strikes. We see people fighting for their lives as the ship snaps in half, with water rapidly filling the rooms.
There are many emotional moments in the movie, heightened by the fact that it’s based on a real historical event. While the romance between Rose and Jack is fictional, there are many characters inspired by real people, such as the elderly couple who choose to die in each other’s arms in bed. Thus, when we see these scenes, knowing they’re actually lifted from real moments on board the Titanic, it’s hard to get through them without a dry eye. Making the film even more moving is the music, most notably Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’, written by James Horner, who composed the rest of the score.
Even if you’re not a fan of the singer’s work, it’s hard to deny that the song doesn’t up the emotional ante. She sings from the perspective of Rose, offering a tender anthem of hope that suggests that, despite Jack’s death, he’ll never be forgotten. “Love can touch us one time/ And last for a lifetime/ And never let go ’til we’re gone,” Dion sings. As the pair reunite on the grand staircase at the end of the film, the gentle flutes make the scene even more moving. The song became a massive hit, becoming the best-selling single of 1998.
Yet Cameron didn’t want to include a pop song in his film, worried that it would cheapen the ending. The director reportedly told producers (via Billboard), “Would you put a song at the end of Schindler’s List?” adamant about keeping a pop song out of the tragic movie. According to Tommy Mottola, who was the head of Sony Music Entertainment at the time, “Cameron was getting pressure from the studio to try and have something that would be an additional powerful marketing tool.”
He added, “For what they’d spent, they were looking for every marketing opportunity that they could get.” However, Jon Landau, who was an executive producer on Titanic, argued otherwise, “It had nothing to do with the marketing. Jim was open to the idea of hearing it. But he was sceptical that a pop song would work at the end of this very dramatic, historical drama.”
Horner knew that a pop song wasn’t wanted, but he wrote it anyway in the hopes that Cameron would change his mind. Simon Franglen, who co-produced the track, revealed, “James Horner carried around a cassette for weeks on weeks on weeks, waiting for the right time to play it for Cameron. He wanted him to be in a good mood.” Luckily, Cameron actually agreed to use it in a test screening of the movie, and when he saw how emotionally destroyed everyone was, he kept the song.
“I don’t think Jim has ever been someone who needs other people’s opinion. But I know that he personally got the song. He felt like it gave a resonance to the rest of the movie,” Franglen added. In the end, the song proved to be a perfect marketing tool as well as the perfect emotional climax, becoming one of the most iconic movie songs ever written.
