National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Titanic was produced by Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox and released in December 1997. Directed by James Cameron, the film became a defining cultural and commercial event of its era, ultimately winning eleven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Its production scale and technical ambition set a new benchmark for Hollywood filmmaking in the late twentieth century.

This cell, titled The Titanic, captures a sustained aerial or elevated wide shot of the RMS Titanic underway at sea, the ship illuminated against dark open water with its bow and wake clearly visible. The shot holds across three frames, and the final frame preserves a naturally occurring lens flare that produces a circular halo of light around the vessel, a distinctive optical artifact from the original 35mm photography.