THE SYMBOLISM OF HANDS JAMES CAMERON'S TITANIC

Throughout the film Cameron places great emphasis on hands, letting them tell the story in places where words might fail. Like when Jack first reaches out to Rose on the railing, when she's getting ready to jump. "Take my hand. I'll pull you back in." (Close up of his hand reaching for her, then her hand sliding into his.)

There's a meaning well beyond the actual words, as we discover as the movie unfolds.

It's not a coincidence that the very first thing we see of Rose DeWitt Bukater is her white-gloved hand coming out of the car. It's so sterile and pristine. There's absolutely no sign of the emotions and passion that hand will evoke.

And don't miss the fact that Jack wins passage on Titanic in a lucky "hand" of poker. As he says, "A VERY lucky hand."

There's almost not a scene when Jack and Rose are together that Cameron doesn't use a close up shot of their hands.

When they meet on the grand staircase for dinner, Jack kisses her hand, jokingly telling her, "I saw that in a Nickelodeon once and always wanted to try it."

During dinner he's separated from her, so to "speak" to her personally he slips a note into her hand.

Later in steerage they dance wildly, but not out of control, because as Jack and Rose spin around and around faster and faster their hands are locked safely together.

Jack and Rose are always safe, as long as their hands are together. In the gymnasium, when Jack is pleading with Rose to break free, he shows his emotion by tenderly stroking her face. It's such a simple gesture but it evokes such feeling.

Contrast it with Cal. He expresses his feelings for Rose by giving her the necklace. Hardly the same thing. You'll notice that on boarding, Cal escorts Ruth through the crowd and up the gangplank. He does it again on the way to dinner. Why isn't he escorting his fiancée? Maybe because Cameron doesn't want Cal touching her. In fact there's only one time that Cal's hand actually touches Rose's bare skin. When he slaps her across the face.

That action speaks volumes, as does the hand-shot Cameron chooses to use when Jack takes Rose flying. A close up on their hands, intertwining and caressing each other in this incredibly sensuous dance. And when they kiss? Instead of staying on their faces, Cameron pans around to the side to show Rose's hand as it goes up around Jack's neck and into his hair. Not a casual touch surely, but a lover's embrace.

When Jack is drawing Rose's portrait his hands sensuously caress the paper as he smoothes and smudges the charcoal. And he has her put her hand near her face, almost as if he needs the hand to complete the expression of who she really is. Because in this film, hands express as much, if not more, as the face.

Take, for instance, the first time Rose truly defies the social system that's smothering her. She raises her hand to Spicer Lovejoy and gives him the finger.

Later, when Jack and Rose climb into the backseat of the car her invitation to him is a simple (but very erotic) "Put your hands on me, Jack."

Throughout TITANIC Cameron uses their hands as a symbol of the lovers' connection.

And when their love-making climaxes? We don't see faces contorted with passion or bodies writhing in rhythm. We see Rose's open hand slam against the steamy window, leaving a mark that will be there long after they've gone. That was intense!

Later, when Rose and Jack return to her suite to warn Ruth and Cal that Titanic is sinking, she tells Jack, "It will be all right. Just don't let go of my hand."

She knows.

And what is the only way Cal is able to keep the lovers apart? By cuffing Jack's hands behind his back.

And again, when Rose goes to rescue Jack, raising the ax to break his bonds, what is it that's most at risk? His hands. On the one hand (sorry) that's appropriate because Jack is an artist, so his hands are his tools and his livelihood, but surely we're supposed to respond to it on a much deeper level, considering how Cameron has led us, step by step (hand over hand?) to this point.

After Rose gets yelled at by Cal and corsetted by her mother, she tells Jack (in the gymnasium) that she can't see him anymore. But something changes her mind and sends her looking for him. Do you remember what? It's the scene at afternoon tea, while her mother and the other ladies are droning on and on about the wedding invitations. Rose looks across the way and sees a little girl who is being groomed by her mother to be a prim and proper lady. It's a simple scene but so stifling! And what image does Cameron choose to convey this sense of oppression? The child's white-gloved hand, smoothing the napkin on her knee. The same image he chose for Rose at the beginning of the film.

So Rose goes to Jack and he teaches her to fly. From that point there's almost not a scene of them together in which they're not holding hands. The most poignant, of course, being that last one in the water when Rose, realizing that their hands have actually frozen together, has to forcibly remove her hand from his. To physically (albeit not spiritually) break the connection between them. Even then she promises, "I'll never let go, Jack."

And life goes on, as Rose shows us.

I love the special attention Cameron pays to Rose Dawson Calvert's hands throughout the film. From the first shot of her aged hands working the clay on the wheel, shaping this formless lump into something more, the way she shaped her life after meeting Jack. To the shots of her cradling and caressing the objects Lovett brought up from Titanic. To the end, when she climbs up onto the railing of the Keldysh, her hands, though wrinkled and old, still showing the strength that has brought her this far, to return the Heart of the Ocean to where it belongs.

Of course there are other miscellaneous hand images throughout TITANIC. Think of Lovejoy, for instance. For most of the movie he's just this quiet sort of hulking presence. But when he interacts with Jack, what do we see? A hand offering Jack a cigarette. A hand offering Jack a bribe. A hand slipping the necklace into Jack's pocket. And a hand punching Jack in the stomach. (Did anyone else think Lovejoy was going to hit Jack with his gun? But that would have been too impersonal. It had to be the hand, you see.)

But obviously the most important examples are Jack and Rose. When Titanic is about to make her final dive, Jack gives Rose three instructions: Take a deep breath and hold it. Kick for the surface. And whatever you do, don't let go of my hand.

It's as if as long as their hands are together their souls are touching too.

Maybe that's why in the closing scene, when Rose is back on Titanic, Cameron's first shot of her is a close up on her hand. Her beautiful, elegant glove-free hand. Now we know how sensuous and erotic it is. And when she slips her hand into Jack's we can feel like all the promises have been fulfilled.

"I'll never let go."

If, after that, you have any doubts about the symbolic importance Cameron has assigned to the hands, just remember Jack's words to Rose, when she's looking through his sketchbook.

"I think you had a love affair with her," Rose teases. "No. With her hands."

Cameron has a love affair with hands all the way through TITANIC. I'm glad too, because the subtlety and beauty of the hand symbolism just added that much more to an already wonderful film.

Author Unknown

This is Susan D. again - I just want to add that James Cameron also chose to use as Jack's sketches the subject of hands.