It seems they made an effort to make him look like a bad guy.
He did care for Rose deeply. He was generous.
He was going to marry her. He bought first class tickets for Rose and her mother. Rose's mother was very aware what a great catch he was as a husband.
Not likeable perhaps. But was he a bad guy?
I wouldn't be too sure that he cared about Rose.
It is entirely possible that he only saw her as his property since they were engaged.
And an abusive side of him was shown in some scenes...
No.
shareHe cared for her deeply?? What version of Titanic did you watch? He was terrible to her. Abusive and controlling..
Yes, he was a bad guy.
This. Knocking over tables... freaking out.... having a side man with a gun always near by...
Maybe he said he cares for her, I can't remember, but actions spoke louder
I agree.. he was a dick
shareBut was he a bad guy?
shareAbsolutely.. he was a wee prick!
shareCal is not wee. He is taller than Jack.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wee
The actor Billy Zane is a pretty big guy. 6'1" or so and athletic.
Wasn't it Jack who was wee? Not just in physical stature.
Cal was a first class passenger.
What was Cal supposed to do when some interloper from steerage crashes his dinner party and tries to steal his fiancée? Was he supposed to do nothing?
Was he a bad guy?
Still a wee prick.. tall or short. Didn’t change the fact, lol.. but it was fun reading your reply xx
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Knocking over tables... freaking out....
He is a wealthy young man. So he had an aide that was also an armed bodyguard. So what?
I wouldn't say he was "freaking out". What would you do if you were in his situation? The ship is sinking and Rose has run off with some penniless stranger.
How would you like it if you paid for first class accommodations for Rose and her mother and some rogue from steerage crashes your dinner party and tries to steal your fiancée?
Rose should have also thought of her mother. Why was Rose so reckless and inconsiderate?
Unlikeable perhaps. But was he a bad guy?
It's cool if you don't think he's bad.
Not sure they could convey he was bad any more than they did. What else should he do? Stomp on baby kittens?
Pretty sure most evil fictional characters have situations that made them what they are. It doesn't give them a pass.
Remember how he took a child from despairing parents, promised to save her, used her to get a lifeboat spot, then left her behind to drown alone?
Yeah, he's a bad person. But a smart one! That was a hell of a move.
Let's see if you remember. First, the girl wasn't stolen from anyone as it is suggested that she was abandoned. Also, she was not left to drown as she was seen on the Carpathia after the survivors where rescued. So, had he not been the "bad" man and used the girl for a spot in the lifeboat she would have died.
shareIf she was on the Carpathia, that mean someone else rescued her after Cal abandoned her to drown.
sharePerhaps... based on what we see Cal was chiefly if not solely responsible for his lifeboat and all of its passengers surviving. So yes, while Cal was looking out for himself first he and his actions are what possibly made the girls and others survival possible.
You know, taking a totally untenable position and arguing it can be a fun game.
But you aren't making it fun, not with this subject.
It was more nuanced than that.
Like Rose, he was a product of his time. And like Rose, he was imprisoned by the confines of that time, but he saw those confines as privileges and couldn't understand why Rose would want to escape. His entire inflated ego rests on his wealth, which is why he tries to kill Jack and not Rose when he learns of their affair, because he refuses to be bested by a "gutter rat" and why he kills himself later on (after losing his money in the wall street crash). Rose is a prize he purchased, not a person, which is why he can't understand her, he literally can't fathom how anyone wold not want to "buy into" his family name and money, and it's sorta why he's also so into her.
So, is he likeable? No, but he is fun to watch, he's an enjoyable, nuanced villain.
Well, I don't understand why she would "want to escape". Escape what? A life of wealth for her and her mother?
There were a million women in her situation that would trade places with her in a heartbeat.
Also- why would she contemplate suicide? She had first class accommodations. Was Cal so bad that she would exit her luxurious suite and try to jump off the ship? Jack just happened to be there to stop her from jumping.
Didn't it seem odd that she was all alone on deck? Then Jack arrived. Good timing. They were all alone on the deck of the ship. C'mon, really?
Cal was clearly upset and embarrassed by the incident. Still he gave Jack a 20 spot for pulling Rose back. Not bad. 20 dollars was a lot of money in 1912. Especially to a steerage class vagrant like Jack.
So how does Jack repay his generosity? By openly flirting with Rose and then trying to steal her away. What was Cal supposed to do?
How do we know Cal "kills himself later on (after losing his money in the wall street crash"?
The entire film is based on the narration of Rose as an old woman. Was she entirely truthful? She seems uncertain of Cal's fate. Unconvincing.
Speaking of unconvincing I am unconvinced that Cal was a villain.
Was Cal a bad guy?
There were a million women in her situation that would trade places with her in a heartbeat.
How do we know Cal "kills himself later on (after losing his money in the wall street crash"? ....
The entire film is based on the narration of Rose as an old woman. Was she entirely truthful?
Suicides resulting from the stock market crash of 1929 were rare, and the myth of office building jumpers is not supported by facts. There were only a handful who died that way.
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But we don't even need one example, much less a handful. As I commented to the original poster, Rose was being truthful because this is fiction and Rose was written that way.
"Well, I don't understand why she would "want to escape"."
Well, she was engaged to an abusive dickhead, and once she went through with the marriage she'd be completely trapped. He'd be able to legally beat the crap out of her whenever he liked, for whatever reason he liked, and if she tried to leave him he'd get custody of any children they had and leave her penniless with a useless mother to support.
Why wasn't the mother getting off her ass and finding a well-to-do husband, anyway? She wasn't young, but she was still a looker with Socieity credentials, surely some social-climbing stockbroker would want to marry her...
This is what we saw in the film and their relationship. At the end of their european tour before their upcoming wedding in which Rose has lavishly spent Cals money. She has a new wardrobe and paintings from Paris that he bought her. From the start we see Cal who is excited about being on the Titanic and Rose who is unimpressed. We see him playfully teasing her about the paintings and she shoots down his taste in art. We see the party dining with the ships owner and builder and Margaret Brown. Rose proceeds to light up a cigarette and blow rudly blow smoke into her mother's face after she admonishes her.Cal calls her out on her rudness and orders their lunch. He asks for her approval and all she does is smile. She then unloads her misplaced anger and proceeds to unprovokingly insult Bruce Ismay with suggestive insults and storms off. He keeps silent and eventually follows her to the boatdeck asking her if she is proud of her behavior. After her suicide stunt Cal graciously invites Jack to dine with them. Afterwards, ge tells her that ge is not blind to her depression and to let her in so he can make her happy. Oh, and he presents her with an enormous and rare diamond.
He is kind to Jack and after dinner he is told that Rose is slumming it up with this man she barely.....knows nothing about. Nevermind that at the time it was considered scandalous for a lady( no matter how much of a feminist) to act such a way. When she throws back that he had her followed and she will do what she wants. He finally looses his cool with this petulant girl and in response decides to have Jack draw a nude picture of her wearing the diamond and with a scathing note and to add insult to injury decides to leave him without any explanation for some poor scumbag. What man wouldn't loose their cool?
There is not one scene we see Rose even try to connect with Cal or act.....reasonably nice to him. He has no clue that she is using him for his money. Does she ever give him a chance?
If this is all you saw while watching the movie, you pretty much missed the entire point of her story - and his. You're choosing to see things from the very narrow perspective of a man who seemingly has everything he wants, including Rose, who has been bought. They're not lovers, or even friends. He wanted her and she didn't want him, but because of her family's loss of wealth, the burden of that loss is essentially being made up by her sale to Cal. You understand it's barely consensual. She's sailing away from a life of possibility to a life of serving a man she doesn't like, let alone love. His wealth doesn't change that.
So yeah, of course Cal's having a great time and being generous. He scored the hand of a woman who's rejected him for probably years on account of her family's misfortune. He's not doing her a favour, he's collecting a prize for being rich. Rose isn't unimpressed, she's suffocated by not only him and their pretend marriage, but by the whole idea of being trapped for the rest of her life in both a marriage and a society that upholds these kinds of marriages in the first place. Yes, she's bratty in her handling of the situation because she has no real adult power and can only retaliate in a childish way. She feels like a prisoner because she is one.the diamond is a huge symbol of her captivity.
Everything she does with Jack is her rebellion against that, which is unthinkable for a woman of that era - but you're not from that era, so why don't you understand her desire for freedom? Like I said, it's not all black and white, Cal's not a total dick the whole way through the movie; but that's because the movie is slowly revealing what Rose suspected all along: Cal is an unfortunate by product of his upbringing. And once Cal loses his own wealth, is power is completely moot, showing how little he really had to begin with and the fragility of the society on which this balance of power rests.
Yes he’s a bad guy. He’s good looking and rich, and successful, but as a person, he’s terrible.
I don’t think he loved Rose deeply, they weren’t shown to have much of a connection at all. They were an arranged marriage, and the only time they are shown alone together is when when put the Diamond around her neck. Even in this scene all he does is flaunt the fact that he can provide for her, which is great, but that isn’t the only reason to marry someone. If someone leads with that, it’s usually because they are trying to win them over with their money. Which is what Cal was trying to do. He’s rich and entitled, and he viewed Rose as a possession, and that is what drove through the the rest of the movie.
He didn’t like Rose being scene with Jack, and his immediate reaction is domestic violence. This alone is enough to dismiss Cal as a victim, and root for Rose to leave him
When he realized he couldn’t win her over, he tried to take out Jack multiple times. First by framing him for theft, where he would get locked up blow deck and drown. Then by lying to Rose and saying that he had secured a boat for him and Jack. He even tells Jack during this scene “I always win” proving this entire thing was about getting his way. Then when that failed, he resorted to straight up murder, chasing Rose and Jack while firing a gun. He didn’t kill them, but it’s not like he wasn’t trying.
Then to top it off he cowardly used a child a manipulate his way on to a boat. He saw that child previously, and he didn’t give a shit, so no he wasn’t helping.
So those are some of the reason why is a bad guy, so what exactly is good about him?
What makes his character so good is that he is nuanced, rather than being a one dimensional, cookie-cutter "villain".
All of us have bad and good in us. In the few scenes we saw of Cal, we see plenty: A well-groomed, polite and pleasant gentleman. But we also see a conniving, sometimes violent man who hits a breaking point and does some truly bad things in his manic desperation.
All can be true. He can have good and bad qualities....as do we all. What makes him interesting on-screen is....even though his role in this movie is indeed to be the "villain"....he can be a likeable one at times (just like Hans Gruber in Die Hard). He is very good looking and charming....and even tender (like in the scene where he gives her the necklace). This makes it harder to just flat out paint him as some sinister, mustache-twisting villain. Instead, as others have said.....he's a product of his time and wealthy upbringing....who came completely unhinged.
Ironically, Jack and Rose do ALSO have some good AND negative traits. As has been mentioned by others, Rose gallivants around the ship with another man (whilst engaged to Cal). And Jack....does indeed try to steal her away.
Ultimately, Billy Zane played the heck out of that role. He charmed us in the beginning....and gradually made us hate him toward the end, as he became more and more unhinged.
If he truly cared about Rose, he wouldn't have been controlling and abusive to her. His gifts never came without strings attached. He bought first-class tickets because it was the only kind of transport he expected from a steamship when traveling across the ocean, it wasn't exactly about impressing his future wife and mother-in-law. I think they were traveling to New York for the wedding, so of course he'd buy tickets for Rose and her mom. Can't have a wedding without the bride, and if the bride tells him to bring her mom, bring the mom!
He was also very arrogant, snotty, had no taste in art, was very bigoted towards any classes lower than his, and was willing to stoop to the lowest methods, including framing Jack for theft and attempted rape, and even going as far as trying to shoot Jack to get Rose away from him.
He had no taste in art? How do you know? Because he did not like Picasso? That alone doesn't mean he knows nothing about art.
Jack was a thief. He stole a jacket. When they find the diamond on him they discover another man's name on the jacket. Jack says "I just borrowed it, I was going to give it back!" Yeah, right.
Point 1: Rose was incorrect in saying the artist was "Picasso." She just picked the paintings because they were pretty. Jack correctly identified the works belonging to Monet, whose style is much more preferable to the hideous, broken-puzzle style of Picasso. That, and appreciation in art is a sign of intelligence. Cal wasn't exactly the smartest tool in the shed. He was cunning and knew how to wheel and deal, but he wasn't intelligent in any other area. The fact that he lost his fortune in the crash of '29, and killed himself afterwards is another sign of how dumb he was. Rose had been with Cal for some time before stepping onto Titanic with him, so it seems valid that she would playfully tease him after a period of 6 months to a year, saying "The difference between Cal's taste in art and mine is I have some."
Point 2: Jack needed a disguise in order to get close to Rose and talk to her. He's dirt-poor and has no other clothes besides the clothes on his back. While it is wrong that he stole the jacket and hat (and he's aware that it was wrong), he didn't do it to be mean to the man he stole it from. Cal and Ruth were trying to keep him away from Rose, so he had to find a way to get near her that would circumvent their methods. And yeah, it came back to bite him later.
And last time I checked, do you really think it was okay to slip a valuable, one-of-a-kind diamond into Jack's pocket without his knowledge and accuse him of stealing it, knowing the ship's security wouldn't question the entire thing? I consider that to be very insidious and disgusting.
Point 3: Tell me, are you in love with Cal or something? You've gone out of your way to defend him at every turn, when most people see him for the bad guy he is and dismiss him as evil incarnate. You don't even comment on the controlling, abusive part of him. Do you like to be controlled and abused, so long as the man is rich and handsome enough?
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"You've gone out of your way to defend him at every turn, when most people see him for the bad guy he is and dismiss him as evil incarnate."
Evil incarnate? How on Earth is Cal Hockley "evil incarnate"? You seem to be the only poster on this thread that thinks so.
He gives Jack $20 for pulling Rose off the railing. That's a lot of money in 1912. He even graciously invites him to a first class dinner. How does Jack repay his generosity? By openly flirting with Rose at dinner and later trying to steal her away.
Think of Cal's position. This unknown young passenger from steerage class crashes into their lives. He upsets Rose's mother and threatens her future.
What was Cal supposed to do? Nothing?
Any real man under such circumstances would resist this interloper. That doesn't make him "evil incarnate" like Ted Bundy. Does that make him a bad guy?
He only remembered to "reward" Jack when someone went out of their way to remind him that Jack had actually saved Rose's life, he wouldn't have chosen to drop a $20 otherwise, and it wasn't until Rose pointed out how empty the gesture was that Cal changed his mind about rewarding Jack and inviting him to dinner.
Let's put it this way: if Cal was a kind, loving man, do you really think Rose would have wanted to kill herself and run off with a "gutter rat?" Jack at least was nice to her and didn't treat her like something lesser because she was a woman. Think about that, and compare it to how Cal behaved. Even Upper-Class men of that period would have considered quite a bit of his behavior abominable if they had witnessed or found out about how he treated Rose.
There's a reason I feel no sympathy for him because he deserved everything he got. I don't care how rich he was, he was an arrogant, abusive asshole, and no amount of money can make up for that.
And by the way, I'm not the only poster on here who thinks Cal is evil. Several other people wrote him off as evil too.
And you still haven't answered my question: do you fantasize living with rich, abusive men so long as you have a "comfortable lifestyle" that comes with it? A gilded cage is still a cage, buddy, and a jailer in a suit is still a jailer. Don't kid yourself if you think the harshness of Cal's methods towards Rose and Jack were justified. I'd just as soon have fun watching you cry silently with bruises on your face (and other places) after he'd married you and beaten you for the night after getting drunk and being disappointed in how you performed in the bedroom. Will money, a pretty house you can't leave, and nice clothes still be able to soothe your pain? I doubt it.
"And you still haven't answered my question: do you fantasize living with rich, abusive men so long as you have a "comfortable lifestyle" that comes with it?"
Pardon me, I thought you were not serious asking this question. That is why I didn't answer.
I am a man and not homosexual. So the answer is no.
"A gilded cage is still a cage, buddy, and a jailer in a suit is still a jailer. Don't kid yourself if you think the harshness of Cal's methods towards Rose and Jack were justified."
Was Cal a jailer? I thought he was a husband.
And you still haven't answered my question: was Cal a bad guy?
Considering how he treated people, yes, he is a bad guy, and you, sir, are an idiot for defending him.
shareActually I don't think he treated Rose that well. She couldn't even order her own food. He was very controlling. That didn't make him a bad person though.
What DID make him a bad person is when they were waiting for life boats and he made a comment to the affect of there are those that count and those that don't count and only those that count will get a life boat. Don't quote me because I can't remember word for word what he said but he was saying that people who were not in the same financial bracket as he and Rose were beneath them and not worthy of getting a life boat. THAT makes him a bad person IMO.
"What DID make him a bad person is when they were waiting for life boats and he made a comment to the affect of there are those that count and those that don't count and only those that count will get a life boat. Don't quote me..."
You may be thinking of Bruce Ismay. Portrayed by Jonathan Hyde in Titanic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Bruce_Ismay
He pressured Captain Smith to go recklessly at full speed in order to set a transatlantic speed record. Then he grabbed a seat in a lifeboat.
"After the disaster, Ismay was savaged by both the American and the British press for deserting the ship while women and children were still on board. Some papers called him the "Coward of the Titanic" or "J. Brute Ismay", and suggested that the White Star flag be changed to a yellow liver. Some ran negative cartoons depicting him deserting the ship. The writer Ben Hecht, then a young newspaperman in Chicago, wrote a scathing poem contrasting the actions of Captain Smith and Ismay. The final verse reads: "To hold your place in the ghastly face / of death on the sea at night / is a seaman's job, but to flee with the mob / is an owner's noble right."
Ismay really was a villain.
But Cal? Why?
Nah, it was Cal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3J_v_eUlGM&ab_channel=kinobscura
A decent person would NEVER say that!
In actuality, Ismay did not pressure Captain Smith, according the inquests. In addition, as he was well aware, and as Captain Rostrom (?) confirmed during the inquest, the only authority on board the ship is the captain. Smith had the final word on how Titanic ran and how fast. Ismay was on board as a passenger; he was a longtime executive of White Star; he would know the rules.
In actuality, he tried to help fill the lifeboats, but in the end, he was so upset that the officer (I believe it was Lowe) ordered him to stop. At the inquest, there was an angry exchange between Lowe and Ismay because both recalled that Lowe wasn't at all polite on deck; Lowe didn't want to quote himself at the inquest, and Ismay shouted that he should.
The actions by the Ismay depicted in this movie do not reflect the record.