What a ride it’s been.
When I started watching the movies of James Cameron to
prepare for our week-long Cameron critical blowout, I had an inkling of what I
was getting into—blunt dialogue, boisterous visuals, and crass humor mixed with
joyous wonder. Yet even knowing all that
(having seen Mr. Cameron’s “Titanic” and “Avatar”), there was still so much I
was unprepared for.
To begin with, I hadn’t understood how profoundly
one-dimensional Mr. Cameron’s movies are.
That’s not a criticism; the simplicity of his stories is what grants
them such momentous emotional force—what makes his work at once addictive and
inspiring. He has little need for
ambiguity; he prefers to let his heroines and heroes righteously rage against
the societal machine.
Examples
abound. In “Aliens,” the space-faring Ripley
(Sigourney Weaver) silences a crew of soldiers with a bitter call to
alien-slaughtering action; Sarah Conner (of the “Terminator” series) pummels a
path out of an insane asylum to confront an apocalyptic future; and the
beautifully doomed lovers of “Titanic,” Jack and Rose, literally beat down
doors to survive a disaster unleashed by wealth and folly.
These
struggles are fiercely depicted; it’s intoxicating to watch them unfold. Yet despite such cinematic rapture, there is
also a queasy cynicism in Mr. Cameron’s work.
In many ways he is a visionary, a progressive…and yet, in the same
breath of calling him a feminist, you might also call him a misogynist.
His
underwater epic “The Abyss” is certainly an offender. Its heroine, Lindsay (Mary Elizabeth
Mastrontonio) is first seen as a pair of high heels plopping down on a ship
deck (never doubt Mr. Cameron’s knack for masterfully symbolic imagery). She quickly solidifies into a tough-minded,
submarine-steering warrior…only to dopily submit to the obnoxious “I hate you/I
lay down my life for you” ministrations of her husband (Ed Harris) for a
smugly-directed denouement.
Don’t
think it gets any slimier? Then watch “True
Lies,” a mightily unfunny espionage farce that visually fondles Jamie Lee
Curtis. Or better yet, keep in mind that
even Mr. Cameron’s seemingly feminist movies (including “The Terminator” and
“Titanic”) require their warrior women to be swept from danger by warrior men
before they can ascend to the gladiatorial stature of Hollywood Blockbuster Savior.
These
skin-crawling motifs are at the core of Mr. Cameron’s rough convolutions (and
they’re certainly in tune with the same spirit that made him turn “Avatar,” a
would-be ode to nature, into a “let’s blow ‘em up” pro-war fantasia). Yet I still think that his movies remain transcendent. Bold filmmakers stumble
boldly, and Mr. Cameron is nothing if not bold.
He is the maestro of more and, I believe, one of the greatest
storytellers alive.
Why? Because in his finest films, there is a sweet
sincerity, a passion of a beautifully un-cynical nature. “I know now why you cry,” the titular cyborg
of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” tells John Connor (Edward Furlong). As makeshift father and rogue son, they have
bonded; now, as the Terminator sacrifices himself, his death (and John’s grief)
wrenches you with gratifyingly cathartic power.
There are
plenty of moviegoers eager to sneer at such moments. And yet while shooting our Cameron video
series with my fellow critics Patrick Belin and Mo Shaunette, I discovered that
I was not alone in my love for Mr. Cameron’s unabashedly sentimental flourishes. At the Healthy Orange, we’ve watched
countless movies, many of them terrible; we have every reason to be jaded. And yet we all felt something not only for “Terminator
2,” but for “Titanic” and its tender, soap-operatic love story of a boy and a girl
fighting to survive.
There
is ample evidence that James Cameron is a rude, even cruel person. Yet I think that the love communicated
through his movies is genuine. I’m not
just talking about the ocean-defying romance in “Titanic” (or for that matter,
the more tangential twosomes of “Avatar” or “The Abyss”). I’m also thinking of heated moments, like the
ferocious climax that wraps “Terminator 2”: Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton),
faced with an unstoppable killing machine, firing and reloading, seething with
rage and defiance. She’s not just
opening fire; she’s defending everything and everyone she loves, railing on,
with every last ounce of her indomitable strength.
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