“I’m not going to let them dictate”: How James Cameron dealt with his biggest critics
Few directors have enjoyed or will enjoy the kind of success that James Cameron has throughout his stunning career as a film director. At the time of writing, Cameron is the second-highest-grossing director of all time, and his movies have also earned critical acclaim. This shows that behind the huge box office takings are movies well worthy of their artistic brilliance.
Some of Cameron’s most notable works are The Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Avatar, which prove the kind of impression that Cameron has had on the science fiction genre. It’s easy to see from such films why Cameron has established himself as an icon of the blockbuster.
Aside from science fiction, though, Cameron also handled the legendary epic romantic disaster film Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as lovers of different social classes who board the RMS Titanic on its maiden voyage, which sank in 1912. The film was nominated for a vast 14 Academy Awards, winning 11 and tying Ben-Hur for the most Oscar wins for a single movie.
In addition, Titanic became the first-ever film to reach the billion-dollar grossing mark and was the highest-grossing film until Cameron beat his record with Avatar. Somewhat amazingly, before Titanic was released, there was some negative press surrounding the film, particularly from critics who didn’t know what was just over the horizon.
That kind of criticism, though, positively impacted Cameron in that he learned how to deal with his most prominent critics. In an interview with the DGA, the director explained how the early negativity surrounding Titanic showed him how cruel journalists could be, even when they had little idea about the reality of a movie.
“I learned a lot about the media, that they can be rapacious,” Cameron noted. “They can be sharks in a feeding frenzy, regardless of the facts. I’d never been attacked before, maybe in individual reviews or that sort of thing, but never before a film’s release”. Indeed, before Titanic, Cameron had mainly been lauded, but the fact that the disaster film was coming in at such a colossal budget began raising a few eyebrows in the press.
In addition, because the film was based on real-life events, the early press surrounding Titanic criticised Cameron for making a movie where “everybody knows what happens”. The director added, “OK, the big ship sinks. Big deal. What do you need to spend $200 million on that for? And, you know, you’re way over budget. You’ve got to push your release date.”
Cameron felt that he had been “hung in effigy” before anybody had even caught a glimpse of Titanic. However, this kind of criticism gave the director a “test of character”, which undoubtedly saw him come out on top. “I’m not going to let them dictate that my movie’s a dog,” Cameron remembered thinking. “I’m going to make it the best movie I can.”
What followed was unprecedented in cinema history, and Cameron delivered one of the most commercially and critically successful movies ever. This kind of success showed the director that he should always stick to his guns and subsequently made the early critics of the film blush with embarrassment. It might have been easy to think that Cameron was being foolish with Titanic, but the only fools were the overly critical press.
