The movie James Cameron was “shaken by the majesty of”
When considering the most prominent Hollywood movie directors of all time, the likes of Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron immediately spring to mind. On the latter filmmaker, Cameron has delivered some absolute blockbusters over the years, from his early days on The Terminator and Aliens to his more recent work with Avatar.
The Canadian director has been adorned with several awards over the years, including an Academy Award for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’, and from a commercial perspective, three of Cameron’s films occupy the top four highest-grossing movies of all time; 1997’s Titanic, 2009’s Avatar and its 2022 sequel The Way of Water. Simply put, Cameron is a serious contender for the most important mainstream cinema director of all time.
Cameron once sat down with a fellow titan of blockbuster cinema, Christopher Nolan, to discuss yet another monolithic film figure, Stanley Kubrick. He paid particular attention to Kubrick’s 1968 science fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey and explained how it had a real impact on his worldview and outlook on movies themselves.
“I remember being shaken by the majesty of it, as a work of art in every sense,” Cameron said. “Everybody thinks about it as a space drama, but at its core, it’s about artificial intelligence. I mean, HAL will probably exist in our lifetime.” If the current rise of artificial intelligence is anything to go by, then Cameron was certainly right in his prediction.
The director added: “I remember going with a great sense of anticipation to each of his films thinking: ‘Can he pull it off and amaze me again?’ And he always did. The lesson I learned from him was never to do the same thing twice.” And that’s the one thing to say about Kubrick is that he always extended himself into new genres and new styles.
Interestingly, Cameron has some conflicting feelings about 2001 even though he truly admires it as a work of it. It comes down to what he looks for in a feel in terms of emotional depth. In another interview with The Star, Cameron oddly enough said that he “doesn’t like” Kubrick’s film.
“It’s not a film that I like; it’s a film that I love,” he said. “When I say I don’t like it, it’s that I don’t like the feel of the film. I don’t like its sterility. I like a film with a little more emotional balls, just as a movie, to get involved in. But as a work of art, I love 2001. It had an enormous, enormous impact on me, at a certain point.”
