The single greatest scene of James Cameron’s career, according to James Cameron
James Cameron has an affinity for moments in his films that aren’t all about action.
There are certain truisms in Hollywood that everyone who wants to be part of the industry should know, like ‘If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the screen’, ‘Don’t work with children or animals’, and ‘Never bet against James Cameron’.
Cameron might seem like a dictator on set because of how demanding he is, but he’s unquestionably one of the most successful filmmakers of all time, and someone who can appease both critics and audiences. He set an all-time Academy Award record when Titanic won 11 Oscars, including ‘Best Picture’, but his 2009 classic Avatar remains the highest-grossing film in history, having topped Avengers: Endgame with its re-release.
What’s amazing about Cameron is that, despite having a relatively short filmography, he is responsible for several all-time classic cinematic moments, and although he doesn’t have a list of credits that is nearly as extensive as Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola, there are scenes from his films that any cinephile would recognise. The Colonial Marine raid in Aliens, the truck chase from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the helicopter battle in True Lies, the aquatic aliens in The Abyss, and the battle for the Tree of Souls in Avatar are among the most riveting special effects sequences ever created.
However, apart from being known as perhaps the greatest action filmmaker ever to get behind a camera, Cameron said that the best scene that he ever shot was the sunset kiss between Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack and Kate Winslet’s Rose in Titanic, where no CGI was used, as the director had to wait with his crew until the sun was actually setting in order to get the perfect shot.
The moment came, and Winslet apparently rushed to her position screaming, ‘shoot’, about which Cameron recalled, “I’ve never heard an actor yell at me and say, ‘Shoooooot’”.
Titanic might still be the most impressive achievement of Cameron’s career, even when considering the tremendous leaps forward in visual effects, motion-capture, and 3D he has had to develop for the Avatar films, but it was plagued with issues from its inception, and many expected it to be a box office disaster in the vein of Heaven’s Gate or Waterworld.
While his visual capabilities were always going to prove to be above reproach, Titanic was most surprising in how elemental its love story was, such that, even with the unnecessary and unfair criticism he gets for his writing skills, he certainly proved that he had the capacity to understand young love.
It was the brilliant chemistry between DiCaprio and Winslet that ultimately helped Titanic become a phenomenon that audiences kept trekking back to the theatre to see, which, shortly after release, gained a reputation of being a future classic. Despite how easy it has been to make fun of it for being ‘cheesy’, those who saw the film in theatres can point to what a spell Cameron had cast on the audiences.
He remains one of the few living filmmakers whose new releases still feel like events, but the real question is whether Cameron will spend the rest of his career making Avatar sequels, or if he would ever embark on something like Titanic ever again. His legacy as one of the foremost figures in cinematic history is already guaranteed, but he certainly has some surprises left in him.
