James Cameron, the genius, the visionary, the creator who is always ahead of his time even with the evolutionary leaps and bounds in the field of technology, has recently commented on the constraints of an artist in a time such as ours. The Hollywood director is not new to the public sphere of film and entertainment, having dipped his toes in the business since the early ’80s. But in the course of these decades that have followed moviemakers and theatergoers into the 21st century, the industry has still to live up to the expectations and demands of the legendary James Cameron.
The director, who is well-known for timeless classics and cult favorites like Titanic and Aliens, has now begun his reigning obsession over the world of Pandora and is expected to spend the remainder of his career dictating the legends and folklore from the communities of the Na’vi people.
James Cameron Laments the Constraints of Time on Artists
Only if life were as ever expansive and immortal as the stories that we leave behind. The limitation of that ever-pestering problem has long haunted humanity and its greatest philosophers, scientists, and storytellers. And among its latest victim falls James Cameron, who in an interview with S.S. Rajamouli, has criticized the infinitesimal time that he has and that not being enough to tell the stories that he wants to be told.
In an interview with Empire, Cameron is asked how he feels about the opportunities missed in being able to direct genre-exploring projects in the time that he has dedicated to directing the Avatar franchise. The director then claims:
“Two thoughts in answer to your question: the first is that the world of Avatar is so sprawling that I can tell most of the stories I want to tell within it and try many of the stylistic techniques that I hope to explore, and secondly, yes… our time as artists is finite.
I will always mourn some of the stories that I don’t get to make. I feel a great satisfaction when other directors want to explore some of my ideas, like Kathryn Bigelow did with Strange Days, and Robert Rodriguez did when I passed him the baton on Alita: Battle Angel. I look forward to more collaborations in the future with directors I admire.”
Whether he is, in fact, appreciative of the fact that he is on the path to creating a legacy with his Avatar pentalogy or if he mourns the loss of not finding enough time to tell the tales of Pandora alongside the projects he wanted to direct remains an ambiguous subject.
James Cameron’s “All-Consuming” Avatar Franchise
When Cameron states that “The Avatar films themselves are kind of all-consuming,” the audience doesn’t ponder long on the truth of the matter. The films, as expansive as they are, become even more complex when viewed through the lens of the tactile manner of shooting and cutting-edge technology involved to bring that vision onto the big screen. No wonder the director remembers the projects that he missed out on, the people he passed the mantle to, and their successes and failures in bringing those movies to life after he handed the scripts over.
Avatar: The Way of Water is currently playing in theatres worldwide and has grossed north of a billion dollars in global earnings.
Source: Empire
