James Cameron: Interviews

Front Cover
Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2012 - Biography & Autobiography - 219 pages
James Cameron (b. 1954) is lauded as one of the most successful and innovative filmmakers of the last thirty years. His films often break records, both in their massive budgets and in their box-office earnings. They include such hits as The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Titanic, and Avatar. Part scientist, part dramatist, Cameron combines these two qualities into inventive and captivating films that often push the boundaries of special effects to accommodate his imagination. James Cameron: Interviews chronicles the writer-director's rise through the Hollywood system, highlighted by his "can-do" attitude and his insatiable drive to make the best film possible.

As a young boy growing up in Canada, Cameron imagined himself an astronaut, a deep-sea explorer, a science fiction writer, or a filmmaker. Transplanted to southern California, he would go on to realize many of those boyhood fantasies.

This collection of interviews provides glimpses of the filmmaker as he advances from Roger Corman's underling to "king of the world." The interviews are drawn from a number of sources including TV appearances and conversations on blogs, which have never been published in print. Spanning more than twenty years, this collection constructs a concise and thorough examination of Cameron, a filmmaker who has almost single-handedly ushered Hollywood into the twenty-first century.

 

Contents

How to Direct a Terminator
3
James Cameron Interviewed
8
WriterDirector Shows the Special Effect Energy Can Radiate
15
An Out of This World Communication with Director James Cameron
19
James Cameron Takes the Plunge
23
James Cameron Takes a Second Plunge
29
James Cameron Interview
35
The Heros Journey
41
The Final Frontier
133
The Second Coming
139
Sound of Silence
144
James Cameron
147
My Titanic Obsession
169
King of All He Surveys
174
A Life in Pictures
178
James Cameron
189

Approaching the Sequel
50
Iron Jim
57
Rich and Strange
71
The Movie Director as Captain Nemo
77
A Drive of Titanic Proportions
110
Avatar Bluray Also Talks Titanic 3D and Avatar 2
200
James Cameron Interview Talks Avatar Rerelease Sequels 3D Conversions and Working with Del Toro
207
Index
215
Copyright

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About the author (2012)

Brent Dunham is a film instructor at Flagstaff Arts and Leadership Academy. He is the editor of Danny Boyle: Interviews (University Press of Mississippi), and his work has been published in the International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society.