Getty Images/Universal
James Cameron, who has spent the last two decades effectively making video games for movies in the Avatar franchise, believes that Christopher Nolan was too afraid to “touch the third rail” with his direction of Oppenheimer. Cameron specifically noted the decision to not show the physical and human devastation of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings.
While there’s no denying James Cameron is one of the greatest technical and blockbuster filmmakers is the history of cinema, he’s arguably the last person who should be be offering criticism on the moral depth of other directors’ work.
Cameron’s filmography — Piranha II, The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, True Lies, Titanic, and the Avatar franchise — is certainly beyond reproach from a success and entertainment perspective, but from an intellectual and consequential point of view, it’s not as though he’s ever made a Schindler’s List or The Zone of Interest. Hell, even Christopher Nolan made Dunkirk. Even The Dark Knight Rises commented on wealth inequality.
Avatar, on the other hand — Cameron’s most socially conscious and opinionated films — barely features human protagonists and is accused of ripping off its story from works such as Dances with Wolves and FernGully.
“Look, I love the filmmaking. But I did feel that it was a bit of a moral cop out. Because it’s not like Oppenheimer didn’t know the effects. He’s got one brief scene in the film where we see — and I don’t like to criticize another filmmaker’s film — but there’s only one brief moment where he sees some charred bodies in the audience and then the film goes on to show how it deeply moved him. But I felt that it dodged the subject,” Cameron said in a recent interview with Deadline.
“I don’t know whether the studio or Chris felt that that was a third rail that they didn’t want to touch, but I want to go straight at the third rail. I’m just stupid that way.”
It’s difficult to discern where exactly Cameron has derived this belief that he has a penchant for “touching the third rail,” which is a political term for for any issue so controversial that it is “charged” and “untouchable”, making candidates who discuss them those who “touch the third rail.”
Let’s break it down film by film. Piranha, Aliens, The Abyss, True Lies, and Titanic are pure popcorn movies without any specific points of view, let alone controversial ones. The Terminator movies were certainly ahead of its time as far as its wariness of artificial intelligence, sure, but it’s not as though Cameron has revisited the topic since AI has become an actual issue in our world. Plus, back then, criticizing the idea of genocidal robots certainly wasn’t contentious, and is arguably less so now.
Then there’s Avatar, which, okay, is clearly socially and politically energized, but its beliefs are no more nuanced than “colonization and manmade global warming is bad.” Not exactly explicitly weighing in Gaza there, now, are ya, James?