James Cameron interview on "Titanic" (1997)

filmmaker James Cameron has a reputation for running over budget and out of time he also has a reputation for making visually stimulating and profitable movies loaded with action and special effects among them are aliens True Lies The Terminator and Terminator 2 his latest is Titanic it was a hundred million dollars over it's a hundred million dollar budget but it is also being recognized as one of the best movies of the year the New Yorkers Anthony Lane wrote the film is grand and wrenching if you are going to spend two hundred million dollars on a movie this is the way to do it joining me now the man who made Titanic James Cameron welcome to this program I'm so happy to be here great great pleasure I saw the film last night it's an extraordinary film a friend of mine who was a film critic for a extraordinary newspaper said to me it's her top ten number one and she just she was overwhelmed by the notion that it is a level of ambition that you expect Hollywood to do and it hasn't been done recently the notion that you make magic so that people come in to the theater and they get an experience beyond what they might otherwise have you know and I mean what you set out to do well you know it's interesting you say that because when I think of what it was like for me in my sort of formative years you know as a teenager kind of figuring out what the world was all about you know going to films and seeing and getting taken through that doorway into another world whether it was science fiction or the past or just some other place some other people you know and I think of what that meant to me at that time and I think so many people in Hollywood I don't mean to diss Hollywood in any way but they they've lost touch with that sense of transport you know an almost religious transport that a movie is supposed to have and I'm not saying that all films need to do this but I you know the thing that got me into filmmaking was the love of that sense of other worldliness that a film can create in your mind and in your take your emotional ace that you cannot exactly you out of your daily life in to some place or some feeling sometimes it's not another place it's another emotional place you know just so that you can make sure that the plumbing is all still working yeah you know properly and safely you know you don't have to go through a loss in your life you go through a simulation of that loss or something you know but I mean it's taking you somewhere emotionally or or visually and you know the films that I loved when I was when I was a kid were the big films you know so I were the when David Lean's artists the lean the lean films 2001 a Space Odyssey the films that really put something up there that you could not experience in your in your life and so with Titanic one side sort of locked in on this subject before you do that tell me why Titanic and why you locked in on this subject it's it's interesting I go back and I try to find the the germinal moment you know and it's it's hard for me to locate it was somewhere five ish years ago I started thinking about some research that I had done where I had met with dr. Robert Ballard who discovered the rack and when I was doing the abyss but I wasn't interested in tight I wasn't seeing him about Titanic I was seeing him about submersibles and remotely operated vehicles in these these deepwater robots that they're using and how all that worked and and he he still had not sort of gotten over Titanic he wanted to show me his tapes of how they discovered and so on and there was a little infection started right there and then I had the journey yeah I had the German I did not it was it was it was incubating you know and then I've always been an absolute lover of history I've never really incorporated it into my work as a filmmaker but I've always loved history especially the antiquities you know ancient Rome and Greece and that sort of thing but but all history really and so I started reading reading up on the history of Titanic not just the physicality of the wreck and the high technology of finding it but you know who were these people you know and what did they experience and it became to me such a fascinating story as it has for many people who get sucked into the vortex of Titanic so what did you do then then I started reading and coincidentally I I then then I reached that that stage you know which every filmmaker does where you have this dawning sort of creeping realization that you're probably going to make a film it's like please God let it not be a film about Titanic because it's going to be a lot of work and and I got something in the mail which was an invitation to it to a screening of titanica which was the IMAX film and when I saw that I realized that these scientific submersibles might be available to make to make a film because they had done a fryin acts which is a documentary but I thought it's not that much of a greater leap to to try to get these people involved in a fictional Hollywood movie so I promptly you know flew to Moscow and met with the people that had done the IMAX film and said hey can I use your subs and then once they agreed then it was now I'm making a film I guess I better come up with a story and so then you you as a screenwriter got to create a story exactly what's the objective of the story I mean I'm fascinated by the Titanic and everything real that happened but you have another obligation you have an obligation to go beyond that and bring rightful in you see I think to sum it up very succinctly it make it accessible somehow make Titanic accessible not that it's inaccessible in a way but but get us get the audience over that hump of watching a period film where people dress differently and they speak differently and it all happened 85 years ago and who cares get them in get them involved subjectively in the event and there's only one way to do that which is through characters through characters that you really love and care about and you know we fall in love with Jack and Rose as they fall in love with each other you know up on the screen and then there's a certain point where we realize we're on the ship with them you know I'm talking about as an audience experientially you know in the watching of the film and I think that you can't do that in a docudrama format where you have a multiplicity of characters and you do them all perfect historical justice we very very carefully observed the history and carefully observe the the detail of the physicality of the film you know creating the sets and so on but but ultimately it's it's an experience it's an emotional experience it's a love story it's you know a to use one of my favorite films as a teenager David Lean's film dr. Zhivago it's not really about the Russian Revolution it's really about these people in this event that's greater than them and I think Titanic my film Titanic is is the same thing well that's what great novelist do from Tolstoy whoever you wanted to write about right you borrow energy from the from the chosen setting and in some way I think that energy is returned as well because by being subjectively involved through this love story I think you have a more emotional appreciation of the event itself now why these two we very young people as your operative characters as a screenwriter well the thing my doorway into it was was the wreck and the discovery of the wreck and the deep you know the deep submergence technology used to find it you know because I'm kind of a gearhead so you know that's how I got interested in it so I thought all right I want to do a present day kind of book ending you know technique where we see the records as she is now and and and juxtapose it with what it was like back then so and I thought you know that's too sterile I want to have a human interface between those two worlds okay so that's a survivor all right now if I'm telling a story a love story that happened to someone in 1912 they have to either be really really old now or really really young then or both and so you know I wound up with you know my protagonist being 102 in present-day it was any historical character that provided any insight to do it with as you did it well you know I mean they're the the most elderly survivors that actually remember Titanic have have died recently unfortunately but they will be in your movie yes unfortunately although it might have been traumatic for them so you know I don't know about that but you know Edith Haseman was I think 99 or maybe even 100 when she when she died just a year or so ago so you know there's a historical precedent for people's being still alive who remember the event clearly my sort of model as a character for Rose was an artist in Ojai in California Beatrice wood who is 103 years old and I wanted to I wanted to meet and interview someone when when I was in the writing stage who was that age and had a very exciting and passionate life and I wanted to see what her memories were like how they were you know because this is really a movie about memory it's a movie about what you what you take away from from an event from from a loss like that and how you go on and so I was really very interested in her so so I told her that that I wanted to model my hundred and two year old character upon her if that was alright although she had nothing to do with Titanic it was really just the fact that she was alive at that time as we record this we're at one disadvantage which is that people haven't seen the movie yet because it hasn't open and therefore they don't know what we talked about in part I want to introduce them to that the character story that's important to know for someone as part of this conversation is that this is a story in which you find someone right you it's a story of people who have gone to the Titanic looking for riches well yeah right plundered I find if they want to plunder their pirate you know and they find and they're looking for jewelry and the fun story of this woman and she leads them to the story rise great romance between a young woman who was going over to marry a very wealthy man in Philadelphia right and she falls in love with a young man who happens only to get on the Titanic because he had a poker game in which he won a ticket and he's in steerage and the two of them engage this is good at races thank you god that's good and and the story is often running or on terms of what happening she is pulled towards him and rebels against the man would be her he's an artist a free spirit yeah right and he paints our picture and painting in and there's a beautiful diamond as part of it the male lead why'd you choose him Leonardo I mean I think anyone once once you know they've seen the film will get it they've seen his other stuff and his characters have been Juliet yes and Romeo and Juliet is very passionate very very you know a very full of life character I want to Jack to be to have a little bit of that quality boss Jack Dawson his character in the film I want him to have a lot of that I also wanted him to have this kind of very easy almost Buddha like calm or in inner inner peace when he comes into a situation he doesn't care how rich or how ostentatious the setting he can just sit down and he can just get his talk to somebody I told I told Leo you're a guy who can shake somebody's hand and Xerox their soul and it's what makes him a great artist or potentially a great artist because he's still an unknown you know yeah in this film and and Rose is almost the opposite when we first see her she's very she's very stiff she's very interior she's obviously quite quite troubled we don't exactly know why she's under a cloud and then but as she emerges you know like a like a butterfly from a cocoon as the film progresses under Jack's influence or kind of cattle ISM if you will she turns out to be very similar to him very you know she has a joyful very creative spirit as we strike each other's spirit absolutely roll tape here is a scene between the two of them okay so when they introduced to the character those two and we saw the Rose looking as Jack is talking about Lily she beautiful yes so they're off and Titanic is off in immediate tell me about the difficulties of making the movie and and the financing and sacrifices you had to make to get it on the air and what your definition well that'll be a mouthful tell me about that and how you go about making this kind of movie now that you've got your story said now you've got your character said now you got your actress set mm-hmm yeah you got to make a move well it all starts with the pitch right so I so I go in and I sit down at 20th Century Fox and I say okay guys here's the picture all right takes place in 1912 it's a period drama can't have any stars because they're the characters are too young and it's probably going to cost north of a hundred million dollars and everybody dies at the end there's no sequel no sequel possibility but what do you think sound good on the hell-like let us think about this ya know it's it's different you can call them right up front which on more than a three-hour movie more than 100 and if you make a three-hour movie that means that it can't be played but it's so many times in a sea and they're not thrilled about that exactly plus you know you can't have a toy line sprung out of a get an indefinite number of sequels theme park attractions right out you know you go in but you don't come out but you know so it's a it's a tougher sell it goes against the grain of Hollywood wisdom to do a picture on this scale at in that in that budget range without all of those things that give them comfort so what did I say let us see this figure James Cameron go well yeah there was a bit of that and I have a girl you had a little deal with them anyway I have a relationship with them and they trust me and we've gone into precarious places before and come out of it looking good so you know the it held them back that one step and I said let me write this script I'll show you that so then they read the script and they're they're literate people they could see it on the page they could run the picture in their head and they said you know what we really hate it that we like this so much because now we're going to have to make it you know so we went into it knowing or thinking that we knew this does not describe what you have done so brilliantly here and I'm not the one to say thank you critics say that which is the way you have used all kinds of things and the fact that you had to build this boat in where Mexico in Mexico that is non tense this what was that it's virtually full-scale there's just parts of it that we didn't build yeah but the part that we did build is full-scale itsuo 60 feet from the boat deck down to the water and when we were loading those lifeboats that in the script and all the stuff that you're going to do the dynamics of what special effects yeah I mean you know we describe the scenes but sometimes there there's you know a line that says it says something and then when you actually get into it it's a million dollars to to shoot that one line see yeah exactly to see it I mean you know we first thing we did was we built a big model of the ship 25 feet long and we acted out all the scenes on deck with toy soldiers and a little video camera and studied what the angles would need to be and learned our environment and then we decided this will have to be in effect that'll have to be the set and then there's a gray area in between then Paramount gets involved mm-hmm that was later we actually were already greenlit and already officially making the film Kate and Leo were on I was casting away we were building like crazy and then Fox wanted a partner to share the pan may get a little nervous today no it was a given it was a given in fact Peter Chernin you know who was he who was running the the film division of Fox at that time he's now you know the capo did 20 copy their Court News Corp right he said I want a partner on this and I said fine you find a partner I'll go I'll go start making the film so we'll divide and conquer you know so they brought in paramount and 65 million yeah paramount was capped and obviously they've they've been happy with it wasn't your ideal it was a great it turned out to be a great deal for them yeah yeah yeah the story about you is that you have given up what and just going to take your screenwriters sorry which is sizable yeah but you've given up your points and all that or not is it yes well that's true that's true it evolved you know it's not something that that I probably if I had been told in advance you're going to work for three years for nothing I would have said thanks very much you know as much as I love this film and as much as I am passionate about it I mean that I it's not something I probably would have gone into here comes my little criticism mm-hmm I wanted to see my fixation far away I haven't written it I want to see that's what excites me about this do two things excited me about him and I like the love story as well and you Jacob Astor's on this right he goes down with the ship right Guggenheim I forgot manoeuvers name was Benjamin Benjamin googa goes down whether she write lots of other people go down and they're great stories I wanted to hear more about what they were saying to each other you see it but you don't hear much conversation the musicians play yes and the guy says to the other guy I'm honored to have played with you I like that moment that's a nested two attitude I want to hear more of that and was that a conscious decision because it would detract from the story that's engaged us so far which is the romance and will they make it or is going to make it it was an editing decision maybe I actually shot more of that stuff and I was very enthralled with it myself when I was making the film but ultimately that was the territory that had been covered before I thought you know we did it we did it very well and I had very good actor so it was a it was worthy to spend the time to shoot it in the cutting room I found myself focusing more on Jack and Rose because I felt that I felt personally that one could be very factual about Titanic and very correct and not be as truthful emotionally and that in a way sometimes by spending more time with the fictional characters it puts you an emotional in an emotional place of openness to the greater tragedy you know without the specific details and I think that the audience does go through this kind of experience will curve where where they do allow themselves to open up and at the end when you experience the thing that has never been filmed about Titanic before the aftermath the immediate aftermath of the people in the water and the moral dilemma of the people in the lifeboats you're very sensitized at that point and and I think it has a lot of power for that reason but it was a question of orchestrating and there were too many notes you know but it will put it in the laserdisc so I'll send you a copy the laserdisc and you can see all that historical stuff we're going to see now a scene from the boat is hit the iceberg and they know the guy who designed the boat knows it's got two hours I mean he's a magnificent story you do see some of that individual character you've gotten to know you see how they're going to go to their death yes they choose the place yes in the mood did you know about this oh yeah it's it's all very very carefully ship's designer went there yes yes Thomas Andrews who designed the ship and built had spent three years of his life on his baby was on board was the first one to really know that they were they were doomed that the ship was doomed is he going into five I though about the five instead of four or why so close you know it's all just by a very tiny margin that it all happened and he would have known that and the heartbreak of that character has been one of the things that fascinated me most about the historical side of Titanic that he was there that he was on board he chose to stay and die with his creation he chose to stand at the fireplace in the first-class smoking room you know what arguably one of the most beautiful places on the ship that he had created and go down with the ship we know that he was seen there by a steward who ran through moments before the ship actually you know went up to an extreme angle and broke up so instead of the steward running through I play it in the film as if the Stewart has already gone through and then my two characters come in and see him standing there and ask him why he's not trying how do we know that the captain went to is he was seen going to the wheelhouse moments before the the the front end of the boat that plunged under the surface in wheelhouse was covered water you know its net it's not known exactly and his body was never recovered most of the people who floated off the ship wearing their life belts their life preservers were recovered you know the bodies were recovered because they were killed they froze to death in a matter of what right hypothermia they what 15 minutes it varied by individual probably anywhere from a couple of minutes to as much as 45 minutes you know the people in the lifeboats described the moaning and the screaming you know it's quite quite horrific really quite heart-wrenching screaming about the coal save us come back come back and save us they knew those lifeboats were out there somewhere in the darkness and they were in 28 degree water screaming for their lives and the boats didn't come back why didn't they come back because everybody was terrified they were a lot of they came back to be sucked into the whatever are it's hard to understand I mean I think you have to put yourself in where they were and how inconceivable the event was I mean I imagine them being the same as the people who are wandering around after the bomb went off in Hiroshima just stunned not able to deal with the situation was too it was so much bigger than them you know and so they're out in these lifeboats or if they're chilly they're freezing in the middle of the big black ocean and the enormity of it you know hasn't even sunk in yet and they hear these people screaming and I think they were just gut scared you know and so you ask yourself if I was in that boat and I looked around and I saw a lot of empty seats and I knew in the back of my mind even if I didn't want to admit it that we could save people what would you do you know that's really the most interesting moral dilemma and so only one guy went back this you know cocky young welsh officer fifth officer Lowe he got a bunch of boats together he transferred passengers over until he got one completely empty boat that could hold 70 people and he got a couple sailors and they rowed back and what we see that yeah and and they did save a couple they did say because I hadn't frozen at that time yeah but they got there a little too late to really do much good well rotate this is a scene after the boat the Titanic the boat that could not sink has hit the iceberg let me talk me about making the movie that's good well that's where it became you know tough that's where that's that's the hard stuff yeah it's the hard stuff to shoot how did you do it in general and in general sense of the of the overwhelming challenge of making a movie that tries to take you on to a boat that is sinking into the ocean well first of all the ship was huge and it took us a long time just to sort of get our arms around the enormity of this thing that the physical setting of the film and how we were going to create that it took us months and months of engineering and figuring out how we're going to angle the sets and so on and then how we would use visual effects to complement it all but really when you're out there on the shooting day the logistics are the staggering part you know you've got literally maybe a thousand extras and they all have to be in perfect period wardrobe and they all have to be you know told what to do and how to perform if your wardrobe you sent people around the world looking for yes yes well well we like I said we tried to be accurate and although all the costumes are very accurate to the period but and then to get all these people into the water I mean that scene what was in cramped quarters and we were dealing with large volumes of water and that's very potentially dangerous for the crew and for forecasts and stunt people and so on and all has to be done exactly correctly which you know knock wood fortunately it was but you know and some of the other scenes we'd have 200 people on a big hydraulic set of the ship and we just lower that into the water and they'd all get swept off by the water pouring in and pouring over it and that all had to be done safely we we heard a lot of lifeguards as extras you know say their wetsuits on underneath their their period jackets and so on but you know the logistics of it are staggering the safety requirements the safety protocols are staggering I don't think any one of us and we all you know had experience doing big pictures really knew what it was going to take to make this to make this film so we got off this challenge for you I think well artistically the toughest challenge was the chemistry of the love story because all that other stuff doesn't count but we've got that right but from a from a production standpoint I think the toughest challenge was was safety at all times you know we had thousands of amps of electricity going into the set which is in salt water with hundreds of people around it and on it and keeping it electrically safe you know keeping it safe in in water I mean you know I love to dive I've been a scuba diver since I was 16 a few a lot of time was speaking of that you went down three times 12 times 12 times yes now why was that important for you to see the Titanic lying on the bottom of the ocean near Newfoundland well first of all let's be very frank here you know once I had the possibility of the opportunity you could not have stopped me so is the quest what do you had because you can spend five years of your life when I think that that might have been at the core of it I mean I justified it by the fact that we didn't go there for research we went there to shoot part of the film we actually shot scenes from the from the movie that would have had to been recreated yeah you know we would have had to recreate it all with models and that has its own price tag dangling from it so when when it seemed that the numbers were close to a wash then it was let's go let's really shoot the Titanic and that was exciting but I don't think I could have I can it's very black you know there's no sunlight it's freezing cold it's as sterile and barren as the moon and it's almost like having gone to another planet and but yet here's this historical object there you know so there's a surrealism almost to that and then as you as you make repeated dives in and you've spend time with the ship you become familiar with oh there's the first-class entrance there's the window to the captains quarters there's the davit for boat number one which was launched with so-and-so in and you know Cosmo duff-gordon you know who were the people that were in the boats and so it becomes the human face of the drama is is superimposable on what you're seeing through the through the viewport as you're seeing you know if you if you've done your research and so it you you come away with it with it with an umbilical to the event that I don't think I would have had going through endless books and research if someone this isn't not a new idea if someone came to you and said we now have technology to raise the boat you would say what I think it should be left where it is a tomb and therefore it's a gesture it's a tomb and it's a memorial you know and its inaccessibility I think gives it a certain stature it's like a memorial at the top of Everest you know you know it filming it in place has so much more power than seeing it outside of a hotel in Las Vegas or something you know I mean where would you put it where would you put it that would that would have emotional power you know you would only be devalued but but frankly I don't think that technology will ever exist I mean the thing weighs 48,000 tons and it's stuck in the mud you know so it's going to be down there I think until it rusts away and you felt what down there other than the fact is like the moon and like it's cold and like it's dark yeah that's that's your initial feeling is are you overwhelmed by the notion of their people here inside here well maybe not ghosts because I don't necessarily believe in ghosts but but you know I was I was able to visualize what happened and we took the robot inside the the the ship and we looked around and you can see history end the the ROV the little you know little orange robot that you see in the film we actually took it inside we didn't intend on doing that but but we did it and you can see the kind of the the ghostly grandeur still still there and no one had had photographed that so that was very exciting but also emotionally overwhelming and it's hard to exactly say what the emotional impact of that is other than the fact that the film is the result of that you know that the the creative decisions made on the film is directly a result of that wanting to you know you asked me before about what was in and what was out and why and and why wasn't there more of the historical thing it's because I felt that I had to convey an emotional truth or an emotional reality of the of the event and that was my mission when I left when I left the ship when I left the shipwreck if that makes sense I minute it sounds kind of hokey but but you know you've it you've interviewed the people that in the in the past that found the Ragman Valor and and they they talk in very profoundly emotional terms about the experience and it almost sounds a little hokey and self-serving unless you've been there and spent the time and then it has an effect on you roll tape this is one more scene into the film where they're going through their own frantic effort to stay alive they are on a very tip of the right at the back I've been right at the bow hoop - yeah and it's gonna tip up like that and slide and they all going to slide off right he said only three people survived that in yeah well I think two or two or three one was the Baker who actually climbed over the railing as the ship went up vertical he climbed over the railing and stood on the hull of the ship and wrote it down like an elevator and he was you know drunk out of his face he'd taken him drunk an entire fifth of scotch at the moment has happened or just a little bit earlier because he assumed he was going to write it down you ride it down he gets a why wasn't he sucked in to the bottom well I saw many people were but I think the suction wasn't as great as everybody thinks it was there were probably some upwelling of air that maybe pushed him back up and he ended up in a boat yeah yeah well he clung on to the overturned lifeboat and half in and half out of the water for a couple of hours his legs freezing in 28 degree water and they were they were saved the following morning by Carpathia yeah and I assume that in the reality when you see this film you want to go back and read this stop what's the best book on the Titanic well the the the illustrated history which is a more recent book by Don Lynch illustrated by Ken Marschall that was a big influence on us we called it the Bible yeah we'd be working on a shot and I'd say turn to page 35 of the Bible that's a you know that's a that's a very good source and of course Walter Lords books a night to remember very very well researched which is made into a movie one and made into a movie and do they see that a sure lot in terms it instructive for you I think it's a very good film think it's a very good earnest film a factual you know doc docudrama kind of approach to the material but a very good film now let's talk about you as a director no must be the first cinematographer leaves after a couple weeks right what was a problem this uh that was that was a sort of mutual thing he he had been directing himself and he I think he was more comfortable with the type of filmmaker who spends all their time with the actors and isn't so concerned with the image and likes to be kind of the maestro of that area and that's very very good for some directors but I like to be involved in everything I'm very I'm very hands-on what kind of filmmaker you are because here I think nights has been written about that I think hands on and and not not because of some you know aberrational psychological need to have control it's really because I love all aspects of film I really really love it you know if we were if we were doing a scene I'd be moving this table to get it to the right spot under the lights I mean I love to do it all for me it's a tactile experience I don't know any other way to do it I didn't go to film school so I sort of don't know how you're supposed to do it I only know sort of how I always did it and I started out with two or three people in a camera and did everything myself and it's just sort of scaled up from there but my methodology is the same how did you get to make movies then you know there's always an element of luck and being the right place at the right time but there's you you also have to be very determined and very very focused I gave myself a free film school education bye-bye I worked as a truck driver and on weekends I would go down to USC and sit in the library all day and read books on how films were made and and it cost me the cost of the xeroxing of the of these you know doctoral dissertations on optical printing and things that I was and I Kinder's of stuff and I basically sort of is like putting yourself through law school you know on the close cover before striking school of law you know it was like that and then I went to work for Roger Corman working at the lowest lowest of the low budget so many people have gone through that what is it about Roger Corman's films and the opportunity he gives you that turns out people who know how to make movies I think it's the survivors of that experience that that know how to make movies is there's a lot of culling going on there you know I'd like to like the baby sea turtles going down to the ocean you know most of them get eaten by the seagulls and only if you make it the ones that come through that and survive and still want to make films they've been through hell they've been through fire you know and it was the Helen what's the fire well it you know it's mutually it's what it's what you would call mutual exploitation he's exploiting you by not hanging you anything and you're exploiting him by getting access to to film equipment and getting it and getting the opportunity to say I worked on a real movie yeah it was a little movie but it was a real movie and the hell is you know hideously long hours and no pay who influenced you who movies would you watch and say yeah everything everything good you know I mean I love science fiction so when I was when I was a kid 2001 had a big effect on me because I wanted to know how things were done but everything everything I mean when when I in high school that was a time that I I fell uh Turley madly passionately in love with movies and what were the movies that were coming out in the late sixties it was Easy Rider and catch-22 and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid it was all over the map it was independence and the the last of the of the big spectacles you know dr. Zhivago came out in the I think 69 or 70 and you know so you've got the you've got the last of the giant you know Hollywood studio spectacles for a time you know and you've got the this emergence of this whole independent cinema as a concept you know so it's such a fertile you believe this film if it makes as much money as some predicted might it's got to make a lot of money just to break even right exactly to cost the figure is 200 million some say was at highs 235 million I mean is it to make the picture it was 200 it was too much so you're saying it was 200 I just forget to pretty much right on the money I mean it was a little under and then when we pushed back in post-production and flipped over so what does it have to make to break even I mean with all the international Donner well probably in the in the neighborhood of between 3 and 350 you know do that in a second uh he can do it I mean I did a True Lies man we're going to happen you know it's a global market it's a global market so you have to remember that a film that travels well that has a lot of visual power to it and the film will I believe travel well because we've had tremendous response you know in the foreign markets as well you know it can make it a multiple of what it makes in the US and Canada I think what you went through scream I'd rather not I want to talk more about that to scream just open over the weekend thirty-nine million dollar that's awesome it's awesome more power to them yeah it's Wes Craven and that's a great opening him in a suit it's a fabulous opening you know film that probably cost him what 40 million away and that's that's part of the fun too you know I mean part of the fun is is that you have this kind of David and Goliath environment and a little film can come from nowhere I was so proud when I made the Terminator and we went up against dune and 2010 for the science-fiction dollar these Mont these you know mega pictures and we creamed them you know I mean that's that's part of the fun but I think that that you know scream scream and Titanic are so such divergent audiences you know it's really you know are people going to go see panting and have a great cinematic experience they shouldn't worry about how much pressure class they shouldn't worry about it you know ticket cost 750 or 8 bucks or think a little more here in New York but you know it's the same amount to go see scream which is I think you know like 20 million dollar film maybe magazine when you watch this film what are the moments in it that sort of are very very very special what's at the top of your list of scenes moments you know or a visual experience that you look at with great there are two and they both are at the bow of the ship and I think it's because having gone to the wreck the bow is the part that is so intact that you can really see a ship when Jack sees the dolphins and there's there's a it's a purely cinematic moment you know of acting of his his character of the music and the spirit and and bringing the ship back to life was more exciting for me than sinking it again you know I mean I think most people that watch the film one disagree with that recreating the grandeur of the Titanes was excited for you yeah it was or seeing it now seeing that that accomplishment is more fun for me we saw a little bit of that in an opening thing that I ran in the introduction where you see it moving out and right up sort of leading the way right what I can't appreciate the sinking if you don't appreciate the ship and the accomplishment of the ship and what it represented to those people and you can't appreciate what they experienced if you can't put yourselves in their place and create a kind of amnesia about what the name Titanic means so that you can you have to you have to go into the film experiencing their optimism and their their joy at being on this greatest sort of achievement of their civilization what's the most heroic story you know and the most cowardly story you know about the Titanic well I think you know Bruce Ismay is probably the most cowardly story because here's a guy who was probably if any one person was responsible it would have been him I mean Bob buck stopped with him and he's the one that urged the captain to go a little faster and faster set the record yeah exactly and indeed what'd he do and then he got off on a lifeboat when he looked around that deck and he knew that there was still over a thousand on that ship and he got into a lifeboat and saved himself those people were his responsibility whatever happened to him he died in obscurity a hermit I mean not a hermit but in a recluse you know he wasn't he was never found guilty of any you know legal culpability but he knew but he knew and everybody else knew you know and it was just not it was just not an honorable thing and how much of that was it as this ship went to its grave oh very much you know I mean it's it's interesting to project ourselves into that situation with our you know 1997 mindset and I've tried to do that a lot but there there was a fundamental difference in the way that people saw the world in those days and people were I think more willing to die a noble death in those days than people might be now I think the women and children might have you know footprints on their backs you know if they got into it today yeah thought something about courage that was there my god be here today I think there's I mean I think it's also overdone I think this wistfulness for a different time and a different sort of moral standard is overdone I think that the the veneer of civilization did get stripped away on Titanic I think a lot of people who probably thought they were very civilized and very gentlemanly did not behave that way when push came to shove was imminent they did the cowardly thing yeah but there are still these these incandescent moments of you know Benjamin Guggenheim dressed Benjamin Guggenheim dude he went back to his room he put on his formal white tie and long long tail coat and he came down and top hat and came down and told the stewards I don't want a life preserver I've dressed in my best I'm going to die as a gentleman give me a brandy yeah okay well I added that but I was trying to get into the spirit of who this man was you know and there was a panache there was a style you know as well who else John Jacob Astor he do know we know who's the richest man on the boat one of the richest men in America and do we put it he was very much in love with his is he was I think 48 or 50 he was very much in love with his 18 year old wife Madeleine who was pregnant with their child he put her into a lifeboat said goodbye and stood back you know I think that would be a hard thing for us I mean well I think you know in America especially we have this idea that the wealthy will always get over they'll always you know I'll always find a way they'll buy themself in show I show a character doing that as well because you can't tell me that didn't happen but the exceptions you know the John Jacob Astor is the Benjamin Guggenheim sirs are famous for that you know I mean that's what's the whale inspiring about this where's this scene of John Jacob Astor saying goodbye to his 18 year old brah I don't have that in the film I mean I used that one in my life okay when I send you the laserdisc then you'll see it okay so as you made this film and you're thinking and knowing and is working and all this kind of stuff and in you by the time was postponed did you pretty much finished it no we still had we still had work I mean we postponed it a couple of months before we were supposed to release it so we just we just sort of reapportioned the work to a more like livable schedule what was your deepest reservation as you sort of went into the back stretch going towards finishing the film reservation what sort of fear did you have there well we were we were all petrified at me I had done this big picture it was clearly being misunderstood in the media people were lumping it in with the other disaster films there was water or Laurel yeah not that someone that didn't bother me as much as it is getting lumped in with with volcano and Dante's Peak fine films but disaster films and and I knew that that's not what we were making and everybody sort of had written it off as a disaster film and they didn't really understand what we were trying you want to say to them what I you know ultimately you can't say anything the movie says it for you so what you want to say this is a lot this is Titanic the love story love story this is love stories about people it's about it's about the human heart and the human spirit and you know what you can say that till you're blue in the face and it just sounds like a boring movie that nobody wants to see you know you have to go and experience the film to know what that means you know because you see so many films that that where people say those exact things that I just said and boy they're just dreadfully boring and I mean here's what's interesting I want explore with you ii what fascinates you and what fascinates me is acts of courage and cowardly and and wonderful stories of love and people that's what interests you right so you sacrifice self-sacrifice all that any human dimension right you could do that without all the special effects without all this other stuff so why is that is any fun all right just tell me why it because if you asking people to spend $8 or whatever then you're asking them I'm going to give you an experience that you can't get anywhere else right there I'm telling we're gonna put on a show we're gonna show we're gonna show you what it's like when a boat goes down yeah but how it happens so it looks like that's what it feels like this is what it would be you're there this is the closest thing to be in there you're in my movie you're there and to me that was also a goal that was also an important goal you know you could do you and I look forward very much to doing a film that doesn't require the visual effects and the big sets and all that sort of thing because I know I can do that you know and I enjoy that part of the work very very much as a writer and as a director and you're right you can do a film that doesn't have all those things in it there's something about Titanic that I thought if you're gonna if you're going to visit this subject in the late 90s with all the stuff that we can do now let's do it right almost for the first time and I don't mean to put down the other films but they didn't have access to the technology that we have now you know 30 years later we can do it better and do it more real on the set you are tyrannical well that you are demanding mmm oh you're willing to risk the people not liking you in order to get your movie made mm-hmm you not the cast I think it's important to have a good relationship with the cast when didn't it did you and and Kate end up okay we were we were always out okay Kate yeah that's that you know you know Kate and I had had a great time during during the film it was a very hard picture and for her an unexpectedly difficult and stressful experience to go through lengths you know she had done much smaller films the physicality of it you know she wasn't used to that she hadn't done the sort of films that I've done in the past and but but we had a great you know artistic bond on the film I was very much inside her head and and the same with same with Leo and the other thing you see the thing that that does get I think misunderstood is it was a cult of perfectionism I mean no one is more of a perfectionist than Leonardo no one is more of a perfectionist than they at yourself absolutely I mean we would egg each other on I mean it was it was it was tragic for the crew because we'd be on take 10 and just getting gleeful you know and and Billy Zane the same way and Francis Fisher I mean these are the video leo is unlimited unlimited he's 21 22 years old and yeah he he leo is a guy who fortunately understands his gift well enough to be able to go to the hardest thing he can find he will always seek out the hardest thing Disney well he will seek out the hardest character that the most challenging thing the thing to prove himself against you know so he's a lot like me in that sense he looks for the challenge no kidding and he didn't want to make this picture because he didn't think playing a quote-unquote leading man and kind of you know I think he thought it was going to be kind of a square-jawed action here which of course he's not he's a very complex character but he's also very pure of heart so he wasn't finding the handles as an actor you know the sort of the props if you will you know the I was kid on my say that the tick or the or the hump you know the Richard the third thing he wasn't finding the thing that you know it took me three months to convince him that it was very very hard to do what he ultimately wound up to it what would you do differently that's a good that's a that's a very good question and I've been thinking about it recently for all the obvious reasons but I think what we did wrong was we tried to build a studio facility and one of the biggest most complex sets in in recent film history simultaneously and we had two construction entities who had given us numbers for what this was going to cost who then had to function in the same space at the same time and the numbers were no longer relevant and it was all about a date a release date you know and we shouldn't have tried to go for a date we should have tried to make the film on its own terms you know and I think that there would have been there would have been considerable savings I think it still would have cost more than we originally we originally thought but I think it would have doubled well you know I didn't I mean we went off we started the picture at about 125 million we wound up at 200 so it wasn't quite double but it's it's a it's a fair cop that it's considerably more than my other films you know Terminator 2 was one hundred million dollar film it was budgeted at ninety you know so it went up ten percent I mean this film went up considerably more than that and and but I've taken my lumps you know I mean I I put my all my dough back into the film to try to ease it for the studio I've gotten myself out of the way I was just stunning sacrifice on your part I mean I mean you know you that you did that now if you hadn't done that with the film have been made oh yeah we were well into it it would have been made there probably would have been compromises my relationship with the studio would have been very strained they were looking at a scenario where you know as you as you were pointing out earlier it's it's going to be difficult but not certainly not impossible for them to get their money out and to make a profit but it would have been much more difficult with me in the way as of as a gross profit participant so I said fine take me out of the way you've done that before haven't you of something similar that I mean you've not that extent that extreme you know I've put money and I put money into Terminator 2 and I got it right back out did this change you at all I mean having done this film and gone through all this and the nature of the film you come out of it how well you know it's I found myself having to make a decision whether I wanted to go ahead with Terminator 3 or not and in post-production on Titanic I was no longer interested I realized these films are very hard to make and you always have to be doing something new and I felt I had gone into new territory as a filmmaker in Titanic places that people didn't expect me to go and be any good at you know and now we see the film is working we're getting we're getting good reviews so I've proven that point you know to myself and to the industry so I can do other things now you know so I think it does change you you know it also makes me realise that that you have to know you have to know your limitations you know you have to know the limitations of the filmmaking system not just my limitations but all the people all the very good people that I'm going to hire there's a limit beyond which it gets away from you you know and it and it hurts it hurts you it hurts you financially and you know it puts you in a situation of stress you don't want to be in as an artist so I'm not going to make another two hundred million dollar film I'm not gonna make another three-hour movie I'm going to do you know I mean I'll still I'm very happy to do you know a science fiction film or any film that's got big production numbers in it I mean make no mistake I mean I like that you know but I think I think it's a question of not of knowing very clearly what the limitations are I wanted to make this film so sadly I probably didn't admit the limitations to myself before the fact I wanted to make this film really badly how close did you come to making the movie you wanted to make pretty close pretty close in fact beyond I think what I thought we were doing it was every film is a is a discovery you know he's a journey and you find things about yourself and about your cast and about the material you know as you go along I think the film exceeds what I what I set out to do and that's a good feeling you know as an artist because it doesn't always happen that way James Cameron thank you very much it's been a real pleasure thank you

Channel: Manufacturing Intellect

Views: 324,148

Keywords:

Id: gIi36H5lvxY

Length: 49min 24sec (2964 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 19 2016