James Cameron is one of the most successful filmmakers of all time. With three of the top five highest-grossing films of all time directed by him, there’s nobody else quite at his level. But it’s taken some hard work, and possibly some hurt feelings, to get there. And Cameron admits to not liking the person he used to be on set.
Cameron recently appeared on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, where he spoke at length about his career. The host asked him about previous comments he had made that amounted to the director not liking the way he tended to act while directing. Cameron admitted there was a time when he had a tendency to be so focused on getting the movie made right, that he took even the slightest hindrance to that personally. He explained…
I think, in the early days, where I did put the film first above all things, there were interactions I would have that I would feel guilty about later. At that time, I had a righteous sense of having been aggrieved by someone who was supposed to do something and didn’t do it, and it was compromising the art. It was compromising the film. And I was the person responsible for getting that film made. So then that person became — I don’t want to say my enemy — but they became a problem.
Film is certainly a collaborative medium, but the director is the one in charge, and it seems Cameron may have taken that a little too much to heart in the past. It sounds like those working with him might run afoul of the director’s temper from time to time, as Cameron had little patience for mistakes on set. Although it did appear to work, considering the best James Cameron movies are among the most successful movies ever made.
However, Cameron says he’s worked hard to change that mentality and thinks he’s now found a good balance. He understands that blaming people doesn’t make the movie better and is more tolerant of mistakes because he knows they can be dealt with. He continued…
It’s taken a long time to unwind that, and I don’t think that way anymore, now. I think, ‘OK, if we’re a good enough team, we can take up and compensate for any mistake that has happened, and blame doesn’t help. So I’ve completely rewritten my programming of how I interact with everybody on my team. And I think we have a good kind of familial feeling around the team. People feel good about their work. It’s a very sort of communal effort.
The specific case of Kate Winslet is brought up, as the actress famously said some less-than-stellar things about Cameron as a director following Titanic. Cameron takes exception to that specific case, while he doesn’t specifically claim that things didn’t happen as the actress claimed, he doesn’t feel that her comments were entirely descriptive of the experience of making Titanic with him. And Winslet had nothing but good things to say when she worked with him again on Avatar: The Way of Water.
Whatever things used to be like, it seems that James Cameron at least thinks working with him is better now. This is good news for whatever his next movie ends up being, whether it’s the next two Avatar films or something else entirely.
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