The RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1912.
It sank again in theaters in 1997. And today, it sinks yet again – in 3-D.
As James Cameron’s Oscar-winning epic “Titanic,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and Billy Zane, embarks upon a second silver-screen cruise, my heart, for one, won’t be going on.
“Titanic 3D” ultimately is what it is: sweeping, succulent, smoochy. It’s Cameron, along with Billy Zane, at his best.
Which, of course, is filmmaking at its worst.
To put it plainly, Cameron’s a loathsome asshole.
There’s a certain hard-hearted cruelty about Cameron, something inhuman, something “Alien.” A dark alter ego his ever-faithful recurring collaborators call “Mij,” or “Jim” backwards.
But one shouldn’t mistake Cameron’s layer-cake personality for depth.
It’s been said that people are icebergs, that much of their bulk is submerged – Cameron is, too, I suppose.
He’s more an ice cube, though.
Cameron is the quintessential big-budget filmmaker, for all intents and purposes. His movies – for they are certainly not merely “films” – are among the most expensive ever made.
“Terminator 2: Judgement Day” was the first $100-million-budget movie. “Titanic,” the 1997 voyage, was the first movie to navigate $200-million waters.
Cameron’s most recent offering “Avatar” exceeded even that, costing $237 million.
But Cameron’s Hollywood legend is his hustler’s penchant for delivering titanic returns on titanic cinematic investments. Astonishingly, the gross box-office receipts of “Avatar” totaled almost $2.8 billion, a record-breaking performance that might never be eclipsed.
What’s more is that it was Cameron’s “Titanic,” grossing more than $1.8 billion, that “Avatar” leapfrogged.
With the superpower of special effects, Cameron is the superhero of cinematic capitalism, something of a filmmaking Green Lantern.
His superhero symbol: $.
And why not? The man’s a walking dollar sign.
According to legend, when Cameron pitched a sequel to Ridley Scott’s “Alien” to Twentieth Century Fox, he casually soft-pedaled to the room’s drawing board and scrawled: “Alien$.”
“Aliens” was subsequently released in 1986, suffice it to say.
But no Superman is without his weakness.
Cameron’s kryptonite: $.
For the re-releasing of “Titanic,” Cameron has been predictably criticized.
“Look, there’s always going to be people that can piss in the soup of anything good,” he said at the film’s red-carpet premiere in London. “But frankly, I think that remembering Titanic, remembering the history – that’s what the film was there for. That’s why I made it, you know.”
Sure, Jim – or is it “Mij”?
Cameron’s argument holds no water, unlike the subject of his movie.
Though his words may have once floated, they immediately sank when he commissioned the re-release of “Titanic,” his dollar-signed eyes on a bountiful prize: The re-release coincides, of course, with the disaster’s 100th anniversary.
“I think the film is a good focusing agent for [the disaster] at a time when we should be remembering the wreck and its message, the disaster and its message for all of us,” he said.
The message: $.
Ultimately, Cameron is captaining a sinking ship, but he won’t humbly go down with it. There’s not a cell of virtue in the man’s body.
Like his “Titanic” character Rose, Cameron “will never let go.”
Of the almighty dollar, that is.
Phil Sweeney is a 25-year-old English senior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_PhilSweeney.
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Contact Phil Sweeney at psweeney@lsureveille.com
The Philibuster: ‘Titanic 3-D’ goes down with Cameron’s greed
April 2, 2012