Currently Listening to: Cool Kids – BBQ Wings feat. Boldy James
“One more question Mr. Cameron: was the sinking of the ship an attempt to foreshadow the forthcoming sinking of the tech-market in 2000?”
“Uhhhh…. No. Actually, I just wanted to make young girls cry… Can I get some of the Sour Patch Kids, please?”
That scene in Entourage has always stuck with me… It’s supposed to reflect how society views his work… looking for metaphors and symbolism, and his own counter intuitive interpretation of it. I think that’s why I respect him so much, of course.. on top of the fact that he’s probably, commercially, the most successful director in modern film history. Yet, the quote doesn’t reflect the drive of the man, his vibrant imagination, and his incessant need for perfection. Apparently, he drives people insane, just ask Kate Winslet, but his passion rubs off onto those he works with see: Sigourney Weaver or Ahnold. I guess he’s like David Fincher… with a 12 year old’s imagination.
Now to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of some of his earlier works. I don’t find Terminator, Abyss, or Aliens to be inspirational or moving, and they certainly seem to be crowd-pleasers and nothing else. Titanic is good, and its commercial and critical success is well deserved.. It’s just not my cup of tea. But Avatar is, quite simply, my shit.
It’s the perennial retelling of the hero’s journey, simplified nonetheless, with the unassuming war veteran Jake Sully, who because of injury is the weakest, and arguably most useless, person in the entire base. Recruited because of the untimely death of his brother, Jake becomes the replacement in a project with fortunes invested. Through this connection, he is able to transport his consciousness from his crippled and weakened body into the body of a Na’vi and thus jump start the attempt of a private corporation to peacefully negotiate the removal of the natives in order to access a huge source of energy cleverly named “unobtainium”. Acting as both a negotiator and a spy, Jake’s original intentions support mankind’s need for energy, but his allegiance slowly shift toward the Na’vi and their way of life leading towards a violent conflict between humans and natives.
It really is a stellar work. Right when the denouement hit, I was already asking myself if that was my favorite movie of all time. Sure it was predictable or cheesy with some minor plot holes… but what movie of this proportion doesn’t? And okay, the good was too good and the evil wasn’t evil enough, but could you see it any other way? And at times the characters seemed irrational and bipolar, but it was realistic, in that I wouldn’t approach the situation any differently if I were Neytiri. That’s not the point, Cameron and his cohorts successfully transported me into a magical world; for near three hours I was on Pandora and even then it seemed too short. Everything seemed to work, from the actors to the setting. Usually you can tell when an actor was acting, their lines go through filters and discomfort, but I didn’t see Jake Sully as Sam Worthington playing a character — to me he was Jake Sully. The actors were comfortable in their roles, and seemed as if they were playing themselves. I see it not so much a directing genius as much as it’s casting genius. The characters are understandable, motivated, and real. I won’t even comment on the CGI, it wouldn’t do it justice but I will say that much of the technology and environment reminded me of FF: Spirits Within and FFX. From beginning to end, I had this ridiculous grin on my face, the one employed by the 12 year old child in me. I couldn’t stop fidgeting and smiling, it was the the time of my life.
You’d expect as much, considering the film’s overall budget, but you never expect the language to be so thoroughly developed, or the detail put into each monitor, each tree, each animal and so on. Movies put interesting plants or animals into incoherent ecosystems, Cameron developed plants and animals as part of a comprehensive ecosystem. Creatures and characters usually join as the environment and setting grows, altering the world. That doesn’t happen here. There wasn’t a world created as a backstory, the world was created before the story even began and it’s one I never wanted to leave.
I don’t know what else to say, even though I want to say so much more. You just have to watch it. Forget about the “blatant” motifs and symbolism, they’re not supposed to be there. Quite simply, James Cameron pushes the movie-goer to dream, and to me, that’s all that matters.
