Stay tuned later this week for more from our Big Inteview with James Cameron including his thoughts on AI in filmmaking and spoilers from Avatar: Fire and Ash.
It’s one of the most iconic scenes in movie history: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet perched on the bow of the Titanic, Winslet’s Rose leaning back to kiss DiCaprio’s Jack as a glowing sun fades against a purple sky. And while much of the scene was computer generated, the sunset itself (in some shots at least) was very real. Titanic’s writer and director James Cameron says he’s not sure he would film the famous kiss the same way today.
Speaking with IGN ahead of the theatrical re-release of Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron was asked which shot from the nine films he’s directed to date serves as the “quintessential James Cameron shot.” He says that the memorable kiss from Titanic is one that comes to mind.
“I think about that because today we can do anything with CG,” Cameron says. “We can create the most beautiful sunset, we can create the most beautiful sky, we can create the ship. It’s all very straightforward. Now, back then, we had to build the damn thing and we had to have a real sunset, and we had to catch that moment.
“I often ask myself, there’s a kind of a brooding nature to that sunset. It’s got these kind of glowering purple clouds, but then there’s this bright band of golden orange at the horizon. If I was designing that shot from scratch, would I have chosen that sky? Probably not. I would’ve chosen something more splendid, something we would all agree on as a gorgeous sunset as opposed to something that was what nature served us in that moment.”
Although a different version of the famous scene may seem blasphemous to some Titanic fans, very real production difficulties behind that cinematic moment point to the reason Cameron ponders doing it differently. In fact, as Cameron has recounted previously, the chance to film a real sunset was so fleeting that there’s a pretty glaring production error in the finished film.
“Those two actors (Winslet and Dicaprio) had about four minutes to prepare for that moment,” Cameron says. “We got two takes, one of which is completely out of focus and one of which is partially out of focus. And that’s the one that’s in the movie. And if you watch, it’s out of focus as the camera moves in, and then it comes into focus and the majority of it is in focus. It’s just this beautiful acted moment and confluence of events.”
Titanic originally released in 1997 and was a global phenomenon, raking in 11 Academy Awards– including Best Picture and Best Visual Effects– and billions at the box office. It was the highest grossing movie in history until Cameron’s own film Avatar surpassed it more than a decade later.
Cameron’s entire body of work pre and post-Titanic is filled with films that utilized groundbreaking production techniques and visual effects to transport audiences to completely new worlds. But looking back, it’s that one memorable shot in Titanic that Cameron tends to revisit in his mind.
“We evolved out of that world into a world where you can create anything you can imagine,” Cameron says. “The question is, would I have imagined that moment exactly that way? Maybe not. Or maybe it would’ve been cool anyway. I’ll never know.”
The theatrical re-release of Avatar: The Way of Water hits cinemas October 3.
Michael Peyton is the Senior Editorial Director of Events & Entertainment at IGN, leading entertainment content and coverage of tentpole events including IGN Live, San Diego Comic Con, gamescom, and IGN Fan Fest. He’s spent 20 years working in the games and entertainment industry, and his adventures have taken him everywhere from the Oscars to Japan to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Follow him on Bluesky @MichaelPeyton
