Episode 82: Avatar: The Way of Water & Titanic

Cinema in Context

James Cameron two billion dollar epics. Sarah Watt, Jeremy Downing and William Chen discuss Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) and Titanic (1997). We begin by discussing the themes of James Cameron films and how he captures big emotions in his films, and how these intersects with the representation of indigenous peoples. We discuss the performance capture of Avatar 2 and Cameron's focus on the work of the actors. We move to compare Avatar: The Way of Water with Titanic and consider the overarching connecting themes. We praise Titanic and its various story beats, characters, performance and how Cameron walks the line of a romantic period drama and disaster horror film. We explore the special effects and visual effects of Titanic, and marvel at the work from 25 years ago, and weave in considerations of the ground-breaking effect work of Avatar: The Way of Water.