00:00James Cameron has been able to use technology wisely to make his films and push the limits of what is possible even further.
00:06But technology is also at the heart of his filmography, and he has been able to present it in different forms.
00:11In Xenogenesis, his first short film, we already find the beginnings of what his cinema would become.
00:15Space, a strong female character, a machinery that he will often reuse,
00:20and technology, the enemy of man through his emancipation, but of precious help when it is understood.
00:25This duality is found in almost all of his films.
00:27Time travel in the first Terminator allows Sarah and future John to be saved thanks to the arrival of Kyle Reese,
00:33but paradoxically, it is this same technology that puts them in danger since it also allows the arrival of the Terminator.
00:38In Terminator 2, the T-800 faces the T-1000.
00:41In True Lies, technology helps thwart a terrorist attack,
00:45but this same technology will also serve to accentuate the obsessive delusions of a jealous husband.
00:49In Titanic, the largest ocean liner in the world, cutting-edge technology for the time,
00:53will bring together two soul mates in the grandeur and beauty of the place to better separate them through its faults.
00:58Avatars allow you to discover the extraordinary flora and fauna of Pandora,
01:01but can also play a completely different role, exposing the weaknesses of a people who are preparing to suffer its excesses.
01:07But what Cameron is saying through all of this is that technology is just an extension of man.
01:11She is our creation, and her power of destruction emanates only from us.
01:14You created a film a bit of today, which at the time was finished, and was a fantasy.
01:19Now, the people who are the so-called godfathers of AI say it's not a fantasy.
01:23In fact, there may be a risk of human extinction.
01:27Do you share their concern?
01:29Oh, absolutely.
01:30I absolutely share their concern.
01:32I warned you in 1984, you didn't listen.
01:37Sure, look, you have to follow the money.
01:39Who builds these things, right?
01:40They are either building it to dominate market share, so what are you teaching it?
01:45Greed.
01:45Or you're building it for defensive purposes, so you're teaching it paranoia.
01:49I think the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger.
01:53I think that we will get into the equivalent of a nuclear arms race with AI.
01:58And if we don't build it, the other guys are for sure going to build it.
02:02And so then it'll just, it'll escalate.
02:05Skynet, the Terminators, Judgment Day.
02:08All this was born from the mind of a simple father who thought he was helping humanity without realizing anything.
02:13The weaponry deployed on Pandora and what humans do for mere resources is evidence of their complete disregard for the environment around them and the importance of conserving that environment.
02:23Their blind faith in their technology is often what causes their downfall.
02:27This is what Cameron highlights in Titanic, for example.
02:29The giant liner is the fruit of nameless arrogance, of absurd confidence.
02:33Of a captain who wants to break speed records without worrying about the surrounding dangers, of a designer who has such blind faith in his ship that he forgets the safety of the crew,
02:41and passengers who are drowned in a lust so abundant that it prevents them from seeing death in the face.
02:47So here is the liner that is said to be unsinkable.
02:49It is unsinkable, God himself could not sink this liner.
02:51Nuclear power is also an invention that Cameron denounces through his works.
02:55It has become a visceral fear for Sarah Connor, who knows in advance that this is the destiny of humanity.
03:00It represents the neuroses of a soldier bewitched by the abyss, who has become completely paranoid and sees in this bomb the remedy for all his ills.
03:06He is at the heart of the conflict in True Lies, when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear bomb on American soil.
03:12But this time the subject is treated too lightly.
03:14The film is mainly a comedy and decides to detonate the bomb simply for stylistic effect.
03:19Something Cameron later regretted.
03:21Nuclear power is something the director fears more than anything.
03:24It is the greatest ecological danger there is.
03:27And Cameron, who has always campaigned against global warming, notably through his works,
03:31in fact the ultimate threat.
03:33On our Earth, in the depths of the oceans, on other planets.
03:37James Cameron fears technology as much as it fascinates him.
03:40He knows that it can be of great help if used correctly.
03:43He experienced this himself, creating new technological processes for the design of his films,
03:48realizing his dream of visiting the bottom of the oceans thanks to superb machines that allow him to do so in complete safety.
03:53His fear of technology comes out in his nightmares,
04:08which become drawings, which become films.
04:10Because yes, Cameron is also an outstanding designer.
04:13He's the one who draws Rose in Titanic.
04:15He is the originator of many elements of his bestiary.
04:18The Terminator, the Alien Queen, the Avatars,
04:20a significant part of Pandora's flora and fauna,
04:23and even the Predator, which he co-designed with a certain Stan Winston,
04:27who will be at work on many of the director's films.
04:29It is also technology that will allow him to model what is still his greatest obsession today.
Commentaires
14