Question:

James Cameron is of course very successful director. Is he a unique filmmaker?

Answers:

Robert von Dassanowsky, Professor of Film and Culture, University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, Head of the Belvedere Film company

Cameron is innovative--the new film, Avitar, he has coming out this year is 65% CGI, and most of his past films, Aliens and Titanic, were very innovative in their effects and technical aspect. I believe it is in that type of filmmaking that he is certainly a leader. Is he influential? The big budget Hollywood films are made for world entertainment, and most of them are on a level so that they can be very universal anescapistst. When you look at the New Waves that are currently happening globally, such as the strong American Independent film, British cinema, the resurgence of German and French film, the New Austrian Film, even Bollywood -- There is where the cinematic influence will come, where the new narratives, styles, forms will develop, and parts of these will eventually even be taken up by Hollywood mainstream film.

Cameron has always admitted to "borrowing" ideas from others which he re-visions (as I write about in my article on Titanic), and there is nothing specifically wrong with that--the average Golden Age Studio encouraged directors of the 1940s and 50s to do that. What Cameron creates undeniably impressive and moves the technical concepts of filmmaking forward. But the essential appreciation of cinema as an art is lost to technical and market concerns with such filmmakers. I would like to see Cameron make a small film that is not Aliens, or Titanic or the new Avatar. But, America always has had such blockbuster directors and its "national" cinema concepts were formed around such general entertainment spectacle, and foreign filmakers in America also master this aesthetic, such as Roland Emmerich.

Wes Gehring, Professor of Telecommunications, Ball State University

Cameron is an important director, though he has all but disappeared since winning his directing Oscar for "Titantic." He's a formalist filmmaker. Thus, he's drawn to special effects genres, such as sci fi/fantasy ("The Terminator" and "Aliens"). Though this often results in action/violence movies, he's capable of carrying off the cinematic lovestory, too, especially his "water" pictures: "The Abyss" and "Titanic." (But even here special effects ruled!). That would be my capsule take on Cameron.

Alexandra Keller, Associate Professor of Film Studies, Smith College

Cameron is a unique filmmaker, to be sure. But the context of that uniqueness is fairly market-driven. That is, the unprecedented success of Titanic has marked him in certain ways. No doubt, The Terminator did that before in some way, but I think it is as much his cultural placement as it is the films themselves that sets him apart from other filmmakers. Certainly, at some other level, he is an utterly symptomatic filmmaker. So, while he is in the vanguard of technological advancements most of the time (and Avatar would seem to be no exception), he tends not to use that advancement in the service of ideas that are in the vanguard.