It's auteur 3-D work-in-progress week in New York! Less than a day after Martin Scorsese gave a hometown crowd an early glimpse at his upcoming Hugo, James Cameron dropped by Times Square to show off 17 minutes from his ongoing 3-D conversion of Titanic.
"The thinking was to give you a general reminder of how the film worked," Cameron said, introducing stereoscopic snippets of his 1997 blockbuster and 11-time Oscar-winner to a small audience of local press. "Probably most of you haven't seen it in years and years. We're not changing a frame. The ship still sinks; it ends the same way. The idea is to use 3-D as a conceptual framework for bringing the movie back to the screen. We believe the film works best in theaters, and that sustained its performance back in 1998 -- that it played in theaters 16 weeks in the number-one position. And the reason for that, I think, was people's perception of the movie as an emotional experience they wanted to share with other people."
He's right, of course, about the theatrical experience. Having stumbled upon Titanic's last hour a few weeks ago on TBS, I realized how well the spectacle of the doomed luxury liner's maiden voyage held up 15 years later, even if the equally doomed love affair between Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) still left my cold, cold heart as unmoved as the iceberg that sealed their fate. The beauty of Titanic is that it is ambitious enough (and long enough, I guess), to be many things to many viewers, millions upon millions of whom valued its qualities enough to make it the highest-grossing film in history by returning -- and returning again -- to see it on the big screen.
Cameron said he attributes this phenomenon in part to a viewer's "contract with yourself" -- the resolution that committing to and paying for the theatrical experience demands an equal level of commitment from a filmmaker. At least in the exhibition sense, Cameron argued, both Titanic and his record-breaking follow-up Avatar delivered on that pact.
"I was trying to account for what was similar between the Titanic phenomenon and the Avatar phenomenon," he said, "which proved very similar in a way, even though the movies were completely different and didn't even always necessarily play to the same segments of the audience. But I think it was that decision to see the film on the big screen. I think the 3-D's a part of that. It gives people a reason -- a simple reason -- to go to the movie theater. But I think there's a lot more going on with it than just that."
Maybe, maybe not. Almost exactly six months removed from the tragedy's 100th anniversary (and Titanic's official re-release date), today was more of a day for specifics -- a glimpse at what a year-plus and $18 million worth of 3-D conversion can buy the format's No. 1 fan. It turns out that it's no short-cuts, no "apps" and no limits, just 300 artists at their workstations going back through every line of every frame of film.
"Every hair on Kate's head has to be done," Cameron said. "They have to blow it way up to the pixel level. They have to outline it. They have to assign depth layers to it. They have to create volume by adding a mesh to it -- a rotoscoped mesh. It's a very complex process. And then they have to go back and paint in the missing parts. Because you can imagine: If you're looking at an object in 3-D, your right eye is seeing a little bit more around the right side of the object, and your left eye is seeing a little bit more around the left side of the object. That's parallax -- that's what gives you that depth illusion. But when you see an object where's no information there from the original photography, then you have to make that up."
He went on about "volumetric geometry" and "physics-based fluid simulations," but honestly, beyond the still-staggering ship-boarding sequence -- the curve of Winslet's hat, the bustle of the crowd, even the gentle sway of a gaslamp -- and a steamy, bracing sprint through the ship's engine room, I couldn't discern much of the painstaking work that Cameron cited. That said, it was 17 minutes, only about five of which featured the full panic of the ship's fateful collision and its protracted submersion into the Atlantic. That's the stuff in my contract with myself, not necessarily how the sunlight glints just so off of Billy Zane's mimosa.
Cameron gets this; he's publicly criticized the haste of most post-production conversion out there, and himself was the first to admit today that the reason that Avatar and Scorsese's Hugo made (or are at least expected to make) the visual impression they did was their native 3-D production values. As such, the man whose $200 million passion project made him the self-coronated King of the World is left to coax the shapes, breezes, currents and more out of that very project -- or else.
Or else what? Will he have failed if Titanic's 3-D underwhelms? I wouldn't say that; he, Landau and studio partners Fox and Paramount will have revived a tiffany brand for a new generation and no doubt reaped a windfall of very, very three-dimensional currency. Of course this presents a problem for the 3-D skeptics out there, both critical of the visuals themselves and cynical about Hollywood's economic imperative to wring every last dollar out of the 3-D renaissance.
I asked Cameron how he'd respond to the detractors of the format in general and accusations he and his studios are merely attempting to catch the erstwhile box-office record-holder up with Avatar.
"Well, that's a pretty lofty goal," Cameron replied. "I think we should manage our expectations on that front. Yeah, because we're just greedy motherfuckers. That's all. And we didn't make enough the first time around."
The crowd laughed. "No, look," Cameron continued. "It just felt right in the centenary of the sinking of Titanic to bring this back out for fans who either are fans of the movie but have never had the widescreen experience or are fans of the movie who remember it from back then and want to re-experience that. I think it's perfectly valid. And by the way, let's remind ourselves: Hollywood is business, you know. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I personally am interested in fostering and promoting 3-D as a viable business -- and not only for the cinema, but the home market as well. And so having a successful film in 3-D is a good thing. Whether I'm involved with it or not, I'm happy. It doesn't matter what that 3-D title is -- whether it's Transformers or what it is, because it helps the business.
"Over the last four years, we've gone from 1 percent of movie revenues to 21 percent of movie revenues in 3-D, and it's a steadily rising curve. But there's this kind of story out there -- which is really perceptual; it's really just been sort of generated by the media -- that there's no real business basis for it. That 3-D is waning or the bubble's bursting or the fad is over. Which is not the case. 3-D revenues have gone up 40 percent year over year for three straight years and are projecting to do the same thing next year. So how is that a bad business story? It's not."
"And Jim," Landau added, "I think you said that if you were to do Titanic over today--"
"Oh, I'd have shot it in 3-D," Cameron said. "To me, the big factor here is the idea of a theatrical re-release. The 3-D is just a part of that. If I had my druthers, people would only see my movies in theaters. That's not a reality; it hasn't been a practical reality since I started as a director 30 years ago. There were already VHS and Beta at that point. So we've always had to compromise between the small screen and the big screen."
"And in addition to the timing of the centennial," Landau said, "just from our schedule -- Jim's schedule, more importantly -- we're going to be going into production on two Avatar sequels and [be] off the grid for a number of years, and this was the window of time where we could take the creative resources and apply it to this process."
Cameron paused. "Yeah," he said. "I kind of don't really know how to answer that question. I mean, was Lion King just pure greed, or was it giving people something that they wanted? You know? I think whenever a film is successful, it means that you're putting something into the marketplace that people actually desire, and I don't have a problem with that. I sleep well at night."
I don't doubt it, and I'll be right back at the front of the line next spring when Titanic makes its 3-D encore. Odds are good that you will be, too. But as its director alludes, the film's monolithic status does overshadow its accuracy as a barometer of 3-D's creative power and influence. The true test will be the work of its converts and acolytes -- the Michael Bays and Werner Herzogs and, indeed, Martin Scorseses of the world -- who advance the art from the conceptualization phase forward through production itself. For now, though, its my memory sold back to me. I can't put a price on it, but if a visionary like Jim Cameron thinks he can -- from an $18 million conversion to an $18 ticket -- I'm more than happy to listen to his pitch.
[Top photo: Getty Images]