TroySmith
04-12-2010, 06:50 PM
James Cameron: King of Brazil?
by Mike Ryan · April 12, 2010
Photo: Carlos Alvarez, Getty Images
"Avatar" director James Cameron got a lot of attention -- some bad, some good -- for the "green" message in his box-office blockbuster. Now he's hoping to bring some of that attention to a dam-building project in the Amazon that environmentalists say could do damage to the jungle.
He and "Avatar" star Sigourney Weaver are in Brazil today to join 1,000 protesters of the Belo Monte dam, which, if completed, would be the world's third-largest hydroelectric project.
It's not Cameron's first trip below the equator in recent weeks: Last month he traveled to Brazil to meet with indigenous tribes that would possibly be displaced by the construction of the dam. After that visit, "Avatar" comparisons were already underway. He was photographed wearing face paint that conjured memories of the Na'vi, the indigenous tribe of the fictional "Avatar" moon, Pandora.
This week, and on his recent South American visit with former Vice President Al Gore, the famed director has been taking his two-billion-dollar baby's environmental message to a group of people who, most likely, have not heard much about the plight of Cameron's fictional Na'vi. There's certainly no IMAX theater in the Brazilian rainforest.
The cost of the proposed dam is estimated to be more than $18 billion - or, to put it in moviegoing terms: If Cameron released five more "Avatar" films with success equal to the first, the total box-office earnings from all six movies still wouldn't match the dam's price tag. ("Avatar," the highest grossing film of all time, has made $2.7 billion worldwide to date.)
Cameron, while flush with cash, is not flush with anything kind to say about the repercussions the dam could cause to these native people.
"The snake kills by squeezing very slowly," Cameron said to the locals, using the snake as a metaphor for modern society. "This is how the civilized world slowly, slowly pushes into the forest...and takes away the world that used to be."
"Avatar," according to Cameron, has been envisioned as at least a trilogy. Given what he said of his recent trip to visit a real-life, jungle-dwelling people, Cameron may have found inspiration for the plot of the second film.
"Any direct experience that I have with indigenous peoples and their plights may feed into the nature of the story I choose to tell. In fact, it almost certainly will."
As his meeting with the Amazonian tribespeople ended, leaders danced in appreciation for Cameron, who joined in the revelry, wearing a native headdress and thrusting a spear.
Seriously....this is just lunacy.
by Mike Ryan · April 12, 2010
Photo: Carlos Alvarez, Getty Images
"Avatar" director James Cameron got a lot of attention -- some bad, some good -- for the "green" message in his box-office blockbuster. Now he's hoping to bring some of that attention to a dam-building project in the Amazon that environmentalists say could do damage to the jungle.
He and "Avatar" star Sigourney Weaver are in Brazil today to join 1,000 protesters of the Belo Monte dam, which, if completed, would be the world's third-largest hydroelectric project.
It's not Cameron's first trip below the equator in recent weeks: Last month he traveled to Brazil to meet with indigenous tribes that would possibly be displaced by the construction of the dam. After that visit, "Avatar" comparisons were already underway. He was photographed wearing face paint that conjured memories of the Na'vi, the indigenous tribe of the fictional "Avatar" moon, Pandora.
This week, and on his recent South American visit with former Vice President Al Gore, the famed director has been taking his two-billion-dollar baby's environmental message to a group of people who, most likely, have not heard much about the plight of Cameron's fictional Na'vi. There's certainly no IMAX theater in the Brazilian rainforest.
The cost of the proposed dam is estimated to be more than $18 billion - or, to put it in moviegoing terms: If Cameron released five more "Avatar" films with success equal to the first, the total box-office earnings from all six movies still wouldn't match the dam's price tag. ("Avatar," the highest grossing film of all time, has made $2.7 billion worldwide to date.)
Cameron, while flush with cash, is not flush with anything kind to say about the repercussions the dam could cause to these native people.
"The snake kills by squeezing very slowly," Cameron said to the locals, using the snake as a metaphor for modern society. "This is how the civilized world slowly, slowly pushes into the forest...and takes away the world that used to be."
"Avatar," according to Cameron, has been envisioned as at least a trilogy. Given what he said of his recent trip to visit a real-life, jungle-dwelling people, Cameron may have found inspiration for the plot of the second film.
"Any direct experience that I have with indigenous peoples and their plights may feed into the nature of the story I choose to tell. In fact, it almost certainly will."
As his meeting with the Amazonian tribespeople ended, leaders danced in appreciation for Cameron, who joined in the revelry, wearing a native headdress and thrusting a spear.
Seriously....this is just lunacy.