James Cameron’s life on the edge

James Cameron lives like he is at war, says Dana Goodyear in The New Yorker. The famously contrary 55-year-old director and writer of such blockbusters as Aliens, Titanic, and the first two Terminator movies thinks that Hollywood—and the broader culture, for that matter—has gotten much too soft. “We’ve become cowards, basically,” he says. “As a society, we’re just fat and happy and comfortable, and we’ve lost the edge.” To keep his own edge, Cameron spends his free time on dirt bikes, in souped-up cars, and on deep-sea submersibles he designs himself, and speaks in naval jargon—he doesn’t say “front” and “back,” but “fore” and “aft,” and he goes to “the head,” not the bathroom. When working on a film, he prefers to be summoned to the set by a klaxon horn sound—which, he explains, means “Dive! Dive! Dive!” To relax, he shoots at watermelons and old jalopies with an AK-47. His imagination, he acknowledges, was shaped by the Cold War, and he finds the themes of self-defense and nuclear annihilation endlessly interesting. “I suppose you could say I believe in peace through superior firepower. I don’t believe that the human race is going to suddenly evolve to the point that we can all join hands and sing ‘Kumbaya.’”

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