Full Description
This book offers a comprehensive, academic and detailed study of the works of James Cameron, whose films include successful productions such as the first two Terminator films (1984-91), Aliens (1986), Titanic (1997), and Avatar (2009), but also lesser known films such as Piranha 2: The Spawning (1981), The Abyss (1989), and True Lies (1994), and a series of documentaries on the depths of the ocean or on the tomb of Christ. Cameron's major productions have an immense and enduring popularity throughout the globe and have attracted both public and critical attention. This volume investigates several distinct areas of Cameron's works and addresses the different approaches and topics invited by the multidimensionality of the subject itself: the philosophical, the artistic, the socio-cultural and the personal. The methodologies adopted by the contributors differ significantly from each other, thus offering the reader a variegated and compelling picture of Cameron's oeuvre. Contrary to the numerous volumes published in the past on the subject, each chapter offers specific case studies that have been previously ignored, or only partially mentioned, by other scholars.
Contents
Chapter One: We Must Not Forget about the Flying Fish: Piranha II's Influence on Cameron's Subsequent Works
Ian Thomas Malone and Antonio Sanna
Chapter Two: Reframing Tragedy: Titanic, Affect and the Arresting Image
Fran Pheasant-Kelly
Chapter Three: Exploration, Education and Humanity: James Cameron's Deep-Sea Documentaries
Alissa Burger
Chapter Four: Avatar, SF Mannerism and the Anthropocene
Maurizia Natali
Chapter Five: She's the 'King of the World!' Modernizing Melodrama in Titanic
Carol Donelan
Chapter Six: Losing Touch or Making More Contact? Cameron's Use of Technology and Visual Effects
Paul Johnson
Chapter Seven: The Exodus Decoded, The Lost Tomb of Jesus and the Problem of History for Faith
Jonathan Fischer and Adam Barkman
Chapter Eight: No Fate: James Cameron, Jesus, and John Connor
Racheal Harris
Chapter Nine: The Simulated Sublime: Exploring Hollywood Ecocriticism in Avatar
Siobhan Lyons
Chapter Ten: The Backlash and Empowerment of Feminism in Xenogenesis, Piranha II: The Spawning, and Aliens
Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns
Chapter Eleven: Taking Gettier to Tasker: True Lies, Knowledge, and the Prospects of Virtue Epistemology
Michael Versteeg and Adam Barkman
Chapter Twelve: "I Wanted to Do Something Outrageous": On the Limits of Parody in True Lies
Russell P. Johnson and Naaman K. Wood
Section III: The Futurist
Chapter Thirteen: Genetically Modified Human Beings in Dark Angel
Sabine Planka
Chapter Fourteen: Of Shape-Shifters and Shifting Alliances: The Politics of the Terminator Franchise
Patrick Zwosta
Chapter Fifteen: An Abyss of Aliens: Action, Allegory and Mythological Elements in Aliens and The Abyss
Carl H. Sobocinski
Chapter Sixteen: Refining Genre, Reassessing Gender: Assessing the Sacrificial Heroine in the Works of James Cameron
Christian Jimenez
Chapter Seventeen: "Two Candles in the Dark": James Cameron's Modern Fairy Tales
Elsa Columbani
