All language subtitles for MasterClass - James Cameron Teaches Filmmaking 13.Developing Dread Through Adversaries Eng

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

I don't really love
the term "villain."

Because I don't
think people ever

think they're villains,
even people that are doing

horrific things, cruel things.

They have their own rationale.

We may not agree with it.

And it may be warped
or delusional.

But they have their
own rationale.

They don't think they're
villains, for the most part.

So I like the term "adversary."

So an adversary can
be nature itself.

It could be the tornado
in "Twister," for example.

But generally, we like
human adversaries.

Because, first of
all, they're more fun.

And we see interesting
interpretations by actors.

So you can go from a relatively
simplistic adversary,

like the Terminator, who
basically is just death.

He's just unstoppable.

He's just very clear.

And you take a
very simple concept

and you execute it in
a disciplined way that

becomes extraordinary, because
of the perfect synchronicity

between the actor,
Arnold, and his character,

and the way that
that was realized,

and the fact that he's
an unstoppable force.

And it's stated by
one of the characters.

It can't be bargained with.

It can't be reasoned with.

It doesn't feel pity,
or remorse, or fear.

And it absolutely
will not stop--

ever-- until you are dead.

JAMES CAMERON:
You've just made him

a very, very simple character.

So that's kind of the
opposite of subtlety.

That's simple in extremity,
which is kind of terrifying.

Because humans are complex,
and there's always the chance

that we could maybe
talk our way out of it,

or we could negotiate,
or we could buy them off,

or something like that.

Not going to work
with the Terminator.

When I got the great opportunity
to direct the sequel to Ridley

Scott's classic film, "Alien,"
where I went for the detail

was the Alien Queen.

The Alien Queen was not
quite so simple a character.

Because there's an
interesting scene

in that film where Ripley does
negotiate with the Alien Queen.

[SNARLING]

JAMES CAMERON: She says,
I've got the flamethrower.

There's a lot of
eggs in this room.

I know you care,
because you're a mother.

So already, that
simple character

was made more complex.

Even though we never heard
the Alien Queen utter

a line of dialogue,
we knew exactly what

she was thinking, which
was interesting and fun.

Who was the villain
in "Titanic?"

The fiancee?

I mean, I think he was
an interesting character.

There were a number of
people who were adversarial

to our main characters.

But really it was fate.

It was circumstance.

It was destiny.

So to say that there was
a "villain" in that film,

I think the villain was death.

[BELL RINGING]

The villain was
the death that you

knew was there from the
beginning from the moment

you bought a ticket to go
see a movie called "Titanic,"

where thousands of people died.

You could say, us against
nature, but it was really--

nature wasn't the enemy.

It was human mismanagement
that created a catastrophe.

So that's a villain in
its own sort of category.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

The introduction
of the adversary

is I think as important
as the introduction

of the protagonist.

We need to invest in
the adversary, as well.

We have to imbue that
adversary with power.

We have to feel that they are
a worthy adversary, that this

is someone who can be very
threatening-- maybe threatening

to everybody, or maybe
just specifically

threatening to our character.

If we don't believe in their
power, their lethality,

or their ability to do
harm to our character,

then we're not
invested in the story.

So we have to spend
time with them.

And I believe that
any character you're

spending time with in a
movie should be interesting.

They should be unique.

They should be different.

They should be quirky.

Or they should be
fascinating in some way.

So Arnold's Terminator character
was introduced essentially

appearing in a ball of
lightning from somewhere else.

Just-- [POP NOISE]
--he's just there.

And he's crouched in this
kind of almost Greek God

sculptural way in a cloud
of smoke, rises out of that,

and all of a sudden
you're interested.

Like who is this guy?

Why is he naked?

And who is he?

What's he do?

And then he walks forward, and
he looks out over the city.

And there's-- to me, even that
shot is an implied threat.

He's about to go out
there into that city

and do something harmful.

You just know right away
he's there to do bad.

And then that question gets
answered within the next minute

or so, where he encounters
these guys hanging out

up at Griffith
Observatory and kills them

all for one simple thing--

Your clothes.

Give them to me.

Now.

JAMES CAMERON: He needed their
clothing so he could blend in.

So he could perform his mission.

So you start to very quickly
declare that he's relentless.

He's mission-focused.

He has-- he kind of stands out.

He doesn't blend in.

So his attempt to basically
kind of camouflage himself

is always going
to be challenged.

I think the more an actor tries
to make a villain "scary,"

the more they fail.

Sometimes it's the absolute
banality of how they talk

and how they express
themselves, and the fact

that they seem real,
they seem to be

a real person makes it scarier.

Because it seems more plausible.

You know?

I think that it's important
to resist the desire

to do Dracula, or Darth
Vader, or the Terminator

unless you're really
confident that you

can sell that in an
extraordinary way that

hasn't been seen before.

I think quirkiness,
nuance, detail, humor--

you create an adversary
that's humorous,

now you're getting
conflicting signals.

Because you innately
like funny people.

But wait a minute?

This guy's a killer.

You make them compelling.

You make them not necessarily
subtle, but detailed

and a little bit against
the simple expectation.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

With the Terminator, I think
you knew what was on his mind.

You even went inside his mind.

We did an interesting
thing there,

which is we literally go inside
the Terminator's processing.

You see what the outside
world looks like to him.

And you see all the
graphic overlays

of the processing
that's going on.

So it's a metaphor for
how his mind works.

He's working from
a visual basis.

He's processing it.

He's identifying targets.

It's sort of printing out what
his analysis of that target is.

And people were
interested in that.

So once again, it's engagement.

It's making the villain
subjective for a moment.

You're briefly in the
Terminator's reality.

You're in the reality of a
machine killer for a moment.

And I think that that's
a very powerful tool.

Put your audience
subjectively in the reality

of the adversary, and the
adversary becomes real.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

In the case of
the Alien Queen, I

was trying to create a character
whose motivation I understood,

but who was terrifying
and very other--

other from us-- and dangerous
and terrifying in a very almost

subconscious way
because of that.

So the Alien Queen, following
on the motifs of the first film,

doesn't have eyes.

She's all mouth.

She has no eyes at all.

And so we think of the eyes
as the window of the soul.

We think of the eyes as being
an incredibly expressive part

of the face.

But the mouth is the way
we communicate verbally.

And so much of our expression,
really more so than the eyes,

is in our mouth.

So the Alien Queen had
an exaggerated mouth.

She even had a mouth within
her mouth that extended out.

So she didn't use
language, at least not

a language we could understand.

Although, presumably,
she had a way

of communicating in
complex symbolic forms

with her other Alien warriors.

Because she basically hisses at
them, and they understand what

she means.

Now when my mother
used to hiss at me,

I understood what she meant.

But I think the implication
was there was probably

some high frequency coded
data in that hiss, and/or, who

knows, a telepathic connection.

Whatever.

But the point is we
couldn't understand what

the Alien Queen was saying.

But it didn't matter.

[SNARLING]

[HISSING]

[NERVOUS EXHALE]