Titanic Filmmaker James Cameron aired his infamous 1998 Oscar acceptance speech for Titanic after quoting a line from his film.
Addressing the The Hollywood Reporterthe Avatar The filmmaker said he immediately realized he had made a mistake in his speech when he saw presenter Warren Beatty’s face backstage.
“I’ll tell you exactly when I first realized it. [was going to be a problem]: When I went backstage and Warren Beatty had this look on his face, ‘What did you just do?’
He was just looking at me like, ‘You poor Bob, what have you just done? And I went, ‘Oh, wasn’t that cool? Okay fine.’ I mean, obviously, I’ve analyzed it. My wife at the time, Linda [Hamilton], had said, ‘Well, if you’re going to quote a line from a movie, quote it with gusto.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, I can do this.’
Cameron continued, “And the problem with that, I realized, is that it’s too self-referential and seen as hubris—not just the real kind of semiotics, ‘I’m king of the world.’ ’, rather the scenario of referring to your own film as if every single person in the audience is a big fan, because there were a lot of people in that audience who didn’t vote for ‘Titanic.’ You don’t make that assumption. Maybe because you’re winning, you’ve won by some big landslide.
The critically acclaimed director won three Oscars. titanic, Including Best Picture and Best Director.