ROLEX TESTIMONEES: EXCEPTIONAL FILMMAKERS

JAMES CAMERON: EXPLORING FILM, FILMING EXPLORATION

«IMAGINATION IS A FORCE THAT CAN ACTUALLY MANIFEST A REALITY. DON’T PUT LIMITATIONS ON YOURSELF. OTHERS WILL DO THAT FOR YOU.”».

James Cameron

The work of James Cameron is part dream, part adventure and demonstrates his passion for innovation. Though a multiple Oscar®-winning director, he has never put aside his other passion: exploration. Cameron’s two facets are woven together in each of his exploits and each of his films.

An exacting storyteller with a deeply technical bent, he has proven the ability to captivate any audience. Masterful even in the most ambitious productions, Cameron knows how to cope with pressure and always succeeds in putting his inspiration first. In this way, he perfects his vision, expands his knowledge and enriches his art.

Twenty-three years after The Abyss, he descended alone to the bottom of the Mariana Trench – at a depth of 10,908 metres (35,787 feet) – inside the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, a submersible of his own design.

With Titanic in 1997, he transformed our collective image of a rusting ship carcass on the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean into that of a newly launched behemoth cutting through the waves off Southampton. Four years later, he dived 3,800 metres (12,500 feet) to the wreck site of the original Titanic, to film a documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss.

From remarkable dives to 3D reconstructions, Cameron endlessly pushes the boundaries of human, technical and artistic achievement. He works tirelessly to find solutions to the most complex challenges with the aim of reinventing the art of filmmaking. Audiences have welcomed Titanic, Avatar and Terminator as monuments in film history, whose legacy far outweighs mere box-office success.

With Avatar: The Way of Water, the sequel to Avatar, Cameron has set a new artistic and technical benchmark and brought renewed proof of the director’s perpetual quest for excellence.

MARTIN SCORSESE: A TOWERING FIGURE OF CINEMA

«MOVIES ARE THE MEMORIES OF OUR LIFETIME, WE NEED TO KEEP THEM ALIVE».

Martin Scorsese

The films of Martin Scorsese have enraptured audiences worldwide for half a century. His 27 feature films have won multiple awards. This legendary director has systematically followed his own path and single-handedly transformed his chosen medium.

One of the defining elements of Scorsese’s work is the remarkable attention he pays to each stage of production, whether working alongside screenwriters to craft deeply nuanced characters, choosing the score that will lend each scene its particular colour, or recreating the mood of a given era. His fluency in the language of film combines with his capacity to create an atmosphere on-set that gives actors the confidence to improvise.

This eclectic and humanist director has explored every genre, from period movies to thrillers, from Noir to musicals and psychological dramas. His work has given us characters who have made filmmaking history. Steeped in the legacy of the greatest classics and driven by a perpetual quest for modernity, the films of Scorsese offer a unique vision while sensitively exploring the human condition.

Whether feature films, documentaries, series or shorts, as a director or as a producer, decade after decade Scorsese has built a vast filmography. He is behind The Film Foundation dedicated to the preservation and restoration of world cinema, an endeavour that has the support of Rolex. He pays tribute to filmmaking’s acclaimed auteurs while maintaining a creative dialogue with younger generations through artistic collaborations and through his involvement with the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

Hardworking and passionate, equally admiring of classic movies and indie films, he humbly serves a cause that he considers to be greater than his own contribution: that of cinema in its entirety