James Cameron: Ghosts of the Abyss (2003)

Ghosts of the Abyss, James Cameron’s documentary about exploring the wreck of the RMS Titanic at the bottom of the North Atlantic, is a quasi-sequel to two previous Cameron movies. This shouldn’t surprise us, given the prevalent role that sequels play in Cameron’s filmmaking, as I noted in my analysis of Aliens. At the same time, in my review of Titanic, I claimed that Cameron’s romance disaster epic remains distinct from the subsequent big movies of the 2000s in no small part because it defies the franchise model that would become the norm. The ship sank. That clear ending prevents a sequel extension of Titanic’s storyline. But therein lies the point. Cameron does not want to add more to the story of Rose and Jack; indeed, his fictional characters are never mentioned in this documentary. Instead, Cameron documents his second expedition to the sunken remains of the great ocean liner, the first expedition having provided underwater footage of the outside of the wreck for the frame narrative of Titanic. 

We might therefore think of Ghosts of the Abyss as a sequel to the frame narrative of Titanic, but a sequel according to the Hollywood directive that Aren outlines in his review of Terminator 2: Judgment Day: make it the same but different. I wrote in my review of Titanic that Bill Paxton’s treasure hunter, Brock Lovett, is something of a stand-in for Cameron. In Ghosts of the Abyss, Cameron plays himself for his second expedition, but he also brings along Paxton, who is a friend of his, to narrate the film, and provide a point of identification for the audience. The documentary starts to play out like a real-life version of the beginning of Titanic, even with some of the same faces, but this time the footage inside the wreck is all real! 

Ghosts of the Abyss had a limited release in theatres in IMAX 3D and was promoted as Cameron’s return to the famous ship, so it also functioned as a brand extension to one of the most profitable movies of all time. The home video version I watched said it had been “significantly modified from its original 3D presentation,” not only in terms of image framing, etc., but also in terms of length. IMAX theatres at the time required movies to be under an hour; the IMAX version of Ghosts of the Abyss is one hour and one minute long. I have not seen that IMAX version, nor the longer 3D cut on home video. Titanic would go on to have its own 3D theatrical release in 2012 (and it sounds like it will again in 4K 3D in early 2023). 

The main ship in Ghosts of Abyss, the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, is the ship that Brock Lovett is on in Titanic, but this time we meet more of the actual crew of the Russian sea exploration vessel, which was then the largest of its kind in the world. The centrepieces of the ship are the two Mir craft, Mir 1 and Mir 2, underwater submersibles that can each carry three people down to great depths in the ocean. The Mir craft each carry an ROV, “a remotely operated vehicle,” a box-shaped robot that is piloted remotely and is small enough to explore inside a wreck. The two ROVs are called “Jake” and “Elwood” after the Blues Brothers. Designed and managed by Cameron’s brother, Mike, each ROV utilizes a thin fibre optic tether to maintain communication with the Mir and the pilots inside.

You will recall that I said that Ghosts of the Abyss plays like a quasi-sequel to two Cameron movies. Within the opening five minutes of Ghosts of the Abyss, viewers might feel like they are getting not just an extension of the ocean exploration in Titanic but also a sequel to Cameron’s Discovery Channel documentary Expedition: Bismarck (which Aren reviewed). The WWII German battleship was a Titanic of sorts, the biggest ship of its kind at the time and considered unsinkable, only to be sunk a number of days into its first active combat mission.

For Expedition: Bismarck, Cameron used the same ship and submersibles and ROVs that we get here. Cameron’s Bismarck expedition took place after he returned to the Titanic, although the documentary was released on cable TV before Ghosts of the Abyss came out in theatres. Not only do we see the same vehicles being used, but we notice similar patterns to each dive. Everyone meets in the same room on the Keldysh, but with a model of a different sunken ship on the table. We see many of the same faces gathered around, with additional experts, both historical and scientific. Charts are laid out. Gear is prepped. In spite of so many similarities, however, the two documentaries’ tones and production values and styles of narration couldn’t be more different. 

Early on in Ghosts of the Abyss, a catchy East Coast song plays as we zoom alongside the ship as it heads off to sea. With a bigger budget, everything looks higher quality visually. While Cameron utilized an extensive lighting system for Ghosts, which I’ll discuss more below, much of the visual distinction between the two films owes, however, to their different presentation formats: Expedition: Bismarck only exists for viewers in standard definition, its broadcast format for television, whereas Ghosts is theatrical high definition. Cameron is shooting for IMAX 3D here, you will recall. The difference in budget also impacts the audio. Instead of the repetitive usage of a few bits of classical music, we get a few catchy needle drops or electronic beats meant to convey the bustling pace of the crew getting things ready. Ghosts of the Abyss is a far more slick production. 

With Bill Paxton narrating, Cameron may be somewhat more in the background in Ghosts of the Abyss. Paxton’s narration and on-screen presence is very different from Lance Henriksen’s serious voiceover in Expedition: Bismarck. (Note, however, that each time, we are getting an actor who has frequently worked with Cameron.) Ghosts of the Abyss isn’t going for cable documentary gravitas. Paxton’s narration is more probing, more emotional. Paxton is in part working out his own feelings about the famous ship. While it becomes clear early on that Paxton is not a seasoned ocean explorer, his job is to give voice to what many in the audience might be thinking, whether about history or the ocean or the wreck or human nature. Henriksen’s voiceover is more that of a traditional objective documentary narrator, whereas Paxton is purposely conveying his subjectivity, his own thoughts and feelings about what he is witnessing. 

Ghosts of the Abyss opens with an entrancing piece of narration that has elements of the time travel theme I observed in Titanic. Paxton says, as the camera moves in on an old kinematoscope, an early device in the development of cinema, showing old photographs of the ship being built:

I believe things can happen…of such an intensity…that they do resonate through time…create like an echo. The story of the Titanic is very personal to each person who hears it. Almost like a biblical story. This giant ship. All these people in the middle of the ocean at night. This iceberg. The warnings. What would it have been like to be there on that fateful night?

That opening narration almost sums up the themes of the film, especially its concern for how the sinking of the Titanic has impacted people far after 1912. WIth the notion of the shipwreck being like a biblical story, we also see that Cameron and company consider the sinking to have significance far beyond itself as a terrible yet isolated event. The story of the Titanic means something to the future.

The contrast with Expedition: Bismarck highlights some of what I consider this film’s lighter and weaker elements. A few scenes felt staged, for instance, when Paxton, at the start, shows up on the ship and can’t find his way around or someone who speaks English. Later on, Paxton has to urinate in the Mir, and his facial expression in response to the jug he’s handed seems a bit rehearsed, like he already knew what he would have to go in. In any case, Expedition: Bismarck mostly lacks such moments of levity.

As I already mentioned, Cameron is not the main character in Ghosts of the Abyss, but, in a way, allowing him to not be the narrator makes his competency and abilities seem more real and impressive. That more distant view allows us to never feel like the movie, which is Cameron’s movie, is going out of its way to show off his skills. In fact, Cameron does not come off as egotistical in any of the footage. He can be intense and demanding, but he’s clearly a leader to those around him, and he takes a lead role in a lot of the expedition.

Cameron himself often pilots either Jake or Elwood. At one point, Cameron navigates the ROV inside the ship through a broken window in the wreck. Others tell him not to try, since there’s a sharp edge of glass in the corner, and if the fibre optic tether is cut, goodbye robot. Cameron assesses the risk and then goes for it, putting the responsibility on himself. He takes the risk and manages it. At another point, Cameron even does some incredible piloting in the team’s effort to save one of the ROVs, which has lost communication inside the Titanic and is now unresponsive. We see the team sort through their options to rescue the ROV. It seems they have to send in the other one in order to try to weigh down the first and then hook onto it, and thereby tow it out. During the sequence, when it looks like both will be lost, you can see the frustration on Cameron’s and others’ faces. In the end, they manage to get both away. (Oddly, we only see one ROV in Cameron’s last documentary, Aliens of the Deep, which came after.) So Cameron and his team took a risk, and it almost didn’t turn out. 

That sequence, trying to rescue Elwood, is one of the main moments where we get some real drama, and it was clearly unforeseen. Another example, and a thrilling one, is seeing the Mir “cowboys.” After the ship’s crane carries the submersible off the ship and into the sea, someone has to detach the cable before the sub can go off on its own. That means, someone in a wetsuit has to jump onto the back of the submersible, and then off the submersible onto a raft. Likewise, when the crane is going to lift the Mir back up from the water, someone has to ride the back of the sub, and reattach the cables. After the first dive, one cowboy is roping the submersible amid the crashing waves of a wild night. The guy is almost thrown off several times, the Mir behaving like a bucking bronco in the waves. Cameron clearly admires what the cowboys do to get the submersibles and their crews safely back on board. That’s no small thing. Everyone plays an important role in the expedition, not just those down in the Mir craft or most often in front of the camera.

Early on, Cameron tells Paxton there is no script, but certain incidents create interesting narrative turns in the documentary’s storyline. I’ve already mentioned the rescue operation for Elwood. The two Mir crews have just rescued the ROVs, and are riding high off their victory, but when they get back onboard the ship, everyone is gathered around and silent. The crews, and the audience, are stunned to learn what has been going on on the surface. Paxton tells Cameron, “Jim, it’s the worst terrorist attack ever.” 9/11 has just happened. This totally unforeseen event in the world creates a fascinating point of comparison for the film’s subject matter. Confronted with this catastrophe in the present, Cameron and Paxton directly engage and question the parallels between the two events. The film asks, how does one go on after a cataclysmic disaster that kills thousands, whether it is the sinking of the world’s largest ship or the destruction of two of the world’s largest towers?

The comparison reinforces the film’s main question: What does the Titanic mean? That’s a central question in Ghosts of the Abyss, and so many figures in the documentary note how we cannot help but put ourselves there, on the ship on that fateful night, and think about what we would have done. Cameron says the wreck is a memorial we can bear witness to. There’s a good moment from Paxton in which he asks what he would have done in response to the different orders for women and children as the crew was filling up and launching the lifeboats. Some of the Titanic’s officers were only putting women and children on lifeboats, while others were putting women and children first. Husbands were turned away from their families. Some parents were asked to separate from their kids. At one point in the documentary, we see members of the crew argue about whether the lifeboats should have gone back after the ship sank, to try to rescue people from the water. One maintains it would be suicide, that they would have been swamped with people, while another says she doesn’t understand how anyone could have not done so. These moments reinforce that, in a way, the Titanic remains a living thing for people, emotionally. The great shipwreck retains a powerful resonance, even after all these years.

Of course, Ghosts of the Abyss also displays Cameron’s usual obsession with technology. Paxton says a few too many times that they are working with “state of the art technology,” saying how amazing that is. Other bits of his dialogue are pretty on the nose: “We were pushing the limits of technology, which was a little eerie, given the fate of the ship we’d come to explore.”

I was more intrigued by how Paxton and others sometimes describe feeling like they have become one with the point of view of the ROVs. At another point, Paxton says riding down in the Mir is like astral projection. Remember the pseudopod, which the NTIs in The Abyss use as an extension of themselves in exploration? In what ways are the avatar bodies of Avatar biological versions of the ROVs, devices for a human being to inhabit and explore a space they normally could not live in? In all of these examples in Cameron’s films, communication and exploration is conducted through remote connection.

In terms of the functions of technology in Ghosts of the Abyss, it is also notable how important a role the filmmaking process plays in the exploration. Cameron is often talking about making sure they get the right shots, and then there’s the all-importance of lighting. They even bring a second small ship, which has the job of lowering down “Medusa,” a giant underwater floodlight that allows them to light up portions of the Titanic from above. In one scene, we see the team coordinate the Mirs, having them shine their lights from the outside on the old windows of the wreck, so they can see the effect through ROV’s eyes on the inside. Cameron’s underwater expeditions require technology to go to great depths and explore the spaces of the wrecks, but it’s also important to be able to effectively document what they see down there. 

Given how wonderful the underwater photography of the wreck of the Titanic is, I was left wondering whether the ghostly effects are always necessary. At various points in Ghosts of the Abyss, Cameron superimposes recreations of characters, or sometimes just settings, onto footage of the wreck, to join the present and the past in a single image. Titanic becomes alive and dead in the same image in a form of visual time travel. I guess, for most audience members, it helps to visualize and thus reinforce the connection. 

Like many of Cameron’s artistic choices, it is a device that is far from subtle. The superimpositions are the most useful, in my view, when Cameron slides in the brief recreation—often just a piece of furniture or interior decoration or a specific passenger who we know occupied a specific cabin—overtop of what we are seeing, so we can have a better understanding of what the decomposing features are. In these cases, the ghostly effects enhance clarity for the audience. Oh, so this is how that room would have looked in 1912! 

Sometimes, Cameron cuts to recreations of the Titanic before it sunk, and of various historical figures. A careful viewer will notice it is different casting than that for Titanic the movie; sometimes, such as when we see the ship sinking, it seems they are reusing parts of Titanic. Overall, Cameron is trying to set apart the real story from his fictionalized version of the history, while at the same time building this whole expedition on the basis of the former. For instance, the explorers hunt for an old automobile that was supposed to be in the cargo of the ship, but cannot find conclusive evidence in spite of some possibilities. It’s noticeable that the reference to the key romantic scene in Titanic is apparent to all, but the documentary never says it out loud.

As far as Ghosts of the Abyss goes as a documentary, I would have appreciated a few more moments of experts explaining things. There’s a general knowledge that is often assumed, since the documentary is more into emotion and feeling and seeing the explorers react to what they see. For instance, it would be nice to see someone explain why there are no bodies or even bones left in the wreck. I think we all get the idea, but could an expert explain how long it takes for a human body to decompose in the ocean? I don’t know this offhand.

In the end, however, science isn’t the point of Ghosts of the Abyss. In spite of the film’s useful addition to the body of human knowledge with its first-ever documentation of the interior of the RMS Titanic, it’s ultimately a film more about asking questions than providing sure answers. Unlike Expedition: Bismarck, there is no mystery to be solved. Rather, the mystery is the enduring and potent legacy of this great shipwreck. And it is that enduring legacy that demands future people, such as Cameron and his team, return to the Titanic to bear witness and memorialize those who were lost.

The film ends with Paxton saying he sometimes sees the sunken ship when he closes his eyes, and he feels like a ghost drifting over the wreck. The line sums up the film’s primary interest: the human connection and how seeing the remains can enable and deepen that human connection to what happened. It’s as if the film is saying, “See, this isn’t just the remains of a ship. Real people died here. People like us.” Such truisms sometimes need to be remembered.

7 out of 10

Ghosts of the Abyss (2003, USA)

Directed by James Cameron; narrated by Bill Paxton.

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