Before an enthusiastic audience of 470 NRDC supporters, Cameron screened excerpts of Avatar and then spoke with Elvis Mitchell, host of The Treatment on KCRW 89.9 FM, about the environmental message of his Oscar nominated, sci-fi blockbuster. Here’s coverage of the event by The New York Times.
Cameron said that Avatar, which has been attacked by right-wing commentators, was meant to grab audiences by the heart and motivate them to defend the natural world. Just as in Avatar, Cameron said, all of Earth’s creatures must work together to meet the challenges of global warming and ocean acidification.
After the interview, Cameron screened NRDC’s new This is Our Moment PSA with Leonardo DiCaprio and friends, www.thisisourmoment.org. It was the perfect way to end an inspiring evening all about taking a stand to defend our environment.
Suzy Amis Cameron, the filmmaker’s wife, is a member of NRDC’s L.A. Leadership Council, and worked with NRDC’s L.A. development team in make this terrific event happen.
Update: I've included a slideshow of more photos from the event.
To me, the core message of Avatar is that life is sacred and deserves the utmost respect. Its story of environmental destruction, both on Earth and on the fictional Pandora, reflects our actual behavior as we rush blindly to burn every bit of fossil fuel we can get our hands on, heedless of the consequences. That narrative couldn’t be more important, and yet it seems to have really irked a number of conservative commentators. Their attacks were summarized by Patrick Goldstein in the L.A. Times.
So it should be a lively discussion.
If you're based in LA, get your tickets now by calling 310-815-9152 or sending an email to NRDC@5bEvents.com.
]]>Sigourney’s other environmentally themed film this year is called ACID TEST, a documentary I co-directed about the global challenge of ocean acidification.
Since having the opportunity to work with Sigourney, it’s been a real treat to go back and watch, with new perspective, her performances in films like The Ice Storm, Working Girl, Gorillas in the Mist, and Alien. I can’t wait to see how Sigourney inhabits the role of Dr. Grace Augustine, the botanist she plays in AVATAR.
Since ACID TEST premiered on Discovery Planet Green in August, Sigourney has done a brilliant job raising awareness about the threat to our oceans from rising acidity caused by CO2 pollution. She’s given TV, radio print and web interviews, appeared at screenings, including one on Capitol Hill for U.S. senators and their staff, and pulled off an amazing Trojan Horse gambit on Fox and Friends, using a segment that was supposed to be largely about AVATAR to focus exclusively on ACID TEST and the looming crisis of ocean acidification.
Sigourney’s commitment to environmental protection is really admirable, and it’s great that her new blockbuster will bring a message about respect for nature to an audience of millions.
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The show introduced her segment as a promo for the new James Cameron film, AVATAR, but Sigourney politely switched topics and started talking about ACID TEST, the new NRDC film she narrated (and I directed with Tristan Bayer) about rising ocean acidity caused by our reliance on fossil fuels. The hosts of the show tried to pull her back to discuss the science fiction film but Sigourney calmly stuck with science facts. It was probably the first nationally televised discussion about the urgent problem of ocean acidity and it concluded with Sigourney calling for the country to pass clean energy legislation! In a couple of minutes, Sigourney brought more information, sense and perspective to Fox and Friends than the show is likely to have for the rest of the year.
The internal NRDC email commentary about Sigourney's control of the interview has been pretty amusing. Best one-liner so far: "she flushed him out the airlock!"
Oh yeah.
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