CODA: On Location—Is Titanic a Mexican Movie?

Abstract

The concluding chapter looks at the impact of runaway productions on filmmaking in Latin America by studying one of the more noteworthy examples of it: the filming of the blockbuster Titanic (1997) in Fox Baja Studios located in Rosarito, Mexico—just 60 miles south of the US border. I study the case of Titanic in order to question the connection between the location of filmmaking and a film’s perceived cultural identity. If anything, Titanic helped launch Mexican filmmaking in the global era. As we consider the development of “national” cinemas during the era of millennial globalization, ending with an assessment of runaway productions allows me to look at the other side of the story. After analyzing the role of Titanic and runaway productions in the region generally, the concluding coda closes by returning to the major arguments in the book and reiterating my thesis that millennial globalization demands new critical paradigms through which to assess the cultural impact of neoliberal capitalism.