The works of painter and historian Ken Marschall, one of the key inspirations behind James Cameron’s Titanic

“His paintings almost seemed to be stills from a movie that hadn’t yet been made. And I thought to myself—I can make these paintings live. It became my goal to accomplish on film what Ken had done on canvas, to will the Titanic back to life.”

“The movie was pitched using his paintings. I just opened up the big double-truck spread of his glorious rendering of the ship going down with its lights blazing and the rockets being fired off—and I showed it to the studio executives and I said, ‘This ship. Romeo and Juliet.’ And that was it. That’s how we got it.“

- James Cameron