Ghosts Of The Abyss: A Journey Into The Heart Of The Titanic

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0306812231 ISBN 13: 9780306812231

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2003

In the late summer of 2001, James Cameron, the director-producer of the highest-grossing picture in Hollywood history, led a new deep-diving expedition to the wreck of the lost liner Titanic. With him was a team of underwater explorers that included the artist Ken Marschall, the historian Don Lynch, and two actors from the movie, Bill Paxton and Lewis Abernathy (who played Brock Lovett and Lewis Bodine). Their equipment included state-of-the-art digital 3D cameras, a pair of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), and a specially built deep-water lighting platform that illuminated the fabled ship as never before. In a series of historic dives they filmed deep inside the ghostly liner, obtaining haunting, never-before-seen images.In spring 2003, this remarkable journey into the heart of the Titanic will be presented coast-to-coast in a digital 3D giant screen film, Ghosts of the Abyss. For those who will be drawn anew to the story of the Titanic, as well as for those who have never stopped being fascinated by the ship's tragic fate, James Cameron's "Ghosts of the Abyss" will be a revelation in pictures and words. Cameron compellingly describes just what keeps him returning to the Titanic, and the meticulous journals kept during the dives form a dramatic adventure narrative. But what will truly astonish are new, incredibly vivid images from within the ship's staterooms and public rooms, matched with archival images from 1912 and new paintings and diagrams-a "then-and-now gallery" that captures as never before the history, the drama, and the legend of the Titanic.

About the Author:

Don Lynch is the historian of the Titanic Historical Society and an authority on the ship's passengers and crew. James Cameron credits his book Titanic: An Illustrated History (with paintings by Ken Marschall) as a primary inspiration for the movie Titanic. He lives in Los Angeles. Ken Marschall, the world's leading Titanic artist and an acknowledged expert on the ship, created the celebrated images for Dr. Robert D. Ballard's best-selling The Discovery of the Titanic. He lives in Redondo Beach, California. James Cameron, in addition to being one of Hollywood's foremost movie directors, now has logged more time exploring the wreck of the Titanic than anyone else-220 hours, more than Captain Edward J. Smith of the Titanic spent aboard the ship.

From Publishers Weekly:

The Titanic looks like, well, a wreck in this lavishly illustrated coffee-table companion to Titanic director Cameron's 3-D undersea documentary. Titanic historian Lynch and artist and Titanic buff Marschall recap the story of the ship's doomed maiden voyage, describe the technology and logistics of undersea film-making, and ponder the parallels between the Titanic tragedy and the 9/11 attacks, which occurred during filming ("both events were met with outrage and disbelief-and the tragedies would remain indelibly etched on the collective memory of the world"). But the book's raison d'etre are the photos, and here it runs up against the fact that, unlike architectural ruins, nautical ruins are not very picturesque. Cameron's sonar imaging, lighting rigs and robot cameras yield not much more than visually similar images of gloom and rot, rendered in the deep-sea palette of blue-green and rust washed out by the glare of submarine floodlights. The authors juxtapose archival images of the ship's Edwardian luxury decor and furnishings with photos of their waterlogged remains, and it is here-and in the viewer's imagination-that the pictures become haunting.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.