The Cave Of Dreams Documentary
Henrietta Naughton
Herzog's interest in Chauvet Cave, and the paintings inside, was prompted by an article in The New Yorker titled "First Impressions" by Judith Thurman,[8] who is credited as one of the co-producers of the film. To help preserve the artwork, access to the cave is restricted, and the general public is not allowed to enter, so Herzog had to get special permission from the French Minister of Culture to film inside.[6] He was given approval for six shooting days of four hours each, with numerous restrictions.[6] Everyone authorized to enter Chauvet Cave must wear special suits and fresh shoes that have not been worn outside,[9] and, because of near-toxic levels of radon and carbon dioxide in the cave, nobody can stay inside for more than a few hours each day.[2] Herzog was only allowed to bring a four-person crew into the cave, so he was just accompanied by cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger, a sound recordist (Eric Spitzer-Marlyn), and an assistant, and worked the lights himself.[6] The crew was limited to battery-powered equipment[2] they could carry into the cave themselves[6] and lights that gave off no excess heat,[1] had to stay on a 2-foot-wide (0.61 m) walkway, and could not touch any part of the cave's wall or floor.[6]
The production encountered several technical difficulties in working with the 3-D cameras, which were custom-built for the production and often assembled inside the cave itself,[6] in a documentary setting. At the time of production, 3-D films were typically shot on soundstages with heavy use of digital manipulation. Often, foreground and background elements would be shot separately and digitally composited into the finished shot. Techniques for 3-D filmmaking in natural environments with a single camera and no compositing were largely undeveloped, and had to be worked out experimentally by the crew in post-production.[10]
Before filming Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Herzog was skeptical of the artistic value of 3-D filmmaking, and had only seen one 3-D film (James Cameron's 2009 film Avatar). The idea to use a 3-D camera for the film was first suggested by Zeitlinger, who felt, before ever entering the cave, that 3-D might be appropriate to capture the contours of the walls. Herzog initially dismissed the idea, believing 3-D to be (in Zeitlinger's words) "a gimmick of the commercial cinema", but, once he visited the cave, he decided the film had to be shot in 3-D[10] to "capture the intentions of the painters", who incorporated the wall's subtle bulges and contours into their art.[6] After finishing work on Cave, Herzog stated he had no plans to film in 3-D again.[6]
The film was finished at the last minute, with only 30 minutes of footage completed on the Wednesday before its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday, 13 September 2010.[6] It was the first 3-D film to screen at the festival's Bell Lightbox theatre,[6] and the digital projectors jammed five minutes from the end, interrupting the showing.[11] When Herzog was asked why the French Ministry of Culture, who sponsored the film, did not require its premiere to be in France, he replied: "They didn't know it was finished."[12]
Two days after the screening at TIFF, IFC Films announced it had secured the film's US distribution rights in a "mid-six-figure deal";[13] the television rights were already owned by the History Channel, who partially financed the film's production.[6]
In January 2011, a trailer for the film was released that advertised a release date of Spring 2011.[14] The film premiered in cinemas in the UK on 25 March 2011. Also in March, a second trailer, released for US distribution, announced a US release date of 29 April 2011.[15]
Its opening weekend in the US, the film earned an average of $25,500 from each of the five screens on which it was shown in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles; this was Herzog's best-ever per-theater opening,[16] and the highest per-theater average of any film in the US that weekend.[17] By 12 June 2011, the film had grossed $3.7 million in the US, making it the highest-grossing independently-released documentary of 2011 by a wide margin.[18]
Critical reception to the film was positive. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 96%, based on 138 reviews, with an average score of 7.9 out of 10; the site's "critics consensus" states: "Hauntingly filmed and brimming with Herzog's infectious enthusiasm, Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a fascinating triumph."[19] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 86 out of 100, based on 34 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[20]
There are a few panels of handprints made from red ochre that are thought to have been by one man. In the documentary, they show how they identified it as one male artist who was probably about 6 feet tall and even concluded the order in which he made the prints.
The art of the animals is amazing. There is a sense of movement about them and layers of animals that have been painted on with the 3D surface of the cave taken into consideration. The combination of the surface contours and the way that the light would change in the cave with torchlight almost gives them an animated feel as though they move across the cave.
One of the big questions asked is if we can ever tell and understand who these people were who painted the images in the cave. We think we can relate to them purely as they are humans like us, but in doing so, we take so many of our modern western perspectives with us. Can we ever understand the artists as people across such an abyss of time? It makes us question what is important to us and how that might be regarded 30,000 years from now. The objects we treasure and the art we make, will that be understood so far into the future? Or will it be misinterpreted? Will anyone even care so far in the future?
There is argument through the movie that it is spirituality that connects us all across epochs. Herzog argues that instead of being homo sapiens, we should be homo spiritualis. There is some evidence the people in the cave made the paintings in a spiritual way. There is a very specifically placed skull with what seems to be incense around it that indicates the cave was used a spiritual place. We assume as modern westerners at times that art is purely decorative or expressive but there is a very interesting point in the film that if you talk to people like indigineous peoples about why they make art, they will reply they are not making art, it is the spirits that are making art. So, could it be a link to spirituality that links humans of all types, all ages and all eras that is the link in art across time.
In 1994, local cavers Christian Hillaire, Eliette Brunel-Deschamps and Jean-Marie Chauvet discovered a previously unknown cave with extraordinarily preserved, ancient rock art. The cave is located in the Ardche region of southern France. In 1998, a small team, headed by Dr. Jean Clottes, began research and Carbon 14 dated the art to 30,000-33,000 years old.
Chauvet Cave is about five hours to the east from where I was during June in the Dordogne region, the particular section called the Prigord Noir. This is where I was so fortunate to experience two caves with very limited access, Les Combarelles and Font-de-Gaume, and was simply overcome. A couple of people, whose names have slipped my memory, then suggested I see the documentary The Cave of Forgotten Dreams done by Werner Herzog on the Chauvet Cave. If any who directed me are reading this review, I thank you profusely.
The team allowed to enter was quite small, some researchers and a few filmmakers, and only for limited times. They could touch nothing of the interior, walking on a carefully protected passageway alone. Remembering how overwhelmed I was when entering 10,000-year-old sites, I could only imagine the condensed energy of one 20,000 years older. One young scientist was interviewed and spoke of how, after working in the cave for five days straight, he found it so powerful he had to take a break to absorb it all.
There were so many similarities to my own visit to such sites in the Prigord Noir, although mine were but a snippet. The awe as to the sophisticated renderings and talent. How they translated movement and power of their subjects. How the very place seemed alive. This was so especially in the sweeping scene of images filmed purposefully in silence. I will confess it brought tears to my eyes.
Remember this is narrative art. The narrator pointed out two sets of lions. In one, the obviously male lion was courting a female who was not ready to accept his advances. She growled at him. In the other, the female had agreed, shown as snuggling the side of the male.
As an aside, I noted in research elsewhere that when the age of the Chauvet Cave rock art came out, it was contested by those who insisted on adhering to their outdated, ego-entrenched conjectures. This also happened with the Altamira cave in northern Spain. Altamira itself was found by a local hunter in 1868. He told Marcelino Sanz de Sautola, an amateur archeologist who owned the land. In 1879, he began excavation, but it was his young daughter Maria who actually discovered the cave paintings. When Sanz de Sautola attempted to take the findings public, suggesting the art was 10,000 years old, he was declared a fraud and the paintings fake by those of the same ilk mentioned above, plus the Catholic Church. He suffered the effects of public humiliation until his death. Posthumously some twenty years later, he was recognized for his achievements, the age of Altamara cave art not 10,000 but 35,000 years old. An account is given in the little known film Finding Altamira, which can be viewed on Netflix.
No specific messages here, but it's fascinating to consider the lives of people who lived more than 30,000 years ago; it puts our human existence into proper perspective and reminds us that many of the things that concern us today are rather small in the grand scheme.
c80f0f1006