Cave of Forgotten Dreams

[Mr. Merrill Lehrl]

Synopsis:  Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting.

This is a cave exploration movie Herzog made on a garage sale videocam, in 3D, in difficult filming conditions with two battery-belt powered lights and a four-man crew (including himself).  It's a beautiful cave and a film not beautiful for technical reasons.  The grain really hurts the experience of the movie, while the 3D sometimes helps, for example when the film is able to both talk about and illustrate how paintings were made over the wavy surface of the cave walls.  And sometimes peering into the background of the film is also peering into the further away, darker sections of the cave, which is another completely practical and effective use of the 3D.

Sometimes I waited for the little Herzog moments, the funny things he might say or do or ask his subjects to say or do.  His personality helps the film but sometimes hurts the subject, at least from a personal experience of liking and knowing him, because for example in this movie he's not overbearingly present but he was always on my mind.

[Pubrick]

so it looks like shit?

damn that defeats the whole point of this movie. i thought this would be one of the best 3D movies ever..

instead it sounds like it was shot on a phone. which has already been done.. and the results were not pretty.

[Pas]

so it looks like shit?

damn that defeats the whole point of this movie. i thought this would be one of the best 3D movies ever..

instead it sounds like it was shot on a phone. which has already been done.. and the results were not pretty.

haha i don't know why i clicked on this, i knew it was Inland.

I prefe grainy videotape to great-phone-quality Inland Empire.

[Mr. Merrill Lehrl]

Unless it was some projector or seat related problem the movie was ugly from the very first shot or so.  The first shot or so tracks down a column of grass between rows of farming, and the grass is ugly and lacks detail, like how water sometimes looks on video.  I kind of slumped in my seat because mind you, this is even pre-cave.  Sure I'm spoiled by Planet Earth and the high-quality of photography in most historical/scientific films in general, but even still there's something sad about Herzog saying ~ "this is the laaast and only time aaanyone will film in the cave" while what's on screen resembles Blair Witch.

Although I'm adding emphasis because of my disappointment and the conversational direction.  Others may be blindingly intrigued by the film's sub-surface and the inarguable magnetism of the cave itself, which they wouldn't be wrong to do and I envy them.

[Pozer]

Connecting Science and Art

quite fetching podcast with Herzog & Cormac McCarthy (who from time to time gets a word in amongst mic HerzHOG) discussing the interface of science and culture on NPR's ScienceFriday program.

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201104085

[Myxo]

I'm seeing this today. Very excited about it!

[socketlevel]

Lawrence Krauss sounds like and reminds me of a scientific soderberg

[Myxo]

Minor spoilers here for those who care.

I didn't mind the 3D but it wasn't necessary. This ran too long as well. It should have been a one hour documentary on the History Channel or something. It seems like they took a small amount of footage and dragged it out another 30 minutes. There are several takes in the film where we're staring at bare rock with art on it for 30-60 seconds at a time. (Often times with nothing but music playing in the background.) Herzog really makes a point here of trying to involve the viewer in the images they are seeing. How did these people live in 35,000 BC - 40,000 BC with Mammoths around and no bow & arrows, etc? I thought the most interesting part of the whole thing was a comment one of the scientists makes midway through the film. "These areas we are standing in now were 300 feet below sea level when the people who created this art were here. Back in their time, you could have walked from France to England because the English Channel was completely dry." It's tough to wrap your mind around living that long ago.

All in all good stuff, just overly long.

[Mr. Merrill Lehrl]

I know what you mean but it's funny to think of historic fact as spoilers.  Also I agree overall that it could have been shorter but disagree that the scientists were more interesting than the art.  He holds on the art in order for the audience to appreciate the undulations of the cave wall and the way the paintings interact with their surfaces, which are heightened by the 3D and hence the 3D is necessary.  In at least one instance it was the difference between him straight telling you a point and you experiencing the point for yourself.  Although he also straight told us the point, I guess for the 2D audience.

[SiliasRuby]

Myxo got it right. needed to be a 1 hour doc on the history channel....

[Ravi]

The 3D enhanced the film by depicting the contours of the walls and the depths of the cave. For a cave that not many people will get to visit, the film in 3D serves as a record of the space itself.

This isn't Herzog's best work, but it was remarkable to see such amazing artwork from so long ago.

[MacGuffin]

Werner Herzog Fesses Up To The Fake "Mutated" Albino Crocodiles In 'Cave Of Forgotten Dreams'
Source: ThePlaylist

Here's a spoiler if you haven't seen Werner Herzog's latest documentary, the 3D-made (no really), "Cave Of Forgotten Dreams" which centers on ancient cave art—the oldest paintings known to man in the world (shot in three-deee!). So yeah, if you haven't seen it (and if this headline hasn't ruined it already), stay away. Ok, 'Forgotten Dreams' is sort of your standard Herzog doc, though a bit more elegiac, cathedral-like—Herzog imbues the proceedings with a solemnity that is befitting images that should be respected and viewed with awe. It's not our favorite of his non-fiction works (or at least that seems to be the consensus around these part), but we suppose that's relative compared to his other docs. Regardless, the doc pretty much goes like this (taken and tweaked from our review) : Herzog and his small film crew were granted unprecedented access to obscure caves in the south end of France discovered in 1994 French by speleologist Jean-Marie Chauve. Inside these subterranean dwellings is evidence of extremely early Upper Paleolithic life, including the most primitive and oldest cave painting art on earth (evidently 30,000 years old) However, near the end of the doc, in typical Herzog fashion is a (rather unnecessary, but amusing) post-script about some nearby Albino crocodiles. According to Herzog, the crocodiles are actually the mutant offspring of animals that have been living in a French greenhouse heated by the runoff from a nearby nuclear power plant. And of course Herzog attempts to use the crocs to form some sort of absurd and tenuous correlation between the animals and the cave dwellers—their dreams, their aspirations and their unknown ambitions. Of course it's fictitious and that's not a spoiler, Herzog has maintained for several years—that while some charge it to be irresponsible fabrication—that his films contain an "ecstatic truth" rather than the "accountant's truth." We're to glean—from several interviews on this very subject that Herzog has given—that "accountant's truth" is dull unsexy fact and "ecstatic truth" is Herzog's version which "illuminates" the story. But this writer is not sure he's ever seen Herzog fess up to his tricks in such a bold fashion on TV. He usually just simply gives the somewhat cryptic, but telling, "ecstatic truth" quotes. Until now. "It's a wild post-script, it's a wild science-fiction sort of fantasy at the end," Herzog told Stephen Colbert on "The Colbert Report" last night. "I want the audience with me in wild fantasy in something that illuminates them. You see if I were only fact based, the book of books in literature then would be the Manhattan phone directory—four million entries, everything correct. But it [flies] out of my ears and I do not know: do they dream at night? Does Mr. Jonathan Smith cry in his pillow at night? We do not know anything when we check the correct entries in the phone directory. I am not this kind of a filmmaker." Best. Quote. Ever. Watch the entire clip below, it's pretty amusing. For the record, this writer is ok with ecstatic truth—when it actually works. "Cave Of Forgotten Dreams" was out in limited release earlier this year, and still may be in your local arthouse if you're lucky. It will arrive on DVD later this year.


http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/werner_herzog_fesses_mutated_albino_crocodiles_in_cave_of_forgotten_dreams/

[polkablues]

I want Werner Herzog to be my dad.

[Ravi]

But this writer is not sure he's ever seen Herzog fess up to his tricks in such a bold fashion on TV. He usually just simply gives the somewhat cryptic, but telling, "ecstatic truth" quotes. Until now.

He admitted somewhere that in Little Dieter Needs to Fly, the scene of Dieter repeatedly opening and closing the door was staged. I don't think it was on TV though. And he's always using the phone book metaphor when talking about "ecstatic truth."

[Pedro]

In Herzog on Herzog he says that considers cinema verite the "accountant's truth."