Film Review:Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Submitted by baboon on May 12, 2011 - 16:57
See also :
The discussion that follows was prompted by the article: Film Review:Cave of Forgotten Dreams. The discussion was initiated by baboon.
Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!
a couple of additional points
Just to indulge my passion a bit more, if I may:
Another confirmation from the paintings of Chauvet is of the theses of David Lewis-Williams regarding the cognitive nature of this art, how it fits into the neurological mechanisms that he argues for and for the likely expressions of altered states of consciousness. Lewis-Williams and many other have been villified for putting this analysis forward by supporters of the reactionary view that we can never know, or approach any understanding of what this cave art means.
A few more words on the baboon: the number of rhinocerous that it appears to be contemplating are very active. What appears to be at the side of the baboon is the horse panel comprising of beautifully drawn, undoubtedly feminine, horses (the direct desendents of the same breed can be seen on Exmoor in Somerset today). One of the rhinos appears to be swivelling around towards the horses. As Herzog directs the camera to pan over this scene, perhaps for thirty seconds, the different contours of the cave wall and point of view of it, to my astonishment, turned the baboon into a rhinocerous. Elsewhere in the cave, and characteristic of other cave art, are clearly composite creatures of which one is not quite sure. These, and other "fantastic" creatures seems to have been deliberately fashioned. The legs of the baboon disappear into nothing, ie, there are no feet. This is a feature of a significant number of animals (some have exaggerated feet), albeit a minority. And while ground lines do not exist in Upper Palaeolithic cave art (nor do trees, grass, clouds, etc.) it gives the appearance that the image is "floating" which gives added strength to the idea that these images were representations of spirits. The same could be said of some (not all) of the Swabian portable carvings which are also marked by "signs" and, while they are in a state of "tension", the feet disappear into nothing.
Herzog, who's a great cinemaphotographer and a bit of a nutter, has a strange but powerful epilogue to the film. It concerns two extraordinary looking white albino alligators that live in the underground waters of a nearby cave. Herzog wonders what these bug-eyed creatures would have made of the paintings had they found their way into Chauvet through the subterrenean passages. But the strength of this epilogue is that Herzog, freed from the necessary constraints of filming in the cave, goes to town with the cinematic effects which along with the 3D produces a stunning conclusion.
By coincidence I noticed Max
By coincidence I noticed Max Nordau also starts his book On art and artists with the question of the meaning of these cave pictures by our savage forefathers:
the early stone age with works of art not invariably
crude ; who woke the echo of the forest valleys with
plaintive or yearning melodies ; who excited themselves
by sensuous dances in the moonlight nights of
spring ; who formed, in symbolic and allegorical songs,
their mystic impressions of the great phenomena
of the weather and sky;—these savage forefathers
were the first, but at the same time last, purely
subjective artists, the only real believers in the
dogma of " art for art's sake."
In order to find them once more in our own times,
we must seek them in the nursery or the Board
School class - room. The artist of primitive times
survives by atavism in the child. But he substitutes
for the rock-wall of the cave and the mammoth's
tooth his slate, copy-book, school-books, often enough
his desk and form, which he adorns with drawings that, if not particularly finished, are, nevertheless,
always full of expression, and recognisable. The
child does not give way to his artistic wantonness in
order to please others. He hides it, moreover, mostly
for obvious reasons, from the eyes of strangers ; he
only draws to portray symbolically that which has
made a strong impression on him. He always notes
down the important, distinguishing features which
have struck him in the phenomenon. This fierce
mustache, the circle drawn across which represents the
head, is for the little draughtsman the characteristic
of manly dignity ; this right-angled broken stroke,
which bristles up over a row of men, is the formidable
bayonet that marks the soldier; this disproportionately
big stick in another man's hand is the
dreaded badge that embodies the schoolmaster's
power. The young artist has obeyed genuine
impulses. His art forms really spring out of the
deep grounds of his emotion.