kateoplis: Something like 20,000 years ago, a... • Geek Destinations

Posted on Wednesday, 15 September 2010

kateoplis:

Something like 20,000 years ago, a rock slide sealed up the entrance to a large cave set into a limestone cliff above the Ardèche River in southern France. No human being entered it again until 1994, when a trio of explorers wedged themselves through a tiny aperture and made one of the most extraordinary discoveries of cultural history: Chambers upon chambers of spectacular prehistoric art, both figurative and abstract, including images of many extinct species of Ice Age animals. You and I will never see any of this, except with the help of Werner Herzog’s strange, flawed and mesmerizing 3-D film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday night.
Let me go over that again briefly: Yes, Werner Herzog has made a movie in 3-D that’s largely set inside a cave full of Stone Age art. His producer, Erik Nelson — who is a friend and an occasional Salon contributor — says that Herzog is the first director of the new 3-D wave to use the technology for good, not for evil. Secondly, yes, the art is beautiful, even stunningly accomplished, and these images are breathtaking — unlike anything you’ve seen before or will see again. And thirdly, yes, Cave of Forgotten Dreams will become a classic drug movie almost immediately, although the experience is mind-altering enough without any augmentation.
What’s now known as the Chauvet Cave (after Jean-Marie Chauvet, leader of the exploring party) was promptly seized and sealed by the French government; more people have visited the summit of Everest since 1994 than have seen the interior of the cave. Much of the struggle for Herzog and Nelson was getting in there in the first place. Beyond the 400 or so Paleolithic cave paintings in pristine condition, and the important artifacts and fossils (cave-bear skulls! cave-bear scratches!), Chauvet has far-reaching implications for the study of cultural prehistory and the birth of human consciousness. These paintings are roughly twice as old as any other known examples of pictorial art. (The earliest of them may go back 33,000 years.) They’re as close as we can come, at least for now, to the dawn of art.
— Salon

Something like 20,000 years ago, a rock slide sealed up the entrance to a large cave set into a limestone cliff above the Ardèche River in southern France. No human being entered it again until 1994, when a trio of explorers wedged themselves through a tiny aperture and made one of the most extraordinary discoveries of cultural history: Chambers upon chambers of spectacular prehistoric art, both figurative and abstract, including images of many extinct species of Ice Age animals. You and I will never see any of this, except with the help of Werner Herzog’s strange, flawed and mesmerizing 3-D film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday night.

Let me go over that again briefly: Yes, Werner Herzog has made a movie in 3-D that’s largely set inside a cave full of Stone Age art. His producer, Erik Nelson — who is a friend and an occasional Salon contributor — says that Herzog is the first director of the new 3-D wave to use the technology for good, not for evil. Secondly, yes, the art is beautiful, even stunningly accomplished, and these images are breathtaking — unlike anything you’ve seen before or will see again. And thirdly, yes, Cave of Forgotten Dreams will become a classic drug movie almost immediately, although the experience is mind-altering enough without any augmentation.

What’s now known as the Chauvet Cave (after Jean-Marie Chauvet, leader of the exploring party) was promptly seized and sealed by the French government; more people have visited the summit of Everest since 1994 than have seen the interior of the cave. Much of the struggle for Herzog and Nelson was getting in there in the first place. Beyond the 400 or so Paleolithic cave paintings in pristine condition, and the important artifacts and fossils (cave-bear skulls! cave-bear scratches!), Chauvet has far-reaching implications for the study of cultural prehistory and the birth of human consciousness. These paintings are roughly twice as old as any other known examples of pictorial art. (The earliest of them may go back 33,000 years.) They’re as close as we can come, at least for now, to the dawn of art.

— Salon