r/Documentaries • u/miraoister • Jul 09 '16
Ancient History The Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) " by Werner Herzog about the Chauvet Cave in southern France, which contains the oldest human-painted images yet discovered. Some of them were crafted as much as 32,000 years ago."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfF989-rW0420
Jul 09 '16 edited Aug 29 '18
[deleted]
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u/TheGreyMage Jul 09 '16
In this era, more history can happen in the space of half a second than all of the history that occurred over the space of ten millenia 50,00 - 100,000 years ago.
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u/Pokes_ItWithAStick Jul 13 '16
Agreed. I appreciate how they left the art or added on to it...over thousands of years. We tear down buildings and destroy art that is still in its' infancy.
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u/RickStevensAndTheCat Jul 09 '16
Paul F Tompkins does an excellent impression of Werner Herzog.
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u/miraoister Jul 09 '16
its good, but not perfect.
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u/RickStevensAndTheCat Jul 14 '16
How do I add a green name next to my username like yours?
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u/miraoister Jul 14 '16
a green name? I cant see it. is it just a box around my user name or does it say something?
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u/RickStevensAndTheCat Jul 14 '16
It says "Top Contributor," but other people have ones that are just references to podcasts and whatnot.
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Sep 29 '16
He's close, but I feel like it's not quite gentle enough and it's missing some of the up and down melody of Herzog's voice.
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u/Matthypaspist Jul 09 '16
Isn't this the documentary where he talks about albino alligators because theres a nuclear power plant down the river from Chauvet that heats the water used in the facility that has the albino alligators?
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u/skinny_sci_fi Jul 09 '16
Yep, at the very end. So strange, but I kinda liked it.
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u/jomama717 Jul 19 '16
I watched this with my sister, and when she saw this part she immediately said it seemed like he was riffing off of this bizarre short story about Axolotls. Weird, but interesting read - particularly with the albino alligators in mind.
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Jul 09 '16
When thinking about the "who" behind the paintings I couldn't help but remember this quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray:
"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul."
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u/stillsomewhere Jul 09 '16
These paintings are so mind-blowing to me because they're a direct communication from humans so far removed from us by time. Just seeing the paintings makes me feel like there's no time separating us at all. They have so much presence. It really overwhelmed me the first time I watched it.
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u/candleflame3 Jul 09 '16
I went STRAIGHT to the cinema to see this in 3-D when it came out. I did not want to miss getting the full experience of such a unique film. And yeah, it's mind-blowing to think of the time between them and us. And yet, we are still them - we have the same bodies and brains, genetically there is no difference.
I do somewhat envy them, living in nature their whole lives and clearly having a rich spiritual life. That is not really possible for us, now.
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u/cycle_phobia Jul 11 '16
Why it's not possible? go to some Siberia or other place and live in the woods for the rest of your life, planet Earth is still very uninhabited
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Jul 09 '16
I highly recommend the book Shaman, by science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson. The book is a portrait into the life of a man living 30,000 years B.C.
Robinson said his inspiration for the book was seeing these caves discovered.
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u/OhUhWTF Jul 09 '16
I found it funny some of the questions he would ask the scientists, like almost philosophical questions that scientists were just not prepared to answer, as they were more well versed in the technical, data discovery sorta stuff. They kinda were put on their back foot and had to really think about the questions.
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Sep 29 '16 edited Sep 29 '16
Ha. Yeah, I liked that too. But I thought the former circus guy with the pony tail was a possible exception. He seemed to find the questions refreshing and really took the chance to open up about his personal experiences of the cave.
I also got a kick out of Herzog making fun of that one archaeologist's spear throwing skills.
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u/Lonely_Crouton Jul 09 '16
fascinating cave.
spoiler below:
most interesting fact for me was:
different parts of the cave were painted by different ppl over thousands of years. like, someone new would come along and add to it 5,000 years later. just insane.
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u/miraoister Jul 09 '16
... wow man... they must of been space age cavemen...
wait a second... space age cavemen are like us.
woah...
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u/cycle_phobia Jul 11 '16
They didn't sound any idea why someone would anything to the pictures, but I think those who found them centuries after were just learning to paint, maybe those were some children or someone did that for fun, merely imitating, like some indie bands do these days, imitating the music of the 60s and 70s.
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u/McBonderson Jul 09 '16
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Jul 09 '16
Fun fact : they're actually working on building a replica of this cave. Painters, sculpters and movie FX artists are recreating all the walls and paintings by hand so everyone can walk in and see it. It should be open to the public in 2016.
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u/miraoister Jul 09 '16
I am a caveman. I have a long neck and I pick fish out of the water with my beak. If you don't repost this comment on 10 other pages, I will fly into your kitchen tonight and make a mess of your pots and pans.
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u/neosinan Jul 09 '16
Watched it when it came out, it was good I am gonna watch it again since it is on YouTube
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u/checkmarkiserection Jul 09 '16
It's also in 3D.
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u/hokeyphenokey Jul 09 '16
It was filmed in 3D the way 3-D was meant to be filmed. No gimmicks. Simply a 3D camera filming a very interesting three-dimensional space. It works so well.
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u/Mentioned_Videos Jul 09 '16 edited Jul 11 '16
Other videos in this thread:
| VIDEO | COMMENT |
|---|---|
| Comedy Bang Bang - Werner Herzog Reviews a Hotel on Yelp | 6 - its good, but not perfect. |
| Jack Reacher Chew Your Fingers Off | 3 - the narrators voice sounds like the bad guy in Jack Reacher |
| Penguin, Depressed... Werner Herzog | 2 - One of my favorite Hertzog scenes is about the Penguins in Encounters at the End of the World |
| When Herzog Rescued Phoenix | 1 - When Herzog Rescued Phoenix |
| Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (1/10) Movie CLIP - You Wanna Hit? (2009) HD | 1 - This is my favorite no, seriously he directed this. |
| Werner Herzog Reads Where's Waldo | 0 - Here's an even better Herzog Documentary |
I'm a bot working hard to help Redditors find related videos to watch.
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u/tamerofunicorns Jul 09 '16
The child tracks with wolf tracks was amazing. So glad they are protecting it.
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u/nin_halo_8 Jul 09 '16
What blew my mind about this doc was they were able to show that the horses were drawn ~5000 years before the buffalo locking horns. Yeah, just a multi-millennia gap in art movements.
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u/streetlighteagle Aug 25 '16
And in a similar vein, them being able to trace a single individual throughout the cave. One man in ten thousand years of pre-history.
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u/midwifeatyourcervix Jul 09 '16
did anyone else have vivid dreams about the cave the night after seeing? Both my boyfriend at the time and I did, and I talked to another friend sometime later who had seen it and they said the same thing. I like to imagine the images trigger something primal in your brain.
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u/stillsomewhere Jul 09 '16
I don't remember if I dreamed of them, but I got a really good emotional buzz.
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u/nin_halo_8 Jul 09 '16
I got a buzz too. Caves are so spooky. Have you ever watched clips of people going on long underwater cave dives?
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u/stillsomewhere Jul 09 '16
No, in this instance I think it was the paintings that were so affecting although the cave is like this amazing time capsule. I would go in there in a heartbeat. I am a bit claustrophobic though!
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Jul 09 '16
I had a discussion about this movie with my therapist. This is so out of Herzog's canon. Consider fucking Fitzcarraldo (and the fucking documentary about the making of the movie Fitzcarraldo he filmed at the same time named "The Burden of Dreams"). Herzog is a fucking psychopath. He routinely puts cast, crew, and locals in harms way to get what he wants. That's why this movie seems so strange. In Herzog's way I suspect that the nature of this movie is more about the composition of the movie than the content of the movie: It's almost like he's DARING you to watch the whole thing, it's so boring. I suspect that it's actually more a demonstration of the banality of human existence. It's like he's saying "Here you are: Everything you are, everything that anyone is, is right here in this cave. This is the beginning of western Humanity as we recognize it. Look how insignificant it is. Look how mundane it is. This is your fetal existence; your primordial womb. It means nothing. Humanity means nothing. We will be forgotten just like this cave."
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Jul 09 '16
Wow. Cynical. Early Werner was a handful, sure, but I found this movie beautiful and mesmerizing. He has real reverence.
Everything does not require hipster ennui and irony. It's ok to enjoy things.
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Jul 09 '16
I love his movies. I think he's a maniac and I'm immensely entertained by the manifestations of his particular kind of crazy.
It's not cynical. I think its putting humanity in perspective. Herzog has always saught to examine the human element in his pieces, and I simply believe he's reached some sort of conclusion about the over-all relevance of mankind. It's Zen, if you think about it one way. Nihilism, another. Ultimately, it's Herzog-the-inscrutable giving us a wonderful movie that seems way outside his normal approach. I'm only suggesting an angle of analysis
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Jul 09 '16
I'm really not seeing that angle with the work. The slow, steady camera work, the long silences, the music - it's clearly reverential. There's no attempt to frame it as mocking or "ha ha, you stupid humans."
If anything, it's "holy shit, trip out on the hard-core nature of deep time and art and evolution."
His other documentaries are equally reverential of reality, e.g., the one about the death penalty, or the one about the people in Antartica. What I love about him is that he lets the subject-matter tell the story. There's little to no overlay. He trusts our intelligence.
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Jul 09 '16
There's no attempt to frame it as mocking
It's not meant to mock. It's meant to contextualize. It is a cathedral of humanity, after-all. I agree with your sentiment. He does exemplify the human struggle in his filmography. I don't think banality is a bad thing; I don't believe in such terms. I think what Herzog was getting at with this is the minuscule, encapsulated existence of Humanity.
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Jul 09 '16
“There is a certain strange, palpable power from these images, and it’s not only that the paintings are so accomplished,” Mr. Herzog, 68, said in an interview in New York this month. “There is something that touches us instantaneously, something that is completely awesome. What you are witnessing is the origin of the modern human soul and the beginning of figurative representation.”
That's about as far from banality and smallness as you can get. You're certainly free to feel that way if you like, but the intent was to highlight our greatness and depth.
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Jul 09 '16
I don't see a contradiction here: he's speaking to the paintings. Again this is an issue of content vs. composition. He's talking about the content of his film. We're talking, at large, about the composition. I proposed an idea about it, Herzog can't refute it. Either way that's not what I'm here for, to be refuted or confirmed. I like the ideas coming in though. I don't see the point in trying to prove something wrong or right. Just try to see the merits in my comment as I try for yours.
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Jul 09 '16
I literally just quoted the filmmaker as to both how he sees the subject matter and his intent in conveying it - profound. Again, you're welcome to put whatever spin YOU want on it, but your view isn't shared by the filmmaker. Or the rest of us.
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Jul 09 '16
thanks for speaking for literally the entirety of r/film in that statement, but whatever.
I did, in fact, state that I was sharing an opinion
As you are, as everyone is.
You're not Werner Herzog so you can't speak for him, or his viewpoints. I took a totally separate meaning from that quote than you did thus demonstrating that even his statements are open to interpretation
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Jul 09 '16
Right. Along with ennui and irony, the hipster outlook loves leaving everything open to, like, my interpretation, man. The Statue of Liberty is, like, about oppression and stuff, because that's how I see it.
No.
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u/candleflame3 Jul 09 '16
That's about as far from banality and smallness as you can get.
This.
I wasn't bored when I saw the film in the cinema. How often does a film like this come along? I think it does a great job of letting you see as well as possible - given the constraints - what is in that cave. The additional info from the various researchers helps you understand what you see. The whole thing is trippy.
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u/Laxda Jul 09 '16
without overthinking it, though while aknowledging the depths to which Hertzog's reasoning can extend to (just read his diaries from filming Fitzcarraldo), it's important not to forget that this film was shot enitely in 3D, which arguably both up to this point and since in film making has been used as nothing but a side attraction novelty. However, in this case is the only format that can display the cave paintings as they appear: utilising the contours of the cave wall--a fundamental aspect in the rendering and composition of the paintings.
So really he's showcasing this in way in which you couldn't experience unless you were standing there, and they keep that cave shut to all but a handful of people a year. Add too the fact that you as a viewer can't experience this without some specific technology at hand makes this quite a unique and special film.
But if you find the idea of 30,000 year old cave paintings mundane and boring I don't know what to tell you.
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Jul 09 '16
I don't, but I also said this movie isn't about the cave paintings. Go read my comment again.
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u/Laxda Jul 09 '16
Herzog's way I suspect that the nature of this movie is more about the composition of the movie than the content of the movie: It's almost like he's DARING you to watch the whole thing, it's so boring.
So the film or at least the composition of the film is boring. What's the difference between the two, I don't know.
It's like he's saying "Here you are: Everything you are, everything that anyone is, is right here in this cave. This is the beginning of western Humanity as we recognize it. Look how insignificant it is. Look how mundane it is.
Cave paintings are mundane (if this isn't you intention then you've got an antecedent problem here).
Maybe you should read your comment again
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Jul 09 '16
What's the difference between the two, I don't know.
con·tent ˈkäntent/ noun noun: content; plural noun: contents
1. the things that are held or included in something. "he unscrewed the top of the flask and drank the contents" the amount of a particular constituent occurring in a substance. "milk with a low-fat content"com·po·si·tion ˌkämpəˈziSH(ə)n/ noun noun: composition
1. the nature of something's ingredients or constituents; the way in which a whole or mixture is made up.It's like he's saying "Here you are:
This is what I'm saying. Have you no imagination? I'll say it again. It's not about "the cave paintings" its about humanity
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Jul 09 '16
[deleted]
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Jul 09 '16 edited Jul 09 '16
For humanity to be mundane in that context, the cave paintings must be mundane as well. That is, if they are the subject matter being used as an analogy for humanity
I dont see this extrapolation please explain, you're missing the point of content vs. composition.
I think they're beautiful, wonderful, fascinating paintings as well. I think that Herzog is using them to contextualize the human experience.
I think I am being perfectly respectful. I am not trying to seek conflict with you, or to ruffle feathers.
I'm not motivated by the opinions of others. Are you motivated by upvotes? Is that why you're carrying on as such?
But please explain your meaning, why must the cave paintings be mundane if humanity is mundane? Humanity's banality isn't the metric used for art. And as I've said many times before; Herzog is getting at something BIGGER than the cave paintings. he is speaking to the primordial human experience. Furthermore these paintings are unique in the context of humanity. youre making a false comparison.
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u/GottaGettitOut Jul 09 '16
I am just going off what I understood of your comment. I obviously don't get it, so I'll just get out of here.
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Jul 11 '16
[deleted]
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Jul 12 '16
the very beginning of this thread started with "I was discussing this with my therapist" rofls
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Jul 09 '16
Your argument is entirely based off your opinion that the movie is boring. You shouldn't base your argument on your subjective experience, but rather on the objective content. By shining a light on the cave paintings the filmmaker intends to say exactly the opposite of what you argue. He is saying, "Look, this is your history. You need to know where you came from. Our lives, whether you consider their existence beautiful and meaningful or pointless and dull, came from people who found meaning in the world around them."
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Jul 09 '16
Look, this is your history. You need to know where you came from. Our lives, whether you consider their existence beautiful and meaningful or pointless and dull, came from people who found meaning in the world around them.
I am speaking to exactly this but from a different angle.
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u/miraoister Jul 09 '16
did you ever see the argument seen from the Fitzcarraldo documentary? someone put it on youtube with comedy subtitles.. "the man from Delmonte says No!" (taking the piss out of the white panama hat wearing Delmonte fruit character used by the world wide fruit brand)... it was fucking hillarious.
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Jul 09 '16
oh please, PLEASE link me this! <3 I need to put it on Facebook.
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u/miraoister Jul 09 '16
sadly I been searching for it all fucking week..
the final part ends with...
"FUCK THIS I AM GOING TO GET MY GUN!"
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u/gsu4skin Jul 09 '16
Someone mentioned the book "Shaman". Haven't read it, but did read much of The Earth Children series covering the same topic. Fictional story about a woman then a of thousands of years ago with tons of period detail mixed in with author's speculation. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea but a good read.
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u/checkmarkiserection Jul 09 '16
A few years ago, Werner Herzog was on The Colbert Report talking about this film. At the end of the segment, Colbert told Herzog that he would like to get high with him.
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u/gensleuth Jul 09 '16
I saw several caves last year in France. It was life changing. When you see ancient handprints, you see the humanity of the ancient people who made them. "I exist."
I'm fortunate that I watched this movie before going, as it increased my understanding and enjoyment.
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u/hokeyphenokey Jul 09 '16
If you ever have a chance to see this in the original 3D projection, drop everything and do it. It is the best thing I have ever seen.
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u/badwhiskey63 Jul 09 '16
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u/miraoister Jul 09 '16
literally I realized tonight I can do a better Werner Hertzog impression than all the other ones on youtube...
I need to get a mic!
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Jul 09 '16
These are no longer the oldest human paintings. Oddly enough the paintings in Spain that predate the French ones by ~5-10k years were well known when this was made and there are even older ones in Indonesia.
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u/John_Thrust Jul 09 '16
I am a heron. I have a long neck and I pick fish out of the water with my beak. If you don't repost this comment on 10 other pages, I will fly into your kitchen tonight and make a mess of your pots and pans.
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u/miraoister Jul 09 '16
Yes my master, I have done thy bidding.
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u/John_Thrust Jul 09 '16
Thank you. Your kitchenware is safe another day.
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u/miraoister Jul 09 '16
sir may I ask, where did you find this heron?
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u/John_Thrust Jul 09 '16
You didn't read the text, I am the heron and will make a mess of the pots and pans of those opposing me.
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u/miraoister Jul 09 '16
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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Repost this if ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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╚═════════════════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ════════════════╝
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u/John_Thrust Jul 09 '16
╔═════════════════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ════════════════╗
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Repost this if ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ you are a beautiful strong black woman ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ who don’t need no heron ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
╚═════════════════ ೋღ☃ღೋ ════════════════╝
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u/HocusLocus Jul 09 '16
Ancient railway tunnel graffiti. And the only reason you didn't know about the railroad is that we always send anthropologists in there who go ga-ga over the drawings. An engineer would glance down at the floor of the cave to see those metal rails extending into the darkness. The reason photos of these drawings are often blurry is that the photographer tripped over the rails and got grease on the lens.
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Jul 09 '16
this is going to be a hoax
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u/Actual_princess Jul 09 '16
What?? Its a well known site. Its also the oldest in the northern hemisphere, the South half has a ton near 60k years old.
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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '16
His voice is mesmerizing.