Thursday, 7 April 2011

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

I remember where I was when I first saw photos of the images in the Chauvet caves... I opened a newspaper, and there was a full colour spread of rhinos, horses, tigers, all jumping off the page. The colour photocopy I made that morning is still on the wall, so of course I've been looking forward to Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams. A Herzog film is always something to look forward to, a Herzog film of the 'Caves Chauvet' even more so, and in 3D too!

& the film didn't disappoint. Not that it showed any images I hadn't seen. It seems that there isn't a huge number of images in the cave and an internet search will reveal them all. It's just the extraordinary quality of them. The way the artist(s) have repeated lines, heads, legs: when I first saw the photos I saw this as something you do when you draw, you repeat a line until you get it right. But in Chauvet it looks much more, as Herzog points out, as if there was an attempt to suggest movement: there's something cinematic about it. (& the experience of going into the cinema is a bit like descending into the cave: dim subterranean passages leading to an underground hall.)

The word 'fresh' was used a lot to describe the images. In fact they've been preserved by a massive landslide that covered the entrance some time in the distant past. They were discovered in 1994, and entrance is severely restricted to preserve the images. But 'fresh' suggests 'freshly made', which is how they look. On-going research projects leave no doubt that the date is around 32,000BC, but the drawing line is so alive, vigorous, spare, assured, they really could have been made yesterday. The drawings of horses and bison suggest Picasso, both in subject and style, as does the strange half-woman, half bull...

When Picasso visited the much more recent Lascaux cave he said 'We have discovered nothing'.

What does all this tell us about ourselves and our past? & I wonder what part the discovery of resemblance, of how a group of marks can resemble appearances, played in the development of human consciousness. & that our aesthetic sense goes back that far...

Not only is the line assured: the placing of the images also is. They aren't in a disorganised jumble. Put it another way: if they were on canvas and a contemporary curator had to hang them in the cave, this is how they would look. This horse on its own in the alcove on the right, and the bison in the centre of the far wall. Then this group of tigers here, and those horses would look good over there... & as an exhibition, you could say it's not over-hung. Another wonderful feature is how the curves of the rock are used to suggest bulk: the way a rocky edge is used as the side of a horse's head and, curiously, how a concave area of rock is used to suggest the convex bulk of a horse's flanks. I suspect the images must have been 'given' to the artist(s) by the rocks, in the way that if you look at stains on the wall you can see faces or landscapes.

& being a Herzog film there's a delight in the events that occur in making the film. There's the 'experimental archaeologist' dressed in period costume, with a flute he made from a bone of a vulture's wing, an exact replica of an excavated one. & when he plays it, it gives a perfect pentatonic scale, which means that he also found it possible to play... The Star Spangled Banner. As for the albino crocodiles living in the effluent of the nearby nuclear power station...

It was the first 3D film I've seen. It works: it was wonderful to see how the paintings fit into the cave, and the space itself, as it's the nearest I'm ever likely to get. But I didn't find it exactly comfortable: I wore the glasses while I was inside the cave, but took them off outside. Herzog says he saw the use of 3D for the Caves Chauvet, but wouldn't have made any of his other films in 3D. (The thought of Klaus Kinski raving, close up and in 3D...)

It's just the beginning: Wim Wender's 3D film on Pina Bausch is due shortly, actually planned as a film to be made with Bausch, who died suddenly a week or so before shooting was due to begin, so it's something of a tribute and memorial to her by her company.


tangocherie said...

Thank you for this post.

Until people see the ancient cave art they can't imagine the beauty and power of it--so much like a cathedral.

When I visited Lascaux, I was amazed at my tears.

I hope I can experience the 3-D film one day.

Tangocommuter said...

Thanks, Tangocherie!

I read that there's talk about an American release, but that must be 'Norteamericano'. & I think the French are talking about building a replica, like at Lascaux.

Chauvet, incidentally, doesn't give the impression of being cathedral-like; it doesn't seem that high or extensive. It's what's in it that is so impressive!

Hope you get a chance to see the film soon.

Tangocommuter said...

PS. If they could draw like Picasso and make flutes with a pentatonic scale one wonders what their milongas were like.

tangocherie said...

TC, when I said "like a cathedral," I was referring to the spiritual quality, and yes, the holiness of the experience.

And they did draw like Picasso, didn't they? Obviously they had all the emotions of tango if not the music.