Werner Herzog goes spelunking in 3D for 2010 documentary, CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS
CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (Werner Herzog, 2010)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Sunday, May 3, 4:00 & 8:30
Series runs May 1-17
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.wernerherzog.com
An adventurer as much as a filmmaker, German director Werner Herzog has headed into the Amazon in Fitzcarraldo (1982), burning Kuwaiti oil fields in Lessons of Darkness (1992), and Antarctica in Encounters at the End of the World (2008). In his 2010 documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, he goes where few have ever gone before. In December 1994, speleologists Jean-Marie Chauvet, Éliette Brunel, and Christian Hillaire discovered the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in France, a vast series of chambers filled with remarkable paintings and engravings as well as animal bones, including the skulls of the extinct cave bear. The works were painted onto and carved into the walls, not limited to flat surfaces but around formations that jut out into the cavern. Dating back more than thirty thousand years, they are the oldest cave paintings ever found, well preserved through crystallization over the centuries and now by the intense and careful protection of the French government. Only a handful of scientists have been given access to the cave, until last spring, when Herzog, who has been entranced by cave paintings since he was twelve years old, was allowed to bring in a shoestring crew using specially devised equipment to film the space over the course of six four-hour sessions. The four-person crew — including Herzog manning the lights and his longtime cinematographer, Peter Zeitlinger, behind the 3D camera — were not allowed to touch anything and had to stay on a narrow metal walkway that winds through the cave. They were accompanied by a team of specialists on the rare public journey: handprint expert Dominique Baffier, cave bear researcher Michel Philippe, the husband and wife team of Gilles Tosello and Carole Fritz, who map out the social connection between art and archaeology, Jean Clottes, the former director of the Chauvet Cave Research Project, and current director Jean-Michel Geneste.
In true Herzog style, he also speaks with a master perfumer and two prehistoric flute archaeologists. Herzog’s decision to use 3D — for what he says will be the only time in his career — was a stroke of genius, allowing viewers to feel like they’re walking through the cave with him, nearly able to reach out and touch the remarkable drawings, engravings, and skeletons. Herzog’s narration does get too dreamy at times, veering off on philosophical tangents before he adds a cool but silly coda, but, as always, he adds plenty of his trademark humor and charm too. Cave of Forgotten Dreams is screening May 3 at 4:00 & 8:30 with Ikuo Nakamura’s 2014 eleven-minute short, Aurora Borealis, as part of the BAMcinématek series “3D in the 21st Century,” consisting of nineteen programs of single films and double features, all shot in 3D. The festival also includes Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity with Trisha Baga’s Other Gravity, Jon M. Chu’s Justin Bieber: Never Say Never with Nadia Ranocchi and David Zamagni’s Joule, Jeff Tremaine’s Jackass 3D with Ben Coonley’s 3D Trick Pony, Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D with Yoshi Sodeoka’s Psychedelic Death Vomit (Slight Return), and Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language with Kerry Laitala’s Chromatic Frenzy.