''Cave of Forgotten Dreams'' is a 2010 3D documentary film by

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with u ...

about the

Chauvet Cave The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave (french: Grotte Chauvet-Pont d'Arc, ) in the Ardèche department of southeastern France is a cave that contains some of the best-preserved figurative cave paintings in the world, as well as other evidence of Upper Pale ...

in Southern France, which contains some of the oldest human-painted images yet discovered. Some of them were crafted around 32,000 years ago. The film premiered at the

2010 Toronto International Film Festival The 35th annual Toronto International Film Festival, (TIFF) was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 9 and September 19, 2010. The opening night gala presented '' Score: A Hockey Musical'', a Canadian comedy-drama musical film. '' La ...

and consists of images from inside the cave as well as interviews with various scientists and historians. The film also includes footage of the nearby

Pont d'Arc The Pont d'Arc (French ''pont'' = bridge) is a large natural bridge, located in the Ardèche ''département'' in the south of France, 5 km from the town of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc. The arch, formed when the river Ardèche broke through a narrow e ...

natural bridge.

Production

Herzog's interest in the Chauvet cave was prompted by

Judith Thurman Judith Thurman (b. 1946) is an American writer, biographer, and critic. She is the recipient of the 1983 National Book Award for nonfiction for her biography ''Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller''. Her book ''Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of ...

's ''

New Yorker New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to: * A resident of the State of New York ** Demographics of New York (state) * A resident of New York City ** List of people from New York City * ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925 * '' The ...

'' article "First Impressions". Thurman is listed as one of the co-producers of the film. The cave is carefully preserved and the general public is not allowed to enter. Herzog received special permission from the French

Minister of Culture A culture minister or a heritage minister is a common cabinet position in governments. The culture minister is typically responsible for cultural policy, which often includes arts policy (direct and indirect support to artists and arts organizatio ...

to film inside the cave. Having received permission, Herzog nonetheless had to film under heavy restrictions. All people authorized to enter must wear special suits and shoes that have had no contact with the exterior. Also, because of near-toxic levels of

radon Radon is a chemical element with the symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive, colourless, odourless, tasteless noble gas. It occurs naturally in minute quantities as an intermediate step in the normal radioactive decay chains through ...

and

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is trans ...

, nobody can stay in the cave for more than a few hours per day. Herzog was allowed to have only three people with him in the cave: the cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger, a sound recordist (Eric Spitzer-Marlyn), and an assistant. Herzog himself worked the lights. The crew was allowed to use only battery-powered equipment they could carry into the cave themselves, and only lights that gave off no excess heat. The 3-D cameras were custom-built for the production, and were often assembled inside the cave itself. Herzog was allowed six shooting days of four hours each. The crew could not touch any part of the cave's wall or floor, and were confined to a walkway. The production encountered several technical difficulties in working with the 3-D cameras in a documentary setting. At the time of production, 3-D films were typically shot on stages with heavy use of digital manipulation. Often, foreground and background elements would be shot separately and digitally composited into the finished shot. Techniques for 3-D filmmaking in natural environments with a single camera and no compositing were largely undeveloped, and had to be worked out experimentally by the crew in post-production. Before production of ''Cave of Forgotten Dreams'', Herzog was skeptical of the artistic value of 3-D filmmaking, and had only seen one 3-D film (James Cameron's ''

Avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appeara ...

''). Herzog still believes that 3-D is not suited for general use in cinema, but used it in ''Cave'' to help "capture the intentions of the painters", who incorporated the wall's subtle bulges and contours into their art. The idea to use a 3-D camera for the film was first suggested by Zeitlinger, who had imagined before ever entering the cave that 3-D might be appropriate to capture the contours of the walls. Herzog dismissed the idea, believing 3-D to be (in Zeitlinger's words) "a gimmick of the commercial cinema". After visiting the cave, however, Herzog immediately decided that the film must be shot in 3-D. After the production, Herzog stated that he had no plans to use 3-D again.

Release

The film had its debut on 13 September 2010, at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

. It was finished at the last minute, with only 30 minutes of footage completed on the Wednesday before its showing. It was the first 3-D film to screen at the festival's

Bell Lightbox TIFF Bell Lightbox is a cultural centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the first five floors of the Bell Lightbox and Festival Tower on the north west corner of King Street and John Street. TIFF Bell Lightbox features five cinemas, two ...

theatre, and the digital projectors jammed only five minutes from the end, interrupting its debut. Two days later,

IFC Films IFC Films is an American film production and distribution company based in New York. It is an offshoot of IFC owned by AMC Networks. It distributes mainly independent films under its own name, select foreign films and documentaries under its ...

announced that it had secured the rights to all US distribution of the film in a "mid-six-figure deal". Television rights had already been owned by the

History Channel History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...

, who partially financed the film's production. After the film's premiere, Herzog was asked why the French Ministry of Culture, who sponsored the film, did not require its premiere to be in France. Herzog replied, "They didn't know it was finished". In January 2011, a trailer for ''Cave'' was released which advertised a release date of Spring 2011. It premiered in cinemas in the United Kingdom on 25 March 2011. Also in March a second trailer was released for US distribution, which announced a US release date of 29 April 2011. The film opened on 29 April 2011, shown in the US in five theaters in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The ticket sales averaged $25,500 per theater for the opening weekend, which was Herzog's best-ever per theater opening, and the highest per theater average of any film in the US for the weekend. As of 12 June 2011, the film had grossed $6.4 million, making it the highest-grossing independently released documentary of 2011, earning over 10 times more than the second-place film, '' The Last Lions''.

Reception

The film's reception was positive. It holds a 96% critic rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 128 reviews, as well as metacritic score of 86 on the

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, based on 34 reviews.

Awards and nominations

References

External links