The key scene in Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams comes when he is interviewing a young archaeologist. The archaeologist is part of a research team investigating a cave in France known to have the oldest cave art done by humans. The man says that after he saw the lifelike and almost modern looking animal paintings done 32,000 years ago, he dreamt about the animals coming to life and also on the walls. This then is how imagination and something like the soul get from there to here: from early man tens of thousands of years ago to modern man in the 21st century.
The early cave painters probably dreamed of the animals they saw on the land, and then from those dreams and observations they painted them. We dream about our own lives, but the representations of life and everything that we have produced as the human race--books, plays, novels, sculpture, music, architecture, painting, movies--had their analogue in this cave. Here then is also the beginnings of art. Makes you wonder how people thousands of years from now will see us. Will they take a look at our pop culture, our Glees and blockbuster superhero movies and think we were like that? Besides being a spiritual experience, this movie is an elegy for real art and real nature that defines us, and that in this very commercial age, we are slowly or rapidly losing.
The early cave painters probably dreamed of the animals they saw on the land, and then from those dreams and observations they painted them. We dream about our own lives, but the representations of life and everything that we have produced as the human race--books, plays, novels, sculpture, music, architecture, painting, movies--had their analogue in this cave. Here then is also the beginnings of art. Makes you wonder how people thousands of years from now will see us. Will they take a look at our pop culture, our Glees and blockbuster superhero movies and think we were like that? Besides being a spiritual experience, this movie is an elegy for real art and real nature that defines us, and that in this very commercial age, we are slowly or rapidly losing.