Movie Review - The Cave of Forgotten Dreams

 

32,000 year-old cave paintings, all perfectly preserved as if sketched yesterday, surrounded by bones and footprints of animals long since extinct.  I don't think Werner Herzog could have picked a more awe-inspiring topic for his latest documentary, The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.  The title refers to the dreams of prehistoric man, and the unknown motivations they had for creating their artwork.  Werner investigates this theme throughout the documentary, all the while interviewing quirky researchers, and devoted caretakers of the Chauvet Cave in Southern France where the paintings are found.

As expected from a Herzog documentary, he intermixes serious philosophical questions with his characteristic off-beat, dry humor, all in his Bavarian accent, which makes everything seem more profound and worldly.  For instance, after talking to an archeologist about ongoing research at the cave, he will talk to a perfumist that puts his keen nose to use by sniffing rocks to try and find new cave systems.  But among the odd interviewees he also finds truly insightful, humble folks that are never short of interesting observations and different perspectives, bringing depth to the story.

But the movie really shines when Herzog remains quiet and lets the paintings do the talking for themselves.  Herzog made a conscious decision to film the paintings so movie-goers would see them as closely as early man would have viewed them.  He uses moving electric lights to mimic flickering torchlight, and in the best use of the technology I have seen, uses 3D to show how the texture of the walls themselves played a critical role in the composition of the paintings.  There are long stretches of the film where the camera pans across the paintings with only aboriginal chanting to accompany the images.  These sequences are worth the price of admission alone.  Herzog allows the viewer to contemplate these ancient sketches in solitude.  It's as if prehistoric man is trying to reach out to us, to share a piece of themselves, those dreams long forgotten.  It's as close to a spiritual experience as you can come in a movie theater.  3.5 stars.

Master of Play - New Yorker Article

 
"When you play his games, you feel like you’re a kid and you’re out in the back yard playing in the dirt." 

- from Master of Play by Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker

I think we all have different memories of play as a kid, and remember many of those times as some of the best of our lives.  Everything we experienced, like playing Nerf football on the street, or trading baseball cards, or catching tadpoles, today will put a smile on our face and often make us wish we still had that same wonder and excitement today.  And for those of us from the Nintendo Generation, we all have a similar memory that immediately brings us that smile and gives us those warm fuzzy feelings.  The names are legendary in our minds: Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong.  These were more than just video games, and it wasn't just because they were the first games we played.  They were also the best video games we would ever see in our lives.  And they were all created by Shigeru Miyamoto.  Miyamoto created what every artist dreams of: unique, unrivaled masterpieces of their medium that forever are the benchmarks that everything that comes after is compared to.

"Miyamoto has designed or overseen the development of many other blockbusters, among them the Legend of Zelda series, Star Fox, and Pikmin. Their success, in both commercial and cultural terms, suggests that he has a peerless feel for the pull, that he is a master of play—of its components and poetics—in the way that Walt Disney, to whom he is often compared, was of sentiment and wonder. Certainly, in Mario, the squat Italian plumber who bops around the Mushroom Kingdom in a quest to rescue Princess Toadstool, Miyamoto created a folk hero—gaming’s first—with as great a reach as Mickey Mouse’s."

Miyamoto's greatness comes from a source of wonder and curiosity he experienced growing up in rural Japan that he constantly draws from during his creative process.  He seems to have devoted his life to creating games that bring the same joy and happiness that he had as a kid exploring the forests and caves near his home.  Definetely ironic that his love of nature inspired his love of video game development, but somehow that makes sense.  When you play Mario Brothers or Zelda, undertaking a quest through a magical world, you can definitely see the connection.

As author Nick Paumgarten discusses, what sets Miyamotos' games apart from the rest are their perfect combination of joy and challenge.  I think this balance is what Miyamoto perfected in those early Nintendo games, and when we look back now we see that no video game since then has struck that same balance.

"His games strike this magical balance between the excitement that comes from facing new problems and the swagger from facing down old ones. The consequent sensation of confidence is useful, in dealing with a game’s more challenging stages, but also a worthy aim in itself. 'A lot of the so-called ‘action games’ are not made that way,' Miyamoto told me. 'All the time, players are forced to do their utmost. If they are challenged to the limit, is it really fun for them?' In his own games, Miyamoto said, 'You are constantly providing the players with a new challenge, but at the same time providing them with some stages or some occasions where they can simply, repeatedly, do something again and again. And that itself can be a joy.'"

Herman Wouk is Still Alive - Stephen King

Stephen King published a new short story in the Atlantic and can be read here for free.  As always, Stephen King's strength is developing characters.  He has this amazing knack for writing characters so believable and clearly realized that you swear he is modeling them after real people in his life.  Not only that, but he can do it with only a few paragraphs.  In this new story, King introduces two characters you would likely see on a website like People of Walmart, a couple of women you couldn't help stare at in disbelief (and probably disgust).  Of course being a King story, they are set on a tragic path that we follow to the bitter end.

The Last Post of Blogger Derek Miller

Derek Miller, blogger from Vancouver, CA, died this past week and left a final message that his family posted after his death.  He was 41 and lost a long fight with colorectal cancer.  He seems to have found peace in the end, and shares this in his message.  Read his last post here.

Solomon Burke - Greatest Hits

I just recently was introduced to Solomon Burke's music.  I have never really gotten into classic R&B, just kind of admired it from afar.  But that was a mistake.  Hearing one of the kings of soul music at the top of his game is like a breath of fresh air.  This is the kind of music that will put a smile on your face, just good old-fashioned rythym and blues.  Take a listen to some of his most well-known songs below, and then go and get his greatest hits album.

This first one you will recognize from the Blues Brothers cover...

The Hobbit - Behind the Scenes (Part 1)

I must admit that when I heard a few weeks back that Peter Jackson chose to film The Hobbit using 3D for dramatic effect, in order to "give a point of view" I got a pretty bad feeling about these movies.  Did anyone who saw the Lord of the Rings trilogy think, yeah this is good but if only it was shot in 3D... How does adding a third dimension add to the great storytelling of Middle Earth?  I could go on, but I think this recent surge in the third dimension in films will die all by itself life just like all the past incarnations.

So coming in with this skepticism I saw Jackson's first installment of the behind the scenes filming of the Hobbit.  Needless to say, just getting a glimpse of the care and detail that Jackson puts into filming these epic stories reminded me of the miracle he put together to get the trilogy filmed.  So, I will put my skepticism aside and be optimistic that he will do an amazing job just as we have come to expect.  Just hearing the Hobbiton theme song and seeing the sets in this video got my nerd-side excited.

The Civil War and Lincoln Assasination From Both Sides

Recently I've been reading Gore Vidal's Lincoln and was reminded of a book I read a few years ago, American Brutus, by Michael Kauffman.  Both tell the story of the Civil war years and the events leading up to and following the assassination of Lincoln, with American Brutus from the viewpoint of the assassin Booth and his fellow conspirators, and Lincoln primarily from the viewpoint of Lincoln and his administration.  What makes them so much more than a dry recitation of historical events is they both are written as pieces of fiction, detailing all the events large and small in a cohesive story.

Instead of leaving out key events and conversations that are not documented in the written histories, both authors attempt to fill in those gaps with dialogue and actions of the main characters that can only be guessed on.  This way the characters become more fully formed and believable than you might see from history books, experiencing real human emotions.  You might think that the creative license taken by these authors may take away from their credibility, and you may have been right if these stories were left to less capable hands.  But clearly these authors have done their homework, and their historical guesswork mixes in flawlessly with historical facts.  It's fascinating to see those small moments of laughter, humilation, anger, and fear being experienced by these (until now) very set-in-stone and unknowable characters in history.  So these books give you the best of both worlds, great insight into events that laid the foundation for this country, and a top-notch story full of characters to keep you turning the pages.