cave of forgotten dreams

Ca commence à être très embêtant, car si l’on veut aujourd’hui avoir de la documentation sur un sujet pourtant très ardéchois, donc français, il faut aller le chercher en anglais !

La grotte des rêves oubliés (les traducteurs disent “perdus” ce qui ne signifie pas tout à fait la même chose) is a 2010 3-D documentary film by Werner Herzog, about the Chauvet Cave in southern France, Ardèche !

Oui, la grotte Chauvet. Du pur Aurignacien comme nous en sommes entourés ici  ! Les mêmes mains qu’à Gargas ! Moins 32000 ans ! Comme  Lascaux (1940), Cosquer (1991) et Cussac (2000), la grotte Chauvet est l'une des grottes françaises majeures par les qualités esthétiques de ses œuvres. Et leurs restes humains. Toujours associés à des bauges de notre copain, l’ours des cavernes ! Tout ça je vous en ai déjà parlé concernant Gargas !

The film premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival and consists of footage filmed inside the cave as well as interviews with various scientists and historians. The film also includes footage of the nearby Pont d'Arc natural bridge.

Production Werner Herzog's interest in the Chauvet cave was prompted by Judith Thurman's New Yorker 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 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 and carbon dioxide, nobody can stay in the cave for more than a few hours per day.

Il faut savoir que le sol est toujours recouvert des ossements trouvés lors de la découverte, parfois cristallisés au cours des années postérieures, avec des crânes d’ours, et de bouquetins. Ce qui explique qu’il ne faut pas marcher n’importe où !

Herzog was allowed to have only three people with him in the cave: the cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger, a sound recorder, 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 2-foot-wide (0.61 m) 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.

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 theaters in the United Kingdom on March 25, 2011. Also in March a second trailer was released for US distribution, which announced a US release date of April 29, 2011.

The film opened on April 29, 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 June 12, 2011, the film had grossed $3.7 million, making it the highest-grossing independently released documentary of 2011, earning over 5 times more than the second-place film, The Last Lions.

Il sort en salles (parisiennes uniquement !) le 31 août 2011, sous le titre : « Bestiaire profond ». Encore une traduction loupée ! Il ne manquait plus que « grotte profonde » pour faire penser à « gorge profonde », et tout y était ! Sans doute sommes nous obnubilés par la suite 2806, où l’on n’a pas retrouvé que des empreintes de mains !

En attendant, il faut chercher longtemps pour trouver des photos potables, je me suis livré pour vous à cet exercice passionnant, troublant et fascinant, alerté par le Figaro magazine du 27 août 2011. Le site virtuel de la DRAC sur la grotte Chauvet n’est pas mal du tout.

En attendant, je crois que je vais retourner



                                                                   

chercher mon nounours à Gargas !

Post-scritum : je n'ai cessé de penser au technicien de Privat en écrivant ce message : c'était le 8 janvier 2011, allez le relire dans les archives qui précèdent ! Ca s'appelle "Baby" une histoire d'auto-stoppeuse inventée de toutes pièces naturellement !