Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog, 2010)
In pondering 30,000 year old cave drawings Werner Herzog sees “an almost proto cinema.” A horse with six legs, suggesting movement, or the use of the uneven wall surface in the cave integrated into the image to give it depth all work to show movement, shape, and depth in an imagination that’s so many millennia away that it’s nearly impossible to conceive of. One of the archeologists, a former circus entertainer, talks about becoming overcome with vivid and affecting dreams after spending too much time with the paintings. He described the feeling as a less direct way of knowing something. Like a less easy knowledge. Like Herzog I think that the most sublime thing about the cinema is that knowledge that comes from incompleteness. A lack or a missing component that creates a more substantial picture in your mind. Maybe a picture you can’t explain completely.