Time and Mind: The Journal of “But the Image Wants Archaeology, Danger”: Georges Consciousness and Culture Bataille, Werner Volume 5—Issue 1 March 2012 Herzog, and Poetical pp. 33–52 Response to Paleoart DOI: 10.2752/175169712X13182754067386 Reprints available directly Barnaby Dicker and Nick Lee from the publishers Photocopying permitted by licence only Barnaby Dicker teaches at UCA Farnham and is Historiographic Officer at the International Project Centre © Berg 2012 for Research into Events and Situations (IPCRES), Swansea Metropolitan University. His research revolves around conceptual and material innovations in and through graphic technologies and arts. [email protected] Nick Lee is studying for a PhD in the Media Arts Department, Royal Holloway, University of London, which examines the epistemological basis for Marcel Duchamp’s abandonment of painting. He also teaches at the department. [email protected] E-PrintAbstract The high-profile theatrical release of Werner Herzog’s feature-lengthPUBLISHERS documentary filmCave of Forgotten Dreams in Spring 2011 invites reflection on the way in which paleoart is and has been engaged with at a cultural level. By Herzog’s own account, the film falls on the side of poetry, rather than science. This article considers what is at stake in a “poetical” engagement with the scientific findings concerning paleoart and argues that such approaches harbor value for humanity’s understanding of its own history. To this end, Herzog’s work is brought into BERGdialogue with Georges Bataille’s writing on paleoart, in particular, Lascaux—a precedent of poetical engagement. Keywords: Georges Bataille, Werner Herzog, Chauvet © cave, Lascaux Cave, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, poetical methodologies, disciplinary limits, lens-based media Time and Mind Volume 5—Issue 1—March 2012, pp. 33–52 34 “But the Image Wants Danger” Barnaby Dicker and Nick Lee Introduction culture and consciousness are being hotly The high-profile theatrical release of Werner debated, embraced, and contested. What Herzog’s feature-length documentary film some might consider a crisis in the discipline, Cave of Forgotten Dreams in Spring 2011 the authors see as an index of a staggering invites reflection on the way in which effort to do justice to our own heritage and paleoart is and has been engaged with at contemporary situation. a cultural level.1 A three-dimensional (3D), Paleoart is simultaneously an inspiring high-definition(HD) video production, and traumatic area of study for a wide documenting a recent visit to the Chauvet range of disciplines. It signposts the blurring cave, France, Herzog’s film presents paleoart of disciplinary borders, most significantly as a cinematic spectacle. Moreover, it makes between the arts and the sciences, and, a strong contribution to the reinvigoration at different times and in different ways, of widespread public interest in paleoart can shake hallowed models of human generated by the discovery of the Chauvet existence. And yet, it simultaneously cave in 1994, and which had been firmly calls for a wide range of illuminating established by the discovery of Lascaux in methodological approaches. Herzog’s 1940. Consequently, we must now consider film frames these diverse and potentially it common knowledge that the Western incompatible positions, thereby sustaining tradition of art is at least 35,000 years old. several hypotheses within its overall By Herzog’s own account, the film falls on structure. Here, we see the disciplines the side of poetry, rather than science. This of archaeology, geology, anthropology, article considers what is at stake in such a topography, perfumery, filmmaking, and— “poetical” engagement with the scientific fundamentally—graphic art, combined in an findings concerning paleoart. E-Printattempt to generate a deeper understanding The precedent for this poetical not only of the paleoart in question, but of engagement can be found in Georges PUBLISHERSthe ongoing construction of the ontology Bataille’s writing on paleoart, in particular of humanity—an ontology founded upon his work concerning the cave art at Lascaux and maintained by an opposition to the (Bataille 1955, see also Bataille 2005). This perceived chaotic and mindless forces of article explores the many resonances nature. between Bataille and Herzog to argue that Herzog’s film is an endorsed contribution poetical engagements with paleoart —such to paleoart study; the endorsement being as theirs—harbor value for humanity’s underwritten by the French Ministry of understanding of its own history. Poetical Culture and embodied by those figures and scientific methodsBERG of investigation will be closely involved with the Chauvet site considered equal and complementary, with and the film itself, including Jean Clottes, both contributing to a richer if always partial Dominique Baffier, Jean-Michel Geneste, understanding© of paleoart. The significance Carole Fritz, and Wulf Hein. Although this of alternative modes of inquiry is plain in article as a whole is concerned with assessing an exciting era where myriad discoveries non-standard contributions to paleoart study, about paleoart and the emergence of human it is worth sketching out the position Cave Time and Mind Volume 5—Issue 1—March 2012, pp. 33–52 Barnaby Dicker and Nick Lee “But the Image Wants Danger” 35 of Forgotten Dreams occupies in this regard. Herzog: The Cinema, the Cave The film certainly operates at a populist level. Filmed over mere days in Spring 2010, However, Herzog’s authorial stamp rebuffs the film documents one of the annual accusations of triviality. Furthermore, the scientific visits to Chauvet cave (Figure 1). footage of the cave, if not the film as a whole, To be permitted access to the cave, Herzog is offered as a reasonable surrogate to an struck a deal with the French Minister of actual visit to the site: a possibility denied the Culture whereby the film could be used vast majority of paleoart scholars, let alone for pedagogical purposes. The HD 3D the rest of humanity. equipment and heatless lights used by Bataille’s work has likewise been the filmmakers satisfied the preservation recognized within the archaeological demands placed on the cave art, thereby community for its potential to “trigger and allowing the film to be made, albeit within a clarify our thinking on [paleoart]” despite series of strict time slots, further limited—in being “flawed by inadequate knowledge terms of points of view—by all visitors to the of the archeological data” (Lorblanchet cave having to remain on narrow aluminum 2007: 98). Michel Lorblanchet’s criticism gangways. is apposite, however it should be stressed Cave of Forgotten Dreams follows the that Bataille—who enjoyed direct exchange format of many of Herzog’s documentaries: with many major figures associated with interview, fly-on-the-wall, and (aerial) archaeology and anthropology, including landscape material are elegantly interwoven; Abbé Henri Breuil—was writing over half a the filmmaking process is laid bare; the century ago, when knowledge of the field director provides an authorial voiceover; was less extensive and nuanced than it is Herzog appears as a central character as a today. Lorblanchet makes clearE-Print that the consequence of the previous two factors; value of Bataille resides elsewhere than and a rousing soundtrack (by Ernst Reijseger) in the rehearsal of the “facts”; Bataille is a PUBLISHERSis given a prominent position. Significantly, the catalyst—a position construed here as being film addresses its subject matter (Chauvet “poetical” in character. cave/paleoart) as much as it does the Herzog’s (b. 1942) prolific fifty- experiences of some of the people closest year career has consistently straddled to it. Put differently, Herzog pursues the documentary and fiction forms. Indeed, subject matter through its human protectors Herzog persistently challenges the distinction or conduits. between the two, seeking to demonstrate in If, as Eric Ames (2009: 61) observes, “the and through his work that “there are deeper idea of sacred landscape has emerged as a strata of truth in cinema,BERG and [that] there is major topos of Herzog’s work [and] one that such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth” (Cronin he has mainly explored in the documentary 2002: 301). Thus it comes as no shock that mode,” then Cave of Forgotten Dreams must the director© explicitly approached Cave of stand as exemplary. Ames elaborates, Forgotten Dreams with “a sense of poetry,” claiming, “I am not responsible to total fact, Landscape pictures serve not merely but to poetry” (Herzog 2011). to project the filmmaker’s subjectivity Time and Mind Volume 5—Issue 1—March 2012, pp. 33–52 36 “But the Image Wants Danger” Barnaby Dicker and Nick Lee Fig 1 Herzog at work on his film insideE-Print the Chauvet cave. © Picturehouse Entertainment. Image reproduced with permission. PUBLISHERS into space. They position the spectator an obvious example of this process is the vis-à-vis the depicted world in ways that way in which the aerial footage is used. It foreground the production of affective provides information about the landscape, experience and its mediation by image- firmly situates the film (and its focus) in a making technology. (ibid.: 65) part of the world, and is often accompanied by Herzog’s monologue. We see the aerial Ames thus finds in landscape a unifying camera’s traversal of the locale prior to the touchstone for the various aspects of filmmakers’ entry into the cave. As the film Herzog’s practice. NotableBERG is Ames’ progresses, the aerial sequences become suggestion that Herzog’s films simultaneously more pregnant, a stark contrast to the encourage audiences to respond journeys into the dark, claustrophobic cave. emotionally; to© analyze that response (as The film explicitly makes clear the mutuality they experience it); and to understand this of the two for humanity; suggesting the process in relation to a technology-infused rather Bataillian hypothesis that we cannot cultural arena. In Cave of Forgotten Dreams reach aesthetic heights without enduring Time and Mind Volume 5—Issue 1—March 2012, pp.