Quest for Fire

I am just about to sit down and rewatch Quest for Fire.
Go, thou, and do likewise.

The DVD, just arrived in the mailbox, netflix.com being contracted to juggle three at me at a time: send one back, get another. Reviewers at the time of Quest for Fire [1981] called it a "clinic for actors." True, but it also had Desmond Morris on hand to advise on the science, Anthony Burgess to invent language for mankind somewhere in between Homo erectus and Cro-Magnon.

Ron Perlman! Rae Dawn Chong!

PS Twenty minutes into the film -- it’s every bit as marvelous as I remembered -- I pause to "correct," to tighten. Desmond Morris is credited for the gestures, the body language: rather more specific than the "science." And a great, great job too.
An opening graphic dates the fiction to "80,000" years ago. We’re dealing with Homo sapiens, but not yet Homo sapiens sapiens. In other words, they had language of a sort but were not yet talking a blue streak.
The last twenty-four years have seen dates firm up in some areas, loosen in others, but it’s all sure good enough for a fiction.
80,000 years ago does though seem to me to be a little recent for quite the number of other ape-men they encounter.

PS, Post Watch: Jean Jacques Annaud, the movie creator, in his DVD director’s cut commentary says we could add another zero: 800, 000 years ago. The theory of the multiple tribes is Desmond Morris’s: and seems to be holding up, so long as we’re flexible with the time.

I already mentioned my enthusiasms for the invented language. What I didn’t know until I followed JJ’s commentary on the DVD was that a second language was also used, one that JJ arranged for but couldn’t supervise. The plot follows three heroes sent from a tribe of Cro-Magnon that have lost a battle with a cannibal tribe to find more fire, their fire also lost in the scuffle. They steal fire from a different cannibal group, thereby abetting the escape of a pair from still another tribe, the most advanced we see. They have not only pottery and shelter building, but can kindle their own fire. Thus we meet Rae Dawn Chong’s character.
JJ had all the tribes speak the one invented language -- they all knew what they were saying; but Rae Dawn’s tribe, when the sound track was later laid, had its speech supplied by Canadian Innuit: in Innuit. Apparently the Innuit were saying some funny things: maybe like kids commenting on a dumb movie. JJ heard that every igloo had Quest for Fire on the VCR and would laugh and laugh at the things their tribesmen said.
So, hey: how about a new director’s cut, with subtitles for the Innuit’s rude comments?

2005 11 05 I'm still enjoying Quest for Fire's after taste: not surprising since I'd never left off tasting it, even with only the one original viewing in 1981. As impressed as I was by Ron Perlman's performance then, I'm the more impressed now. But of course it's Rae Dawn who's most memorable of all: and I bet that's true not just among males, who marvel at her naturalness wearing nothing but paint. Then again, would we notice Rae Dawn half so well were her role not so well conceived? Now we're applauding not just Rae Dawn, not just JJ, but Desmond Morris! I particularly like how the female is shown as leading the male. In 1981 I balked a little that not only does she teach Noah fire-kindling, but the missionary position, but of course it's Myth: and should be.
But what's making me chuckle this week plus later is Ron Perlman's slowness to respond when female rumps are stuck under his nose. But then the third guy's growl when Ron Perman decides to try his luck with him, however brief, is worth the rest combined (including Ron Perlman's responding shrug).

2011 09 07 I've been renting movies to watch with my beloved Jan, including movies I select to acquaint her with. So: we saw Quest In 2010. Wonderful. I'd watch it again, right now.