Film: Quest for Fire, Anyone?

[amicus]

http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/films.php?id=8064

I have seen this film, or parts of it, several times over the years but never met anyone else who had.

It is not a documentary and is actually rather humorous but also has some interesting themes about early man...

Rather reminds me of another lighthearted film, "Caveman" with Ringo Star

anyone?

 

[Boxlicker101]

I saw the movie a few years ago on videotape. I thought it was pretty silly, especially the premise that there would be a society so primitive they lived in caves and didn't know about fire, and they lived so close to a society that was advanced enough that they had wooden buildings.

 

[amicus]

[QUOTE=Boxlicker101]I saw the movie a few years ago on videotape. I thought it was pretty silly, especially the premise that there would be a society so primitive they lived in caves and didn't know about fire, and they lived so close to a society that was advanced enough that they had wooden buildings. [/QUOTE]

~~~

They 'knew' about fire, but could not create it only conserve it. Dunno why you think they were 'close' to another society, seems to me they traveled for quite some time before discovering a more civilized group.

Or are you just being argumentative?

Amicus...

 

[cumallday]

It was originally titled "La Guerre du Feu". An old professor of mine was friends with the guy who played the balding caveman - small world, huh? I always liked the scene where the lead caveman is looking at the cavewoman bent over by the water's edge and cannot help but to go and grab and try humping her. It struck a chord with me.

 

[Boxlicker101]

[QUOTE=Boxlicker101]I saw the movie a few years ago on videotape. I thought it was pretty silly, especially the premise that there would be a society so primitive they lived in caves and didn't know about fire, and they lived so close to a society that was advanced enough that they had wooden buildings.

~~~

They 'knew' about fire, but could not create it only conserve it. Dunno why you think they were 'close' to another society, seems to me they traveled for quite some time before discovering a more civilized group.

Or are you just being argumentative?

Amicus...[/QUOTE]

Partly I was just being argumentative. However, I did mean what I said. They knew about fire, but not how to produce it. They did travel for quite a while, but not in a straight line, and the two cultures were probably no more than a hundred or so miles apart, and they ran into other, equally primitive, tribes in between.

 

[Carnevil9]

I remember that movie, and I also remember noting the similarities with Ringo's movie. I think they came out about the same time.

Not long after that, there was a beer commercial, showing the caveman bravely trekking back to his clan, carefully protecting his burning stick. He finally arrives, hands it over, and the chief says "No, no, no. I wanted a BUD lite!" After the announcer gives his pitch, the chief caveman says, "Now go get pizza!"

 

[cloudy]

Best take on cavemen. Ever.

 

[jomar]

I remember it. I thought it was a fun kind of goofy. The most interesting thing was Tommy Chong's daughter in the main female role.

eta: I recall liking it, way back when.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

It was cool. A little goofy, but much more plausible than any other caveman movie I can remember. It did depict a busy week for humanity - we discovered how to make fire and missionary position sex within days of each other.

 

[mikey2much]

I saw it and I likd it

I always thought that it was a rough way to break into showbiz for Rae Dawn Chong. I man having to be naked and smeared with mud, scampering around following your men who don't really want you with them. Jabbering like a monkey while they pay you no attention. And yet, she was the most advanced humen on the scene.

Overall I thought it was well done and I really enjoyed it. I am glad that it is out on dvd, I'll have to get me a copy.
Thanks for the info.
mikey

 

[jayce1066]

Liked it a lot. Ron Perlman was one of the cave dudes.

 

[amicus]

Before someone up and tells me that Michael Moore had something to do with the film, I thought I would ward you off; assuming it is the 'same' notorious person.

I thought the introduction of the missionary position was cute,(do we have to call it that?) and that the discovery of making fire was well done and that 'humor' seemed to be lacking and was also rather stumbled on to. It is a curious look, as with "Cavemen", both with oodles of humor and rampant speculation on how it might have been long long ago.

Rae Dawn Cheong played the part perfectly I thought.

Appreciate that so many are familiar with it...was hoping that would be the case.


Amicus

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Oh, I just remembered I read the book, too. Don't remember details, other than it was cool too and OK.

 

[xssve]

Best take on cavemen. Ever.

Hah, I remember that, definitely a classic.

Quest was pretty good, whatever those guys were that were supposed to be Neandertals or whatever didn't look much like Neandertals - Irish maybe.

Joke.

It was one of the first movies to try and present a semi plausible prehistoric mythic tale - wasn't it about the same time Clan of th Cave Bear was making the book club rounds? can't remember.

Thing is, there was a whole series of spaghetti caveman flics made in the Sixties or Seventies, used to catch them on the Saturday afternoon matinees, that were more plausible than anything else I've ever seen - epic paleolithic soap opera - just the usual bunch of assholes being themselves.

 

[amicus]

[QUOTE=xssve]Hah, I remember that, definitely a classic.

Quest was pretty good, whatever those guys were that were supposed to be Neandertals or whatever didn't look much like Neandertals - Irish maybe.

Joke.

It was one of the first movies to try and present a semi plausible prehistoric mythic tale - wasn't it about the same time Clan of th Cave Bear was making the book club rounds? can't remember.

Thing is, there was a whole series of spaghetti caveman flics made in the Sixties or Seventies, used to catch them on the Saturday afternoon matinees, that were more plausible than anything else I've ever seen - epic paleolithic soap opera - just the usual bunch of assholes being themselves.[/QUOTE]


~~~

Saw that FexEx commercial...seems like it only ran a few time, but I loved it...welcome to the fray xssve...nice to have new blood now and then


amicus...

 

[gagginforit]

I always liked the scene where the lead caveman is looking at the cavewoman bent over by the water's edge and cannot help but to go and grab and try humping her. It struck a chord with me.

Same here. That's the only thing I remember about it, other than that it was very violent.

And Ron Pearlman's in it. He's great in everything.

Oh and the Iron Maiden song.

 

[Frank Noir]

http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/films.php?id=8064

I have seen this film, or parts of it, several times over the years but never met anyone else who had.

It is not a documentary and is actually rather humorous but also has some interesting themes about early man...

Rather reminds me of another lighthearted film, "Caveman" with Ringo Star

anyone?

If memory serves, the opening scene is pretty cool:

A bunch of caveman sit around the campfire, a huge prehistoric insect buzzing around them. And just as you think "well, these guys are pretty much like us", one of them (Perlman?) catches the insect and swiftly chomps it down.

Sets the scene nicely, I think.

(But it's been years since I saw it, so I may well remember it wrong...)

 

[xssve]

[
Saw that FexEx commercial...seems like it only ran a few time, but I loved it...welcome to the fray xssve...nice to have new blood now and then


amicus...

He walks out of the cave and... Haha, perfect. I have days like that.

Thanks for the welcome, history, evolutionary theory, evolutionary psychology, etc., are all mild obsessions with me, so a caveman thread was irresistable.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I too am a caveman fan.

I wonder what a perfectly accurate caveman movie would look like? Probably something like this:

" . . . no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

 

[cloudy]

I too am a caveman fan.

I wonder what a perfectly accurate caveman movie would look like? Probably something like this:

" . . . no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

*sigh*

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Go ahead and sigh.

Sure, there were romance, mother love, and warm human relationships; satisfactions relating to successful accomplishments such as knocking off a mastadon, making a really good flint or bone tool, or creating a nice decoration on one of the few items of personal property one could own when no permanent homestead was possible; and certainly other pleasures that made life preferable to the alternative.

But - a wisdom tooth or childbirth threatened the tortures of the damned, to name just two; the group was always on the knife edge of starvation and for parts of the year semi-starvation was the rule; child mortality rates were unimaginably high; one was worn out by age 30 and very few lived past 40; and much, much more, the reality of which would send chills down the spine of any modern. Romantic fantasies are all well and good but life no picnic then, and no one with an accurate perception of the realities would trade today's comforts, conveniences, entertainments, security and expanded horizons for the life of a caveman - or for those lived by the overwhelming mass of humanity right up until the last 200 years or so. Most people don't have a clue.

Sigh.

 

[cloudy]

Most people don't have a clue.

ya think?

Several names come to mind.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

I remember the film quite well. Although the film had some lighthearted scenes, the search for fire was genuine and a plausible activity. Gladly, the Cro-Magnon people depicted in the film did not co-exist with Dinosaures as depicted in so many less well researched epics.

I was disappointed though. This film did not reach the level that the director intended. It did show cannibalism. It did try to show the real need for fire. It did show the tribulations in trying to attain fire, including the altercation in the cave with a bear. But fell short on the social end.

These people would have spent most of their time hunting and gathering food. It just isn't realistic to send a trio of three in search of fire. Either they would have sent one or the entire tribe would have gone to attack another tribe to steal fire from them.

Them, while the tribe waited on an island in the marsh, there was no hunting or gathering, but, in stead, seemed to just sit around starving, waiting for the fire to arrive.

Even though the film fell short of what it could have been, it was better than any other I've seen.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

ya think?

Several names come to mind.

Well, I meant about how good we have it now and how tough it was then, but - Yeah.







(We're OK as long as we don't have to agree on which names.)

 

[amicus]

Excellent commentary from many...reinforces, along with the 'What if...?' thread, the pleasure I have had for years here on the AH.

It is a curiously trying task to create an accurate 'period piece' regardless of the era one chooses. Almost easier to create a 'fantasy' in which the writer has few boundaries to limit one.

I play and have for years an old video game, "Civilization by Sid Meirer's, the first version, I still have the old Nintendo. Tried the later computer versions, didn't like them. But the ways a 'civilization' progresses, according to the game, is quite interesting for those of you who have played it.

I am several years into writing a series of books somewhat like Jean Auel's 'Earth's Children, but taking place about ten thousand years ago instead of thirty thousand like the 'Clan of the Cave Bear' books.

In my attempt to be accurate in the portrayal, as Ms. Auel was, I have discovered some interesting problems.

Just the simple acquisition of table salt proves to be a task. I like sugar in my coffee and tea. but there were no 'sweeteners', insofar as I can discover, in North West America in the year 8,000 BCE.

Nope...no sugar cane, no sugar beets and no honey bees. Even the food, no fruit, no pears, peaches or even apples in that period at that place.

Stone tools only, metals had not been discovered, so stone and wood and bones served as the implements of all sorts.

Every writer has an 'author's message' embedded in his work, so that too must be taken into consideration as to how it stacks up to how things might have been, especially with human relationships, peer functions and family ties.

Roxanne, I think, mentioned dental problems; the entire gamut of human ailments and medical treatment comes into play even boiling water for sanitation and health was a matter of convention and not knowledge.

Leadership in a tribe changes when it transitions from hunter/gathering to agrarian and settled. What happens if the 'Chief' has no sons? Does a daughter become accepted by the 'people', or is there a struggle for succession?

While we tend to look back and bemoan the dire conditions at that time, 'they' didn't know anything better and perhaps were pleased by the improvements they managed to bring about.

When did the 'division of labor' take place? Perhaps certain family groups were skilled in tool making, or pottery, perhaps one family has knowledge of the location of suitable stones or obsidian for tool making and refused to share the information with others.

There were no formal learning procedures thus knowledge was passed down from father or mother, to son or daughter or by the elders of a family.

Not to inject a political note here, but all three Quest, Caveman and Clan of the Cave Bear had intimations of homosexuality and infidelity; is that an 'author's message' or the way it was or might have been?

Auel even had her blonde blue eyed heroine sleep with a black man in one of her stories...again...as it was or a message?

My particular story has taken three volumes just to get to the central defining event that drives the story; the eruption of Mt. Mazama, now Crater Lake in southern Oregon that devastated vast areas across the continent and around the globe.

It was many times more violent than the 80's Mt. St. Helen's event and dumped several feet of ash thousands of miles away. Was that quake the only event or were there tidal wides generated that decimated coastal tribes? Was it a subduction quake along a fault line off the coast?

The interesting and somewhat amazing thing I discovered during research is that historians, scholars, Archaeologists and Paleontologists that study the past are unable to reach agreement about hardly anything.

Which means the befuddled writer is left to his own devices in many cases. Such as 'horses'. There were indigenous horses in North American in about 13,000 BCE, but, not in 8,000. What happened to them? Were they hunted and consumed; all of them, each and every critter? Or perhaps my people could discover a lone band and, ''voila', civilization is in on horseback.

I need to get back to writing...I still have four volumes in my head screaming to be set free.

Amicus