Quest for Fire

"Quest For Fire," a movie which came out in the 1980's, may be the best dramatized documentary in film history, although it was released as a regular fiction movie.

I've watched many depictions of how prehistoric man, hominid and ape may have moved, socialized, fought, used tools. I've watched many nature shows that captured behavior the casual observer would never have seen, and listened to Jane Goodall and others describe family life of gorillas, bonobos, chimps and orangs. I've also viewed apes living in fairly comfortable environments at the Columbus, Ohio zoo and the San Diego zoo. That includes their sexual behavior, at times.

Some of the behavior of the fictional tribe members matched ape behaviors uncannily. Meticulous, sustained thought and work went into maintaining the illusion throughout the story, so that we seemed to be present at transitions and breakthroughs as new realizations dawned on early humankind.

The chief advisor on body language was Desmond Morris. While his conclusions in "The Naked Ape," are not now honored, he and the other zoologists and anthropologists were honest and tireless observers and gave a lot to the fascination of the story.