"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.
Just Learning
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Showing posts with label prehistory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prehistory. Show all posts
Sunday, March 23, 2008
HULU.com
Last night I watched "Quest For Fire," on HULU. I had not seen it when it came out. Bad reviews of "10,000 B.C.," referred to "Quest For Fire," as a much better movie set in prehistory. So when I saw it on the alphabetical movie list on the new site, HULU, I wanted to see it.
HULU is free to the watcher, supported by advertising. A friend said people would never watch full length movies online because the picture is too small. On my PC, the picture was clear in the smaller size, still occasionally jerky, and my sound is very basic. Since I have always had smaller screen TV's and never went for SurroundSound, it wasn't that hard to adjust. I miss late night "B" movies that have all gone to dedicated movie channels. HULU gives me back that option, with the addition of choice. The other night I watched the 1 hour 37 minute pilot of "Hill Street Blues," and I intend to watch the episodes in sequence during the summer. I rewatched all the episodes of "Life," while NBC offered them. The video quality was much poorer, but I already liked the show so much that I didn't mind. I did have to stop and rest my eyes.
The site opened March 12th. I wish it long life.
HULU is free to the watcher, supported by advertising. A friend said people would never watch full length movies online because the picture is too small. On my PC, the picture was clear in the smaller size, still occasionally jerky, and my sound is very basic. Since I have always had smaller screen TV's and never went for SurroundSound, it wasn't that hard to adjust. I miss late night "B" movies that have all gone to dedicated movie channels. HULU gives me back that option, with the addition of choice. The other night I watched the 1 hour 37 minute pilot of "Hill Street Blues," and I intend to watch the episodes in sequence during the summer. I rewatched all the episodes of "Life," while NBC offered them. The video quality was much poorer, but I already liked the show so much that I didn't mind. I did have to stop and rest my eyes.
The site opened March 12th. I wish it long life.
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