\u201cThis is what 3D was made for,\u201d raved one critic<\/a>. Yet, Herzog didn\u2019t set out to make a 3D film. In fact, he doesn\u2019t really like them. Even seeing James Cameron\u2019s Avatar, lauded as the hallmark 3D film of this century, Herzog was unimpressed. (\u201cAvatar could be in 2D in a big theater,\u201d he tells The Verge.) But when he was in preproduction, Herzog was allowed a visit to the Chauvet caves two months before filming and was struck by the experience of seeing the cave paintings up close. \u201cAll of a sudden I discover there are wild bulges and recesses and caverns and rock pendants \u2014 a world that is only existing in 3D because the painters 32,000 years ago utilized the formations,\u201d he says. The cave painters \u2014 arguably humankind\u2019s earliest artists \u2014 did not work on flat surfaces; in fact, the shape and texture of their canvas informed how and what they painted. \u201cA bulging rock is now a bulging neck of a bison that attacks you,\u201d Herzog says, as an example. Herzog may not be a fan of 3D films, but it suddenly made sense for his cave painting doc.<\/p>\n IFC Films<\/p>\n Still, shooting in 3D in such a specific environment came with its own challenges. For one, no 3D cameras existed that were small enough to be brought into the Chauvet cave, so they had to be created. \u201c[The film] was shot in 3D with our own camera, our own data management, our own \u2018brain,\u2019\u201d Herzog says, crediting Estonian filmmaker Kaspar Kallas for building the equipment (\u201ca very, very intense and wonderful man\u201d). But the setups, though custom, were also held together by glue and gaffer tape. (If you want more nitty-gritty details, there\u2019s a great technical writeup by the film\u2019s director of photography, Peter Zeitlinger, available at Mubi Notebook<\/a>.) The movie was shot in 2K with SI-2K cameras, GoPros, and amateur-grade Canons. But today, the standard is 4K, and if you\u2019re putting things on a screen as big as IMAX, you can go as high as a resolution of 6K or even 8K.<\/p>\n (Another fun fact: One of Sam Mendes\u2019 James Bond movies, Skyfall, is often credited as being the first feature film to use drone footage \u2014 something that you see ubiquitously today. But Cave of Forgotten Dreams, released a year earlier, is actually the first. The crew hand-built a camera rig that could attach to a drone.)<\/p>\n In 2010, James Stewart, a 3D producer, was brought on to help refine the original film\u2019s 3D experience before an early version had screened at Toronto International Film Festival. A decade later, he began overseeing the team that would restore it for IMAX, a process that began during the covid-19 pandemic and would stretch out for another five years. But Stewart\u2019s enthusiasm for the film has never waned; in fact, this newer, more immersive theater experience has him even more excited. \u201cIn IMAX, it\u2019s just mind blowing,\u201d he says. He estimates he\u2019s seen the movie over a hundred times, and even still, each viewing stuns him so much with its clarity that it makes him want to \u201click the cave walls.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCave of Forgotten Dreams, you can show it 150 years from now and it still will be completely fresh\u201d<\/p>\n The work of film restoration is not unlike the work of archeology depicted in the film: the act of preservation. Stewart led a small team of under 10 people working over five years. From the extracted raw 2K footage, the movie needed to be rebuilt frame by frame, and Forgotten Dreams, being a 3D movie, was actually double the work, since there is a separate stream for the left eye and the right eye. (Aside from the meticulous patience required, the team also needed new software to extricate the outdated and oddly specific codecs of the original footage.) Finally, there is the effort to get that footage from 2K to 6K, which took experimental software and a lot of different hardware \u201cto scale it up without just blowing it up,\u201d Stewart says, clarifying that no AI was used. The team also rebuilt the film\u2019s audio, a similarly painstaking process going from a 5.1 mix (six speakers) to a Dolby Atmos mix (up to 100 speakers).<\/p>\n According to Stewart, the first Avatar kicked off a \u201c3D revolution,\u201d though in the years since, it\u2019s seemed like filmgoers\u2019 interest in 3D has waned. That interest didn\u2019t translate into 3D TVs for home cinema, and even each successive Avatar film, though still billion-dollar behemoths, has been less and less lucrative. From the way Stewart talks about \u201cthe greater 3D community\u201d who work on these projects, it sounds like a small group of people with specialized skills. He\u2019s also critical of the ways 3D is used in films \u2014 though he doesn\u2019t name the bad examples. Still, he believes that for great filmmakers, it can become a powerful tool for storytelling. He cites Martin Scorsese\u2019s Hugo, Ang Lee\u2019s The Life of Pi, and a pair of Wim Wenders documentaries, Pina and Anselm, as \u201cmasterful\u201d examples of 3D done right.<\/p>\n Stewart is proud that Cave of Forgotten Dreams regularly appears as the runner-up on lists of the best 3D films of all time. (Behind Avatar, of course.) But he still thinks the strength of the movie is Herzog himself \u2014 \u201cthe way he speaks and his writing and the way he tells the story.\u201d And as awe-inspiring as the caves are, it\u2019s just as impressive that Herzog and his small crew were able to capture so much given the limitations. The caves were dark; their equipment was limited; for preservation reasons, they could only shoot for a few hours a day over the course of a week. \u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018Go make a film and then by the way, it has to be a transcendent visual experience.\u2019 They\u2019re like, \u2018Well, you know, we\u2019re lucky to get any footage at all.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Herzog himself was not hands-on with the restoration. (He admits \u201cthe digital, real work, I do not understand.\u201d) But seeing his film for the first time in IMAX was \u201ca very deep experience.\u201d<\/p>\n I asked Herzog if he often revisits his films \u2014 there are dozens of them, many considered classics. Outside of attending retrospectives, he rarely rewatches his work. When he does, though, he is happy with how they\u2019ve held up. \u201cMy films do not seem to age,\u201d Herzog says. \u201cCave of Forgotten Dreams, you can show it 150 years from now and it still will be completely fresh.\u201d He\u2019s thankful that he doesn\u2019t have to be embarrassed when his grandchildren will eventually see his movies.<\/p>\n Herzog, now 83 years old, appears to live out of step with time. Last fall, on Conan O\u2019Brien\u2019s podcast<\/a>, Herzog recounted the story of not being able to get his car out of a parking garage in Dublin because he was unable to download the parking garage\u2019s app. But there is a misconception that Herzog is some kind of Luddite. Sure, he still carries a non-smartphone, which he shows me over Zoom, but Herzog emails and video chats with his family around the world. He\u2019s online enough to know the White House has turned a scene from Encounters at the End of the World into a horrible meme<\/a>.<\/p>\n He is not entirely anti-AI either. He believes we have to be \u201cvigilant,\u201d but sees the way it could create \u201cphenomenal and glorious possibilities in pharmaceuticals, medicine, and mathematics.\u201d As for AI-generated film, Herzog is unimpressed: \u201cAll what I\u2019ve seen so far is dead on arrival. Slick and well made, but completely dead. It does not acquire the soul of poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n So many filmmakers \u2014 and really anyone in a creative field right now \u2014 are reckoning with the encroachment of AI, and there is little consensus of how it will disturb the relationship between artmaking, labor, and commerce. But these conversations are troubled about the immediate future; Herzog, perhaps ever confident from having confronted millennia-old human art in a limestone cave, remains unafraid.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at Cave of Forgotten Dreams, there\u2019s a deep sense of awe in it, of wonder and mystery. And it has a soul that is not only the filmmaker\u2019s soul. It is a strange soul of human beings who 32,000 years ago created these paintings,\u201d he says, \u201cand AI cannot create this.\u201d<\/p>\n Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Kevin NguyenClose Kevin Nguyen<\/p>\n Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All by Kevin Nguyen<\/a><\/p>\n EntertainmentClose<\/p>\n Entertainment<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n See All Entertainment<\/a><\/p>\n FilmClose<\/p>\n Film<\/p>\n Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.<\/p>\n FollowFollow<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/NicolasConard_WHerzog.jpg\"\/)
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