![]() ![]() Realizing that, without fire, they cannot exist but not being bright enough to possess the knowledge of fire building, they send out three of their finest warriors, Naoh, Amou-kar and Gaw (Everett McGill, Ron Perlman and Nameer El Kadi) to find a burning bush and bring it back in a specially made fire cage. The final script centered around the plight of the Ulam tribe who, when attacked by the Neanderthal Wagabou mob, lose their most prized possession, fire. Tapping the talents of screenwriter Gerard Brach (who penned Polanski’s Knife In the Water, Cul de Sac and Tess) and enlisting the aid of producer Gruskoff, Annaud got the production underway. The project (and the problems) began a few years ago when director Annaud, fresh from winning an Oscar for his 1978 film Black and White In Color, expressed interest in adapting a French novel on prehistoric times to the screen. There was no way we were going to abandon our project just because of a few problems along the way. ![]() “When you casually glance at what we’re trying to accomplish, you’re immediately struck by the audaciousness of it the uniqueness of it. “We’re all really fanatical about this film,” admits Gruskoff while in New York for another production. Their faith in the project has bordered on monomania and earned them the reputation of madmen in Hollywood. ![]() Rosny, the film lurched to life over four years ago, died nearly half a dozen times and was completed only because of the dedication of the cast, crew and such filmmakers as director Jean-Jacques Annaud, executive producer Michael Gruskoff and producers John Kemeny and Denis Heroux. It is a remarkable ambitious project that has, accordingly, been plagued by problems since its inception.īased on the enormously successful French novel Le Guerre de Feu by J. Quest for Fire is more than a mere screen oddity. No English is spoken during the course of the film-its characters relying on a primative lexicon of barely recognizable verbal and physical skills to communicate their thoughts and feelings. A cinematic first, Quest for Fire is a realistic action-adventure that takes place 80,000 years ago. Six months following this session, actors dressed in animal skins and looking more simian than human will “ape” the work of Morris and Burgess before a motion picture camera as part of a daring $12 million production, Quest for Fire. The two men at the desk, anthropologist Desmond Morris, author of The Naked Ape, and scholar Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, smile in a brief show of satisfaction. The three then combine the sound with the action they’ve just learned. ![]() He repeats it over and over again until the trio begins chanting it like some primordial mantra. The second man, sitting, begins making an animalistic, gutteral sound. The trio before him begins mimicking his movements.Īfter a few moments, the instructor at the desk nods affirmatively. His hands undulate languidly at his sides. One of the men at the desk lapses into a strange, fluid body movement. Two men and a woman, dressed casually, stand before them. Two distinguished looking gentlemen sit behind a desk in an dance studio-office in the heart of the city. Through this brilliant exercise in backward extrapolation, we get a glimpse of what it might have been like, 80,00 years ago. The domestication of fire was the key development that separated hominids from the rest of the animal kingdom, enabled them to live in hostile environments and spurred the development of language and agriculture. ![]()
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