The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Trailer-Johnny Stecchino, Mediterraneo, Pelle The Conqueror
Rating
Year Of Production	1986
Running Time	94:12
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Michael Chapman
Studio Distributor	Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	Daryl Hannah Pamela Reed James Remar Thomas G. Waites John Doolittle Curtis Armstrong Martin Doyle Tony Montanaro Mike Muscat John Wardlow Keith Wardlow Karen Austin Barbara Duncan
Case	Amaray-Opaque-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Alan Silvestri

    The Clan of the Cave Bear is a very long book (as seem to be all the books from Jean M Auel). It was never going to be possible to turn it into a completely satisfying film, but I think they did quite a reasonable job. Your opinion may differ.

    This film is set long long ago. Normally such a phrase would mean that the story was set several centuries ago. In this case it's a bit more than that: this story is set about 350 centuries ago. The last ice age is retreating. The Neanderthals, having survived the ice age, are facing their greatest threat — Cro-Magnon man. This story is set during the time that both species inhabited the planet. Sure, it's fiction, but it's quite an interesting look at what things might have been like during that period.

    Ayla (Emma Floria) is a small Cro-Magnon child who loses her mother (and contact with her tribe) in an earthquake. The same earthquake destroys a cave that was home to a tribe of Neanderthals who call themselves The Clan of the Cave Bear. The tribe is homeless and wandering, looking for a new cave, when they come across Ayla. Ayla is feverish, with infected scratches from a lion that she just barely escaped. Despite worries that the tribe will suffer by caring for her, Ayla is taken in and cared for by Iza (Pamela Reed). Iza is the medicine woman of the tribe; her brother Creb (James Remar) is the Mog Ur (roughly, shaman) — he is responsible for the rituals of the tribe, such as anointing boys as hunters, which is their passage into manhood.

    Ayla stays with the tribe and grows. As an older child (Nicole Eggert), she is treated equally with Uba (Lycia Naff), Iza's natural daughter. Equally, that is, by most of the tribe, but not by Broud (Joey Cramer, then Thomas G Waites). The film doesn't fully explain his antipathy (I gather that the book does), but it's easy to understand as a simple prejudice against the outsider / the interloper. Broud is a threat to Ayla, because he is expected to be leader of the tribe when Brun (John Doolittle) steps down. The big problem that Ayla faces is that she lacks "the memories", the inherited / genetic memory that all the Neanderthals share (there is no scientific evidence of this, but it's a useful dramatic device). But Ayla learns, faster and more thoroughly than any of the Neanderthals, which is something that Creb urges her to conceal, once he gets over his shock at learning that she can count further than he can.

    Ayla grows to adulthood (Daryl Hannah). Iza and Creb try to protect her, teaching her the ways of the medicine woman so that she can be useful to the tribe, because she is too ugly (different!) to attract a mate.

    Only one voice speaks our language in this film — in English it is Salome Jens as narrator. All the others speak a Neanderthal language (impressive that they managed to assemble an entire cast who could speak this long-extinct language...). The Neanderthal language is a mix of verbal and sign language. Watching them speak is like watching someone speak and sign in Auslan (although I suspect it is actually based on ASL).

    This film suggests that prejudice predates civilisation. Broud's prejudice against Ayla can be seen as racial prejudice, although he has more justification than those who judge simply by the colour of skin — Cro-Magnon man really was a threat to Neanderthal man, after all. The way women are treated in the tribe could be viewed as an explanation of why today's male chauvinists are sometimes called Neanderthals...

    Watching this film can be encouraging — it shows how Cro-Magnon man's one advantage, abstract thought, succeeded over Neanderthal man's greater physical attributes. Given that we are descended from Cro-Magnon man, we can be forgiven for barracking for them.

    One small tip: this film is not rated M by accident — I'd be careful about letting children see it, because they could be distressed by the rape scene, or you might be distressed by having to explain it.

    I've seen this film a number of times — it bears repeated viewing. I wish I could recommend getting this DVD, but I cannot.

Video

    The DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (and is therefore not 16x9 enhanced). The original aspect ratio was 2.35:1, using the less-common Technovision process. This is a pan-and-scan effort, with 47% of the image thrown away — a shame, because the sweeping vistas were one of the features of Jan de Bont's cinematography. (For those who ask: no, this is definitely not an open-matte presentation.)

    The image is quite soft, but mostly clear enough to watch. Shadow detail is limited, but mostly sufficient to enjoy the film. Film grain is constant, and at times well beyond acceptable levels; this is a not-unexpected consequence of panning-and-scanning a 2.35:1 film, especially one that includes many shots in low light (like fire-light). Low level noise is never a problem.

    Colour is fairly well rendered, but the production design does not include much in the way of vivid or bright colours; about the only colour we see strongly is green in some of the springtime scenes. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    There are few film artefacts, surprisingly — they picked quite a clean print to produce this disc.

    There is a little bit of aliasing, but it is infrequent, and untroubling. There's no moiré, which is understandable, given the absence of tweed jackets and gingham blouses in this era. There are no MPEG artefacts. There is more than a little telecine wobble, though, especially in the final scene before the credits.

    There are no subtitle tracks, because the subtitles are burned into the image. These burned in subtitles are in English, and are easy to read and seem well-timed to the dialogue.

    The disc is single-sided and single-layered. There is, therefore, no layer change. The single layer seems sufficient, given the length of the film, the single soundtrack, and the dearth of extras.

    One odd thing: at the end of the film the disc simply stops, rather than returning to the menu as most discs do.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is a single audio track on this disc. It is marked as English, but the only English it contains comes from the narrator. This soundtrack is in Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround-encoded, at 448kbps (which is unusually high for a stereo track).

    The narrator's dialogue is clear and easy to understand; the Neanderthal speech is clear enough, although in times of high stress it becomes more like monkey screeching. There are no audio sync issues.

    The score is by Alan Silvestri. There's a proud credit at the end of the film for the Synclavier, which I'm guessing was the synthesizer used to perform the score — the music sounds orchestral unless you listen carefully. Bear in mind that this film was made in 1985, before the synth fell from grace. The music does suit this film well.

    The surrounds and subwoofer are not provided a signal by this straight stereo soundtrack. Even if you engage ProLogic decoding nothing appears in the surrounds. The only sound you'll see in the subwoofer comes from your bass management circuits, redirecting bass to the sub if your mains are marked as small.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    There are only two entries on the menu. One is Play Movie, the other Trailers. This disc doesn't even have a scene selection menu (there are 15 chapter stops, but you'll have to use them manually).

Trailers

• Johnny Stecchino (1:47)
• Mediterraneo (1:48)
• Pelle the Conqueror (1:23)

    In Region 1 this is one of those double-sided discs with the wide-screen version (correct aspect ratio) on one side, and the full-screen version (chopped down for TV) on the other. Usually we get a disc that's equivalent to the wide-screen side of such a disc. Unfortunately, someone made a mistake this time, and we got the wrong side of the disc. Maybe we'll see this re-released later in wide-screen.

    Even though the Region 1 disc is in a snapper case (which I dislike intensely), I have to give this to the Region 1 disc for offering the correct aspect ratio.

    An entertaining story of prejudice in a world 35 millennia ago, given a poor presentation on DVD.

    The video quality is poor: very grainy and pan-and-scan.

    The audio quality is adequate.

    The extras are minimal, and completely unrelated to this film.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall