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(CHEERING)

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Always wanted to stand on the red carpet
and now I'm here.

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But what's brought me
and hundreds of others here

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to the premiére of a Hollywood blockbuster
in London's Leicester Square?

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The answer is the extraordinary power
of feature film to tell a story.

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Stories that terrify us,

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Stories that enchant us,

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And stories that inspire us,

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But the power of visual storytelling
is not a modern phenomenon,

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Feature films today are using techniques
developed way back in the distant past,

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For thousands of years, artists grappled
with ways to bring their stories alive,

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to engage their audience,

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This is the story of how our ancient ancestors
made the discoveries

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that have given film
such a hold over our imaginations.

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Every year, seven billion people
throughout the world pay money to do this,

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Sit down in front of a large screen
and watch pictures tell a story,

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Ma! 0h, Ma!

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You'll be all right. You'll be all right!

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Ma!

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Ma!

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Ma-a-a-a!

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Ma-a-a-a!

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When we watch a really good film,
something extraordinary happens,

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We become so involved with what's going on

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we feel as though
we're living in the story ourselves,

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Visual storytelling has a unique power
over our imaginations,

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It captivates us,

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Home, pig.

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This is George Miller, the man responsible
for a series of box office hits

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including ''Babe'',

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It's the Job of the storyteller
to engage an audience as much as you can.

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You bring to bear all your techniques
and knowledge of film-making

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in order to enchant the audience,

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to have them suspend their disbelief,
to actually believe what's happening before them,

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But storytelling was not invented with film,
which is only 100 years old,

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and television, which is only half a century,

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It goes right back to the beginning
of human engagement, really,

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So, how did film get its ability
to transport us to other worlds?

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Where did the ingredients come from
that give it such a compelling hold over us?

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To find out, we need to trace the art of visual
storytelling right back to its ancient origins,

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and what better place to start
than at the very dawn of civilisation?

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This is Mesopotamia,

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in the desert sands of the Middle East,

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So many of the things we take for granted today
originated here,

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Farming, mathematics, writing,

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they all started between two rivers,
the Tigris and the Euphrates,

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But the reason we've come to Mesopotamia

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is because it was here in the 19th century

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that a British archaeologist
made a revelatory discovery,

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His name was Austin Henry Layard,

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Layard and his team were excavating
ancient sites throughout Mesopotamia

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and found many treasures,

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But far and away the most intriguing of these

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was a cache of 25,000 broken clay tablets
covered with unreadable markings,

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The tablets were brought back to London
and painstakingly reassembled,

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The markings were found to be
the world's first written language,

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cuneiform,

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Scholars originally assumed that
the tablets were just court records or accounts,

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but then, after years of study,
their code was finally cracked,

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Some of these tablets actually told a story,

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It was the first story ever written,

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It was a story that began and ended
in the first city ever built,

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a city in what is now southern Iraq, called Uruk,

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Built 6,000 years ago, Uruk was
for many centuries the world's largest city,

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with walls that ran for more than five miles
and a population of almost half a million,

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Today, sadly, war and the encroaching desert

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have all but destroyed
this wonder of the ancient world,

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But what has survived
is the story that this city inspired,

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The city of Uruk lives on through the fame
of the legendary king who built its walls.

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His name was Gilgamesh
and he was the world's first great hero.

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The story of Gilgamesh
tells of one man's search for eternal life,

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In a series of daring adventures, Gilgamesh
defeats monsters and challenges the gods

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before returning home to his beloved Uruk,

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So compelling was this story of an action hero
that it was passed down for generations

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and 4,000 years after it was first told
it's still popular today here in the Middle East,

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I found a copy of this ancient bestseller
in a bookshop in Kuwait City,

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The story of Gilgamesh had exploited
the universal human desire for a hero,

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(MUSIC, THEME T0 ''STAR WARS'')

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(MILLER) Most great stories have a hero,

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The Star Wars trilogy
had a number of heroic characters,

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but Luke Skywalker in the first part of it,

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But I don't think a person
can declare themselves to be the hero.

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A hero is defined
by the actions that they undergo.

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A hero is defined by the events that
happen to them and, indeed, the response,

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the spiritual and moral response to those events.

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(SPIVEY) For Gilgamesh there was one event
above all that symbolised his heroism,

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when he single-handedly
attacked and killed a pride of lions,

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The story of Gilgamesh as a heroic figure
spread across the Middle East,

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Kings and princes from Persia to ancient Egypt,
they were all eager to exploit his fame,

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0ne king in particular sought to promote himself
by capitalising on the hero's power and glamour.

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This was Ashurbanipal,
the King of Assyria, what's now northern Iraq.

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We know that
Ashurbanipal liked the story of Gilgamesh,

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he had several copies of it in his library,

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but Ashurbanipal had one big problem.

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In 645 B,C, hardly anyone
could read a script like cuneiform,

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so how could Ashurbanipal
use the heroic qualities of Gilgamesh

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to promote himself in the minds of his people?

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Ashurbanipal's solution was ground-breaking.

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He departed from a story told in words

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and devised instead
a story told through pictures,

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with himself, not Gilgamesh,
playing the lead role.

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In a series of carved images,

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Ashurbanipal shows himself, like Gilgamesh
before him, as a supreme lion-slayer,

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The frieze is made up of four images,

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In the first, a servant lifts the gate
on a cage, releasing a lion,

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The lion springs out
and runs towards Ashurbanipal,

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As it leaps into mid-air, it's struck by an arrow,

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In a final image, Ashurbanipal finishes off the lion
with a sword stabbed through its body,

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The sculptors want us to share
the thrill of the action,

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They've created a series of freeze-frames
capturing the excitement of the moment,

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and dominating the frieze
is its hero, Ashurbanipal,

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0riginally, these magnificent friezes
would have been painted in bright vivid colours,

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Ashurbanipal had them prominently displayed

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on the walls of the throne room
of his great palace at Nineveh,

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Although the palace no longer exists,

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using the archaeological remains, we've
reconstructed what it might once have looked like,

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Ashurbanipal's story could be appreciated
not just by those select few who could read,

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but by everyone who could see,

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But in itself that wasn't enough.

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Imagine watching a film
in which the hero only appears in one scene.

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So what we need to find next
is a story that develops,

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a story with a beginning, a middle and an end.

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In short, a gripping yarn.

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Ashurbanipal himself
seems to have understood this,

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because it was he who created what's probably
the world's first really complete visual story,

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Ashurbanipal had a new series of reliefs
made for his palace,

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They told the story of his war
with his enemies the Elamites,

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It's like a storyboard for an epic blockbuster,,,

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,,with a cast of thousands,

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The story begins with the Elamites, identified by
their headbands, being driven from their camp

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by King Ashurbanipal's troops,

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During a mighty battle, the Battle of Til Tuba,
the Elamites are forced to retreat into the river,

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Soon it's running red with their blood,

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According to Ashurbanipal, the river
was choked with corpses for three long days,

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These graphic images are as explicit as any
you would see in a contemporary feature film,

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A bird is tearing out a soldier's eye,

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And here one of Ashurbanipal's henchmen
is holding the hair of the Elamite king Teumman,

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severing his head from his body,

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The head is carried as a trophy
through the enemy lines,

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After the battle, King Ashurbanipal and his queen
celebrate their victory in an idyllic garden scene

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surrounded by their courtiers,

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But this story has a final gory twist,

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Fastened to one of the trees
is the bloody head of Teumman,

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It's a grim reminder
of the fate that would befall others

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who challenged the mighty Ashurpanipal's rule,

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The Battle of Til Tuba was shown

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using visual storytelling techniques
that had never been seen before.

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What we've got here is a complex tale
unfolding over many scenes.

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But not only does it have
a beginning, middle and end,

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it's got these subplots
which make the whole story more intriguing.

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As the battle with the Elamites rages,
something else is happening,

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A group of prisoners are being forced
to grind down the bones of their ancestors

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to make bread,

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Imagine what it would have been like

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for visitors to see this story
on the wall of the great hall in Nineveh,

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You wouldn't have had to speak
the Assyrian language to get the point,

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The Assyrians laid the foundations
of visual storytelling.

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They established two key elements,
a hero and a plot,

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but, as any movie mogul today
would be able to tell us,

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there's something critical missing here.

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Look again at these reliefs.

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While there's lots of blood and violence,

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here Teumman is having his head lopped off,

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no one seems to mind,

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There's no rage,

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no tears, no emotion,

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and as a result it's hard to be involved
in the story, let alone to care what happens next,

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We Just don't feel engaged with these characters,

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let alone suspend our disbelief
and enter into their world in our imaginations.

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So, when and how
did ancient artists make us care?

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To find our answer,
we have to leave the Middle East,

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We need to come to the northern shores
of the Mediterranean,,,

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..because here there was
another ancient civilisation

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with a rich tradition of vivid, evocative storytelling.

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It's a civilisation that's left us

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with some of the most exciting and visually
arresting stories that have ever been told.

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Who else but the Greeks?

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If any civilisation could find a way to create
characters people could believe in and care about,

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then the Greeks could,

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The Greeks were obsessed
with their epic stories, their myths,

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and there was one myth above all that the Greeks
liked to visualise, Homer's tale of 0dysseus,

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Here on the coastline of Sperlonga
in southern Italy,

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Greek artists converted this enormous cave
into a dining room

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where guests were lavishly fed and entertained,

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Today the cave is empty

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but in the first century B,C, diners would have
been surrounded by marble sculptures

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depicting key scenes from the story of 0dysseus,

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They'd be seen at their best
not during the day but at night-time

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by the light of flickering torches.

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The statues are now in a museum,

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but with the aid of computer graphics
we can reunite them with their original location

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in the exact positions they were placed in
over 2,000 years ago,

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This monumental sculpture

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illustrates an incident in the dramatic story
of 0dysseus's encounter with the giant Cyclops,

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But how do these sculptures
advance visual storytelling?

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Well, first you need to know the story,

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The Cyclops, a giant one-eyed cannibal,
traps 0dysseus and his shipmates in a cave,

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Although they fear for their lives,
they have an escape plan,

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0dysseus cunningly offers the monster some wine.

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It's a new drink for the Cyclops.
He likes it and asks for some more.

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Then he asks 0dysseus what his name is.

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''They call me Nobody,'' replies 0dysseus.

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''Well, Nobody,'' grunts the Cyclops,

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''I shall eat you last of all.

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''That shall be your reward.''

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The Cyclops soon becomes drowsy with drink
and slumps to the floor of the cave,

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00:22:25,466 --> 00:22:28,583
0dysseus and his companions seize their chance,

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They drive a stake into the single eye of the giant,

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What the sculptors have chosen to show us

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is the moment of maximum tension
just before the climax,

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But why?

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Because it's at this moment the characters'
emotions are at their most revealing,

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We know what they're thinking

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and feeling,

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By depicting realistic emotions

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Greek artists had found a way
to bring their stories alive,

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This is no longer a story
that Just tells you what happens,

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but how it happened.

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It's got psychological credibility.
It wants to show you how people are feeling.

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As such, it marks a crucial development
in the history of visual storytelling

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and, of course, if you care
about what's happening to the characters

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you'll want to know what happens next.

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The blind Cyclops staggers around the cave
shrieking with pain

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and shouting for help from the other giants,

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They want to know who's attacking him,

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His reply is, ''Nobody!

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''Nobody's attacking me!''

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00:24:09,906 --> 00:24:13,216
And this allows our quick-witted hero to escape,

229
00:24:20,986 --> 00:24:26,344
Bringing characters alive so that we can relate
to them and identify with their predicaments

230
00:24:26,506 --> 00:24:29,225
is a crucial element in any visual story,

231
00:24:30,706 --> 00:24:34,381
even if the character involved is a pig,

232
00:24:36,626 --> 00:24:38,617
Come, pig.

233
00:24:42,666 --> 00:24:44,657
(MILLER) In order to tell a story,

234
00:24:44,826 --> 00:24:50,537
obviously you need a character or characters
with whom the audience can engage.

235
00:24:50,706 --> 00:24:56,463
It's one of the reasons why actors who have
a degree of charisma are so important to a story.

236
00:24:59,946 --> 00:25:02,744
In the case of a talking-animal picture,

237
00:25:02,906 --> 00:25:08,617
you need a way of taking your central characters
and humanising them to some degree

238
00:25:08,786 --> 00:25:11,505
so that the audience can engage even more,

239
00:25:11,666 --> 00:25:14,703
- (PIG GRUNTS)
- (D0G BARKS)

240
00:25:17,506 --> 00:25:21,340
With the lion-killing exploits
of King Ashurbanipal

241
00:25:21,506 --> 00:25:24,657
artists discovered a strong heroic lead,

242
00:25:24,826 --> 00:25:28,455
With his battle scenes
they invented a gripping story-line,

243
00:25:29,346 --> 00:25:31,416
and in the cave of Sperlonga

244
00:25:31,586 --> 00:25:38,105
the Greeks showed how to create characters an
audience could begin to identify with emotionally,

245
00:25:39,186 --> 00:25:46,581
But so far, none of them had combined all
these ingredients into a single visual narrative.

246
00:25:46,746 --> 00:25:52,059
Well, not, that is, until about a hundred years
after the birth of Christ

247
00:25:52,226 --> 00:25:58,176
when the Romans constructed the world's
most ambitious storytelling monument.

248
00:26:32,546 --> 00:26:36,300
Welcome to TraJan's Column in the heart of Rome.

249
00:26:36,466 --> 00:26:43,895
It's a towering achievement and, quite literally,
the highest form of storytelling that there is.

250
00:26:55,586 --> 00:27:03,618
At 35 metres high, the marble column
stood above all other buildings in ancient Rome,

251
00:27:04,626 --> 00:27:07,982
The Column was built by the Emperor Trajan,

252
00:27:08,146 --> 00:27:12,901
It commemorates his victory in the war
against his enemies the Dacians

253
00:27:13,066 --> 00:27:15,785
in what is today modern Romania,

254
00:27:17,746 --> 00:27:21,216
The spoils of these wars
paid not just for the Column

255
00:27:21,386 --> 00:27:25,664
but also for the surrounding complex
of markets, libraries, squares

256
00:27:25,826 --> 00:27:28,863
and public monuments of Trajan's Forum,

257
00:27:31,026 --> 00:27:34,541
Alas, today the Forum is little more than rubble,

258
00:27:37,306 --> 00:27:40,025
TraJan's Column alone has survived

259
00:27:40,186 --> 00:27:42,654
because for almost 2,000 years

260
00:27:42,826 --> 00:27:48,184
it's held a fascination
for some of the most powerful men in history.

261
00:27:50,866 --> 00:27:54,336
Napoléon Bonaparte
admired the Column so much

262
00:27:54,506 --> 00:27:57,862
he wanted it dismantled
and brought to Paris,

263
00:27:58,026 --> 00:28:01,575
He was only dissuaded
when told it wouldn't survive the journey,

264
00:28:04,946 --> 00:28:09,576
The Column was also special
to the Italian dictator Mussolini,

265
00:28:10,426 --> 00:28:15,784
When the Second World War broke out,
he had it protected by bombproof cladding,

266
00:28:31,986 --> 00:28:37,902
So, what was it about the Column that
so impressed Roman citizens, foreign emperors,

267
00:28:38,066 --> 00:28:41,297
fascist dictators and modern tourists alike?

268
00:28:41,466 --> 00:28:48,338
Well, it was here that all the visual storytelling
discoveries of the ancient world came together.

269
00:28:52,266 --> 00:28:58,182
0ver a continuous 200-metre-long frieze,
we've got a complex tale,

270
00:28:58,346 --> 00:29:02,578
It spirals around the monument 23 times

271
00:29:02,746 --> 00:29:07,866
and tells the detailed story
of Trajan's campaign against the Dacians,

272
00:29:08,026 --> 00:29:12,178
It's been called a movie epic frozen in stone,

273
00:29:24,386 --> 00:29:28,425
In Emperor Trajan we have an undisputed hero,

274
00:29:28,586 --> 00:29:34,582
He appears as a powerful and dignified leader
in almost every scene,

275
00:29:34,746 --> 00:29:38,864
0ver the monument as a whole,
he appears 59 times,

276
00:29:41,866 --> 00:29:46,064
We've also got our villain,
the Dacian leader Decebalus,

277
00:29:46,226 --> 00:29:50,265
crafty, scheming, convincingly evil,

278
00:29:52,826 --> 00:29:57,980
And we've got an epic supporting cast
of two and a half thousand extras,

279
00:29:58,866 --> 00:30:02,984
whose emotions and feelings
are made individually apparent,

280
00:30:08,826 --> 00:30:11,101
But that's Just the start.

281
00:30:11,266 --> 00:30:17,216
As a masterpiece of visual storytelling,
TraJan's Column has so much more.

282
00:30:17,386 --> 00:30:23,621
It was even anticipating certain film techniques
that directors today would be familiar with.

283
00:30:25,426 --> 00:30:31,058
Here the sculptor has depicted a tree,
but this isn't just to adorn the landscape,

284
00:30:31,226 --> 00:30:33,421
This tree has a more important role,

285
00:30:35,346 --> 00:30:38,736
The sculptors used it to divide
two distinct scenes,,,

286
00:30:40,666 --> 00:30:44,102
,,just as today a film director
would use a visual cut,

287
00:30:46,826 --> 00:30:52,423
Elsewhere the sculptors have used another
visual device that's familiar to film-makers today,

288
00:30:53,466 --> 00:30:58,859
They've chosen to show the Roman army
buried under their shields, from above,

289
00:30:59,026 --> 00:31:01,699
It's called a bird's-eye view,

290
00:31:03,546 --> 00:31:08,336
They've also chosen to show
other soldiers involved in the same scene

291
00:31:08,506 --> 00:31:11,418
with a different viewpoint, from a lower angle,

292
00:31:12,186 --> 00:31:13,983
What the sculptors realised

293
00:31:14,146 --> 00:31:19,823
is that by offering multiple viewpoints
they could make the battle more dramatic,

294
00:31:21,066 --> 00:31:23,375
There isn't a film-maker today

295
00:31:23,546 --> 00:31:27,744
who does not exploit
these same visual techniques,

296
00:31:28,946 --> 00:31:35,977
Cinema is a kind of visual music that
you play, with the colours and instrumentations,

297
00:31:36,146 --> 00:31:39,502
as you would in an orchestra,
so with various shots.

298
00:31:39,666 --> 00:31:43,898
So there is a difference between the close-up
and the wide shot and so on.

299
00:31:45,946 --> 00:31:50,861
(SPIVEY) But the creators of Trajan's Column
had yet another trick up their sleeves,

300
00:31:51,026 --> 00:31:55,656
They found a way of summarising
the most dramatic moments of their story,

301
00:31:57,666 --> 00:32:00,738
By looking up the northwest vertical axis,

302
00:32:00,906 --> 00:32:06,264
the viewer could see at a glance
a highlighted version of this epic,

303
00:32:06,426 --> 00:32:08,417
It goes something like this,

304
00:32:10,346 --> 00:32:14,225
(AMERICAN ACCENT)
0ne emperor wants to conquer the world,

305
00:32:15,466 --> 00:32:17,855
No one stands in his way,

306
00:32:20,746 --> 00:32:27,697
Except one man
who is prepared to sacrifice all to save his people,

307
00:32:30,306 --> 00:32:32,376
War is inevitable,

308
00:32:36,706 --> 00:32:38,742
Torture,

309
00:32:39,706 --> 00:32:41,298
Arson,

310
00:32:43,546 --> 00:32:45,616
Betrayal,

311
00:32:47,386 --> 00:32:51,174
But only one side has the support of the gods,

312
00:32:54,306 --> 00:32:57,343
0nly one side can win ultimate victory,

313
00:33:05,426 --> 00:33:08,862
(SPIVEY) There you go,
the world's first ever trailer,

314
00:33:13,466 --> 00:33:16,981
Trajan's Column seems to have everything,

315
00:33:17,906 --> 00:33:21,262
It's the culmination
of thousands of years of discoveries

316
00:33:21,426 --> 00:33:24,498
in the art of telling stories with pictures,

317
00:33:25,746 --> 00:33:30,501
I would love to say
that, looking at it, I feel deeply moved,

318
00:33:31,746 --> 00:33:34,385
But I've got to confess that I don't,

319
00:33:34,546 --> 00:33:37,982
It may have grabbed the imaginations
of ancient Romans

320
00:33:38,146 --> 00:33:42,139
but I don't think it does very much for us today,

321
00:33:42,306 --> 00:33:46,424
It's hard to believe, even when
you're standing close to this monument,

322
00:33:46,586 --> 00:33:50,864
that you've been taken on a virtual Journey
to the killing fields of Romania.

323
00:33:51,026 --> 00:33:53,699
It Just doesn't do it.

324
00:33:56,826 --> 00:34:02,298
Even though it uses so many
of the storytelling devices of modern-day films,

325
00:34:02,466 --> 00:34:05,424
it hasn't got the power to captivate us,,,

326
00:34:06,666 --> 00:34:10,944
,,and that's not just because
the pictures aren't in motion,

327
00:34:11,106 --> 00:34:15,463
Trajan's Column
seems to be missing a final element,

328
00:34:20,746 --> 00:34:24,455
But perhaps we've been looking
in the wrong places,

329
00:34:24,626 --> 00:34:27,424
We wouldn't be the first to do so,

330
00:34:27,586 --> 00:34:32,102
This is Cambridge University, where I work,

331
00:34:32,266 --> 00:34:37,624
For centuries, the great centres of learning
had looked exclusively to the West

332
00:34:37,786 --> 00:34:40,300
for the answers to their questions,

333
00:34:41,586 --> 00:34:46,376
Scholars believed that it was
the classical civilisations of Greece and Rome

334
00:34:46,546 --> 00:34:50,505
that had made the great breakthroughs
in the ancient world,

335
00:34:55,146 --> 00:34:58,343
But, Just like us on our quest,

336
00:34:58,506 --> 00:35:05,105
they began to realise that maybe the classical
civilisations didn't hold all of the answers.

337
00:35:05,266 --> 00:35:09,862
Yes, what the Greeks and Romans had achieved
was truly astonishing

338
00:35:10,026 --> 00:35:12,381
but it wasn't the true story

339
00:35:12,546 --> 00:35:15,299
and so researchers began to look elsewhere.

340
00:35:38,146 --> 00:35:42,537
Researchers began to explore
parts of the world much further afield,

341
00:35:43,466 --> 00:35:49,143
They started to investigate cultures
that until then had been totally ignored,

342
00:35:50,586 --> 00:35:55,216
What they discovered will give us
the final piece of our jigsaw,

343
00:35:56,306 --> 00:36:01,061
a way of telling stories with pictures
that is truly captivating,

344
00:36:01,226 --> 00:36:04,582
and this same technique
is one that has proved crucial

345
00:36:04,746 --> 00:36:07,897
to the success of every feature film made today,

346
00:36:11,066 --> 00:36:15,378
That discovery was made on a continent
thousands of miles from Europe

347
00:36:15,546 --> 00:36:17,901
on the other side of the world,

348
00:36:18,066 --> 00:36:20,375
Australia,

349
00:36:26,546 --> 00:36:30,619
When the first Europeans arrived here
back in the 18th century,

350
00:36:30,786 --> 00:36:34,904
they found themselves
in a severe and hostile landscape,

351
00:37:05,546 --> 00:37:11,496
As the Europeans began to explore this landscape,
they found something that baffled them,

352
00:37:13,506 --> 00:37:19,058
In many of the caves and rock shelters, they
came across strange and mysterious images,

353
00:37:26,906 --> 00:37:30,103
Here in Arnhemland in the north of Australia

354
00:37:30,266 --> 00:37:35,135
are some of the oldest painted images
found anywhere on the planet,

355
00:37:44,026 --> 00:37:49,658
Recent research has shown
that some of them date back over 40,000 years,

356
00:37:53,466 --> 00:37:57,300
These are the world's first art galleries,

357
00:37:58,306 --> 00:38:03,460
The first European settlers had a sense
that these were very old images,

358
00:38:03,626 --> 00:38:08,416
but they hadn't a clue what they meant
and not much interest in finding out.

359
00:38:08,586 --> 00:38:13,102
They'd look at something like this
and they'd dismiss it, childish doodle.

360
00:38:15,466 --> 00:38:22,099
And for the settlers for the next 200 years
these paintings remained just that, doodles,

361
00:38:30,506 --> 00:38:33,703
Then, at the beginning of the 20th century,

362
00:38:33,866 --> 00:38:39,224
an Englishman arrived in
the small community of 0enpelli in Arnhemland,

363
00:38:39,386 --> 00:38:43,743
He was a biologist by training
and his name was Baldwin Spencer,

364
00:38:44,666 --> 00:38:49,421
During his stay in 0enpelli
Spencer lived among the Aboriginal people,

365
00:38:50,426 --> 00:38:53,816
Although he'd spent time
with other Aboriginal communities,

366
00:38:53,986 --> 00:38:57,581
he found something here
that he'd never seen before,

367
00:38:58,386 --> 00:39:04,018
The Aboriginal people of 0enpelli
were obsessed by painting,

368
00:39:04,186 --> 00:39:07,178
Wherever he went, he found artists at work

369
00:39:07,346 --> 00:39:11,225
either painting on bits of stringy bark
from the eucalyptus tree

370
00:39:11,386 --> 00:39:13,695
or on the cave walls,

371
00:39:14,506 --> 00:39:16,974
It's the same even today,

372
00:39:23,986 --> 00:39:28,502
Spencer became more and more intrigued
by these paintings,

373
00:39:28,666 --> 00:39:32,056
It was this curiosity that led to his breakthrough,

374
00:39:33,746 --> 00:39:40,584
He noticed how Aboriginal artists were painting
the same images over and over again,

375
00:39:40,746 --> 00:39:43,306
The image of the barramundi fish,

376
00:39:44,466 --> 00:39:47,617
The image of the earth mother Eingana,

377
00:39:47,786 --> 00:39:49,697
0r the lightning man,

378
00:39:53,546 --> 00:39:55,662
While watching these artists,

379
00:39:55,826 --> 00:40:00,263
Spencer noticed that the images
they were painting on their pieces of bark

380
00:40:00,426 --> 00:40:03,020
seemed strangely familiar.

381
00:40:03,186 --> 00:40:05,780
Then he had his revelation.

382
00:40:05,946 --> 00:40:10,940
These images were the same as those that
he'd seen painted on the rocks and the hills

383
00:40:11,106 --> 00:40:13,495
around here and behind us now.

384
00:40:13,666 --> 00:40:18,615
Those images had been painted
thousands and thousands of years earlier.

385
00:40:21,026 --> 00:40:24,177
This, for instance, is a group of barramundi fish

386
00:40:24,346 --> 00:40:27,338
painted by a modern Aboriginal artist,,,

387
00:40:28,666 --> 00:40:33,217
,,and this is the same subject
painted thousands of years before,

388
00:40:35,026 --> 00:40:38,621
This is Eingana the earth mother
as painted today,,,

389
00:40:40,266 --> 00:40:44,020
,,and this is Eingana from the ancient past,

390
00:40:45,026 --> 00:40:49,542
The same is true
of many of the important Aboriginal images,

391
00:40:50,946 --> 00:40:55,736
What this meant was that here in Arnhemland,
uniquely in the world,

392
00:40:55,906 --> 00:40:58,818
there is a continuous artistic link

393
00:40:58,986 --> 00:41:01,420
from the ancient past to the present day,

394
00:41:05,746 --> 00:41:09,216
Spencer realised he now had a rare opportunity,

395
00:41:10,946 --> 00:41:16,304
If he could only discover the inspiration
behind 20th-century Aboriginal art

396
00:41:16,466 --> 00:41:23,224
he could then unlock the secrets of the ancient
painting in the caves and the rock shelters,

397
00:41:34,026 --> 00:41:38,224
What Spencer discovered next
is crucial to our quest,

398
00:41:38,386 --> 00:41:42,664
because when he got to talking
to the Aboriginal people about their art

399
00:41:42,826 --> 00:41:46,785
they told him that
their paintings were anything but doodles.

400
00:41:46,946 --> 00:41:50,018
Their paintings were telling stories.

401
00:42:11,786 --> 00:42:17,622
When you look at them it's hard to believe
that these single images can tell a whole story,

402
00:42:17,786 --> 00:42:19,777
so how do they work?

403
00:42:23,466 --> 00:42:27,903
I met up with
the most famous Aboriginal artist in the area,

404
00:42:28,066 --> 00:42:30,216
Thompson Yulidjirri,

405
00:42:35,986 --> 00:42:38,784
He took me to a sacred site,

406
00:42:38,946 --> 00:42:43,656
So you call him up, that rainbow serpent.

407
00:42:43,826 --> 00:42:48,502
As he painted an image,
Thompson began to tell me the story,

408
00:42:50,826 --> 00:42:55,058
0nce upon a time, a little orphan boy
was playing with his brother

409
00:42:55,226 --> 00:42:58,184
when he became hungry,

410
00:42:58,346 --> 00:43:04,182
But when he found out that his favourite food,
which were yams, had been eaten by his family,

411
00:43:04,346 --> 00:43:06,541
he began to cry,

412
00:43:09,346 --> 00:43:13,055
His kindly brother called up an ancestral spirit,

413
00:43:13,226 --> 00:43:15,103
the rainbow serpent,

414
00:43:15,266 --> 00:43:17,222
and asked for his help

415
00:43:17,386 --> 00:43:20,822
and the family were punished for being so greedy,

416
00:43:22,466 --> 00:43:27,301
Aboriginal artists don't paint a sequence
of images to tell their stories,

417
00:43:27,466 --> 00:43:30,856
Instead they use single stylised images

418
00:43:31,026 --> 00:43:36,305
to trigger in the mind of the onlooker
stories they would already know,

419
00:43:44,826 --> 00:43:48,819
It's these painted stories, told in a single image,

420
00:43:48,986 --> 00:43:51,944
that have endured for thousands of years,

421
00:43:53,106 --> 00:43:58,180
so what was it that gave them the power
to captivate the minds of Aboriginal people

422
00:43:58,346 --> 00:44:01,975
and be passed on through countless generations?

423
00:44:04,346 --> 00:44:09,545
This wouldn't be revealed to a worldwide audience
until the 1960s,

424
00:44:14,266 --> 00:44:18,100
It was then that a young British
television presenter came with his crew

425
00:44:18,266 --> 00:44:20,860
to this remote region,

426
00:44:21,026 --> 00:44:24,098
His name? David Attenborough,

427
00:44:27,146 --> 00:44:29,182
(ATTENB0R0UGH) I have vivid memories

428
00:44:29,346 --> 00:44:32,463
of squeezing through cracks and coming up

429
00:44:32,626 --> 00:44:38,019
and looking up and seeing the surface
of the...of the crack that I'm in

430
00:44:38,186 --> 00:44:40,541
only a few inches from my head

431
00:44:40,706 --> 00:44:46,178
and suddenly being aware
there were huge barramundi fish on the ceiling,

432
00:44:46,346 --> 00:44:49,144
and kangaroos,

433
00:44:49,306 --> 00:44:52,025
And then spirit figures,

434
00:44:52,186 --> 00:44:54,381
little sticklike figures that were hunting.

435
00:44:54,546 --> 00:44:56,537
It was unforgettable.

436
00:45:01,546 --> 00:45:06,620
(SPIVEY) David Attenborough was fascinated
by the stories told through these single images,

437
00:45:09,506 --> 00:45:15,615
Like Spencer, he too realised that the key
to the past lay in understanding the present,

438
00:45:19,426 --> 00:45:25,262
This is a sacred place, a cave sacred to
the Aborigines of this part of northern Australia.

439
00:45:26,026 --> 00:45:28,301
The Aborigines still paint,

440
00:45:28,466 --> 00:45:34,382
From them, therefore, we may be able to get
some insight into the very origins of art,

441
00:45:37,106 --> 00:45:41,702
(SPIVEY) So, David Attenborough began
to spend time with modern Aboriginal painters

442
00:45:41,866 --> 00:45:46,781
to try to understand
why their stories had lasted so long,

443
00:45:49,426 --> 00:45:52,736
He met an Aboriginal painter called Mugane,

444
00:45:54,786 --> 00:45:57,937
(ATTENB0R0UGH) I didn't know what to expect,

445
00:45:58,106 --> 00:46:05,535
I used to sit with him, and he had a brush that
was made by chewing the end of a little stick

446
00:46:05,706 --> 00:46:10,905
and he would put these marks on them
and I'd watch him,

447
00:46:12,506 --> 00:46:15,782
Anyway, so we got to know one another

448
00:46:15,946 --> 00:46:19,143
and so I was able to ask him...

449
00:46:19,306 --> 00:46:22,218
Not directly, ''Why are you painting?''

450
00:46:22,386 --> 00:46:27,016
You'd say, ''What name this fellow? What is that?''

451
00:46:27,186 --> 00:46:29,654
Tell me about this place here. What's that?

452
00:46:30,706 --> 00:46:32,059
Dog.

453
00:46:32,226 --> 00:46:38,222
(ATTENB0R0UGH) And then on one painting
there was this long, long rectangular shape,

454
00:46:38,386 --> 00:46:40,183
I said, ''What's that?''

455
00:46:40,346 --> 00:46:45,374
and Mugane leaned forward
and said rather hoarsely, ''Secret.''

456
00:46:47,346 --> 00:46:51,021
Why you talk so...so soft?

457
00:46:51,186 --> 00:46:55,577
If you're no good...
If we talk hard, might be hear Mirrimi.

458
00:46:55,746 --> 00:46:59,944
- If we talk hard, who might hear?
- Mirrimi.

459
00:47:00,106 --> 00:47:03,894
So I said, ''Well, could you tell me what it was?''

460
00:47:04,066 --> 00:47:06,500
0ld Mugane thought about it a bit

461
00:47:06,666 --> 00:47:11,137
and he said ''0K, tomorrow time.
You come tomorrow time.''

462
00:47:28,026 --> 00:47:31,701
We walked for,,,well, I suppose about 20 minutes

463
00:47:31,866 --> 00:47:34,016
and there was another little encampment

464
00:47:34,186 --> 00:47:39,260
and inside this encampment,
covered in leaves, very secret and very lonely,

465
00:47:39,426 --> 00:47:41,417
there was this huge pipe.

466
00:47:41,586 --> 00:47:46,421
Didgeridoo, I mean
like four and a half, five feet long,

467
00:47:46,586 --> 00:47:50,295
This was what was represented in the painting,

468
00:47:52,986 --> 00:47:54,977
Then we entered the bush

469
00:47:55,146 --> 00:47:58,422
where a big ceremony was going to take place

470
00:47:58,586 --> 00:48:03,819
in which the trumpet with the designs
that it carried was an essential element.

471
00:48:05,946 --> 00:48:10,861
(SPIVEY) The stories painted by Aboriginal artists
had gained their power

472
00:48:11,026 --> 00:48:14,257
because they'd been combined with music,

473
00:48:16,026 --> 00:48:21,464
They were designed to stimulate two senses,
the eyes and the ears,

474
00:48:22,586 --> 00:48:26,977
and it was this that had made them so enduring,

475
00:48:41,426 --> 00:48:48,264
The Aboriginal community at 0enpelli
still perform storytelling ceremonies to this day,

476
00:48:48,426 --> 00:48:54,661
Just like David Attenborough 50 years before me,
I would be lucky enough to experience one,

477
00:48:58,506 --> 00:49:00,701
(MAN CHANTS)

478
00:49:07,986 --> 00:49:10,819
(ATTENB0R0UGH)
People assembled in the morning,

479
00:49:10,986 --> 00:49:13,546
Someone sang with click sticks, more men came

480
00:49:13,706 --> 00:49:18,985
and then they started painting themselves
with totemic designs on their chests.

481
00:49:20,666 --> 00:49:26,059
It was a sense of privilege
and there's a holding of the breath, really,

482
00:49:26,226 --> 00:49:29,935
because you were in the presence
of something very meaningful,

483
00:49:32,666 --> 00:49:37,581
It's a highly emotionally charged moment,

484
00:50:01,106 --> 00:50:05,384
(SPIVEY) As night fell,
my own anticipation was rising,

485
00:50:36,066 --> 00:50:39,536
The dancers were assembling
beneath a rock canopy

486
00:50:39,706 --> 00:50:42,539
that was covered in ancient painted stories,

487
00:50:45,066 --> 00:50:49,856
- (DIDGERID00 )
- And then these stories began to come alive,

488
00:50:55,266 --> 00:50:56,984
(SINGING)

489
00:51:11,266 --> 00:51:13,018
In the ancient past,

490
00:51:13,186 --> 00:51:18,783
long before the classical civilisations of the West
had made their storytelling discoveries,

491
00:51:18,946 --> 00:51:22,825
Aboriginal artists had found a way
to captivate their audience

492
00:51:22,986 --> 00:51:25,944
and transport them to imaginary worlds,

493
00:51:28,466 --> 00:51:34,143
(ATTENB0R0UGH) To try and identify the truth
of which those paintings were a part,

494
00:51:34,306 --> 00:51:37,139
you have to recognise that they are only a part,

495
00:51:38,266 --> 00:51:41,144
They don't exist by themselves,

496
00:51:42,186 --> 00:51:44,825
They are accompanied by music,

497
00:51:44,986 --> 00:51:48,535
by singing, by didgeridoo, by click sticks,

498
00:51:48,706 --> 00:51:56,386
and they are accompanied by narrative,
in song, of immensely complex stories,

499
00:51:59,826 --> 00:52:04,104
So the music is an integral element
from all kinds of points of view

500
00:52:04,266 --> 00:52:09,943
and to abstract that from a piece of painting

501
00:52:10,106 --> 00:52:12,574
is to...

502
00:52:12,746 --> 00:52:14,737
..impoverish the painting.

503
00:52:33,306 --> 00:52:37,379
(SPIVEY) This, then, is the key
to Aboriginal storytelling,

504
00:52:37,546 --> 00:52:44,418
It's this soundtrack that's given their stories
the power to survive for thousands of years

505
00:52:44,586 --> 00:52:51,059
and it's the same element that lifts our
imaginations when we sit down to watch a film.

506
00:52:51,226 --> 00:52:53,865
Images pulsing with sound.

507
00:52:58,306 --> 00:53:03,505
Aboriginal storytellers understood
the power of combining sound with pictures

508
00:53:03,666 --> 00:53:05,896
thousands of years ago,

509
00:53:06,906 --> 00:53:12,105
but the rest of the world wouldn't come to exploit
this technique until much, much later,

510
00:53:12,266 --> 00:53:16,578
long after the classical civilisations
had been and gone,

511
00:53:22,146 --> 00:53:26,617
It wasn't until the great religions began to realise
the full potential of the soundtrack

512
00:53:26,786 --> 00:53:30,222
that its use began to spread across the world,

513
00:53:31,346 --> 00:53:35,624
When it did, the result was explosive,

514
00:53:35,906 --> 00:53:39,740
(MUSIC: HANDEL'S ''HALLELUJAH CH0RUS'')

515
00:53:39,906 --> 00:53:41,897
# HalleluJah! HalleluJah!

516
00:53:42,066 --> 00:53:44,022
# HalleluJah! #

517
00:53:45,026 --> 00:53:50,384
Now, religious storytellers could use the
captivating power of pictures combined with music

518
00:53:50,546 --> 00:53:53,140
to reinforce their spiritual message,

519
00:53:53,306 --> 00:53:59,063
# For the Lord 0mnipotent reigneth

520
00:53:59,226 --> 00:54:01,342
# HalleluJah! HalleluJah!

521
00:54:01,506 --> 00:54:03,258
# HalleluJah! HalleluJah!

522
00:54:03,426 --> 00:54:06,259
# HalleluJah! #

523
00:54:10,506 --> 00:54:16,297
(SPIVEY) Then, in 1894,
a new visual storytelling medium was invented,

524
00:54:16,466 --> 00:54:18,263
Moving pictures,

525
00:54:20,866 --> 00:54:23,460
This is the first feature film in history,

526
00:54:23,626 --> 00:54:28,416
It too comes from Australia,
and tells the story of the outlaw Ned Kelly,

527
00:54:29,266 --> 00:54:36,502
Here is a hero, a plot and characters
with emotions, but it lacks that crucial ingredient,

528
00:54:37,826 --> 00:54:40,898
(MUSIC: THEME T0 ''PSYCH0'')

529
00:54:41,066 --> 00:54:44,741
As soon as film-makers discovered
how to put sound into their films,,,

530
00:54:44,906 --> 00:54:49,138
- (MUSIC: THEME T0 ''E.T.'')
,,cinema really took off,

531
00:54:49,306 --> 00:54:51,342
(MUSIC: THEME T0 ''STAR WARS'')

532
00:54:53,786 --> 00:54:58,576
Finally directors could unlock
the full potential of moving pictures,

533
00:55:00,946 --> 00:55:03,540
They'd found a way to move an audience so much

534
00:55:03,706 --> 00:55:07,779
they felt as though
they'd been transported to another world,

535
00:55:10,906 --> 00:55:14,660
0ne cannot underestimate
the power of sound effects and music

536
00:55:14,826 --> 00:55:17,579
in modern-day filming and storytelling.

537
00:55:17,746 --> 00:55:20,340
So that when you come to ''Lorenzo's 0il'',

538
00:55:20,506 --> 00:55:22,895
we have the scene where the parents,

539
00:55:23,066 --> 00:55:28,698
having learnt of the terrible diagnosis
and prognosis of their son,

540
00:55:28,866 --> 00:55:31,380
make the long walk out of the doctor's office.

541
00:55:31,546 --> 00:55:33,741
(F00TSTEPS ECH0 )

542
00:55:35,706 --> 00:55:40,416
We enhance their demeanour,
their mood, their anguish,,,

543
00:55:40,586 --> 00:55:44,738
- (MUSIC: BARBER'S ''ADAGI0 F0R STRINGS'')
,,,by the sound of their footsteps,

544
00:55:44,906 --> 00:55:46,737
(GIRL GIGGLES)

545
00:55:46,906 --> 00:55:49,215
By the laughter of the little girl,

546
00:55:49,386 --> 00:55:51,377
And with the music,

547
00:55:51,546 --> 00:55:55,858
- (MUSIC: BARBER'S ''ADAGI0 F0R STRINGS'')
- (M0THER CLEARS HER THR0AT)

548
00:55:57,026 --> 00:56:01,178
They're hiding their emotions because they don't
want their son to know how they're feeling

549
00:56:01,346 --> 00:56:03,814
yet the music is telling us how they're feeling,

550
00:56:08,786 --> 00:56:11,061
(B0Y SIGHS)

551
00:56:11,226 --> 00:56:14,377
When we get home can you read a story?

552
00:56:14,546 --> 00:56:16,901
(WHISPERS) 0f course, my darling.

553
00:56:21,386 --> 00:56:23,980
Lorenzino, let's go home.

554
00:56:35,866 --> 00:56:39,620
You know what it's like
when you've watched a really good film

555
00:56:39,786 --> 00:56:45,418
and rather than leave the cinema
you stay in your seat, almost unable to move,

556
00:56:45,586 --> 00:56:49,625
listening to the music
and watching the end credits roll by.

557
00:56:50,746 --> 00:56:55,422
Well, it's because
you've been transported to another world

558
00:56:55,586 --> 00:57:01,900
and it's been such a powerful experience
you Just can't bear for the magic to end.

559
00:57:04,226 --> 00:57:07,377
(MUSIC: BARBER'S ''ADAGI0 F0R STRINGS'')