Project Nim
Angelika Film Centre, July 15, 2011
Movie #44 for 2011
I listen to a lot of non-fiction radio podcasts - your This American Life, your Radio Lab and whatnot. Project Nim more like a Radio Lab episode than any documentary I’ve ever seen. I kept expecting Jad Abumrad’s interjection or Robert Krulwich’s chuckle. There are two reasons for this: first, Nim’s story was recently the subject of a Radio Lab episode; and second, they use that piece of music that piece of music that I have come to know as the ‘NPR non-fiction piano tune’.
Project Nim charts the entire life story of a chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky (pictured). In the late 1970s, Columbia scientist Herbert Terrace took two week old Nim from his mother and began a five year long research study into whether animals can use language (specifically sign) the way humans do. A key element of Project Nim is to actively suppress Nim’s chimpness and treat him like a human baby. He bonds with the rotating roster of foster parents, teachers and researchers, believing himself to be human. The science of the project is shown to be haphazard, un-rigorous and full of seventies-style romance, intrigue and hippy notions about nature versus nurture. After the project concludes, the five year old Nim - who has never even seen another chimp - is abandoned in a primate research facility (a kind of prison for chimps) and then a medical research lab. It’s a trauma that takes him a decade to recover from.
Director JAMES MARSH (Man on Wire) has a very good eye for both stories and characters. He's also an excellent filmmaker - his are not the "turn the camera on something interesting and see what happens" kind of documentaries. He has crafted a piece of journalism and his animal welfare agenda is clear. Despite this, he gets remarkably candid, organic feeling interviews out of the talking heads. He does not lay blame on any specific player, but makes it clear that everyone is implicated - despite their best intentions - in Nim's sad story.
My only hang-up about the film is the early use of overly dramatic re-enactments. They are cheesy and cheap, and felt a little like Crimestoppers. The footage taken at the time (including still photography) was ample and paints a far more informative picture than dramatization. But the story is still a cracker, and the subjects still speak openly and generously about themselves, their mistakes and their experience of living with an extraordinary animal.
