Project Nim | |
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Directed by | James Marsh |
Based on | Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human by Elizabeth Hess |
Produced by | Simon Chinn |
Starring | Stephanie LaFarge Herbert S. Terrace Laura-Ann Petitto Bob Ingersoll |
Cinematography | Michael Simmonds |
Edited by | Jinx Godfrey |
Music by | Dickon Hinchliffe |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Roadside Attractions HBO Documentary Films (United States) [1] Icon Entertainment International (International) |
Release date |
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Running time | 93 minutes |
Countries | United Kingdom United States [2] |
Language | English |
Box office | $1,583,533 [1] |
Project Nim is a 2011 documentary film directed by James Marsh. [3] It tells the life story of a chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky, who was the center of a research project that was mounted in the 1970s to determine whether a primate raised in close contact with humans would develop a limited "language" based on American Sign Language. [4]
Late in 1973, two weeks after being born at Dr. William Lemmon's Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma, Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee, was separated from his mother and taken to New York to participate in an extended study of animal language acquisition conducted by Dr. Herbert S. Terrace of Columbia University. Nim was placed in the home of Stephanie LaFarge, a former student of Terrace, who was instructed to raise him as if he were a human child to see if he would acquire human-like language.
Neither LaFarge nor her husband or children were fluent in the American Sign Language that was being taught to Nim, and Terrace and his research assistant, Laura-Ann Petitto, had concerns that the experiment should be more controlled, so Nim was eventually moved to a property owned by Columbia University, where he was raised and taught by a group of students, who would bring him to a classroom at Columbia to be tested. He learned the signs for many more words and attracted some media attention, but he also injured a number of the researchers, which became increasingly troubling as he continued to become larger and stronger.
After ending the experiment, Dr. Terrace returned Nim to the Institute for Primate Studies, where Nim saw another chimpanzee for the first time since he was an infant. An analysis of his data led Dr. Terrace to conclude that Nim's use of sign language seemed to be mimicry to receive a reward, rather than indicating an understanding of grammar and more human-like use of language.
Faced with financial difficulties, Dr. Lemmon sold many of his chimpanzees, including Nim, to the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP), a pharmaceutical animal testing laboratory managed by New York University (NYU). Bob Ingersoll, an employee of the Institute for Primate Studies who had befriended Nim, objected to the move and worked to free Nim, and a newspaper article led to a lawyer becoming involved. Fearing negative publicity, NYU released Nim, and he was bought by Cleveland Amory and moved to Black Beauty Ranch in Texas.
Although Nim was no longer being experimented on, he was the only primate at Black Beauty Ranch. Occasionally, he would escape from his cage, and on one of these occasions he killed a dog. LaFarge visited him and, after entering his cage, Nim dragged her about by her ankle.
A year after moving to the ranch, a female chimpanzee was brought to live with Nim. Ten years after that, Ingersoll, who had not been allowed to visit Nim, heard the female chimp was in failing health, and contacted the new manager at Black Beauty Ranch to ask if he could visit. Ingersoll reestablished a relationship with Nim and arranged with James Mahoney for a male and female chimp to be sent to the ranch from LEMSIP, which was shutting down. Five years later, on March 10, 2000, Nim died at the age of 26 of a heart attack.
The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2011, and it began a limited theatrical release in the United States on July 8. [5]
Lionsgate Home Entertainment released the film on DVD in the United States on February 7, 2012. [6]
Project Nim was released to critical acclaim. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 97% based on 147 reviews, with an average score of 8.1/10; the sites "critics consensus" reads: "Equal parts hilarious, poignant, and heartbreaking, Project Nim not only tells a compelling story masterfully, but also raises the flag on the darker side of human nature". [7] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 83 out of a 100 based on 33 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [8]
David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "This haunting life story is an exquisite example of non-fiction filmmaking as full-bodied, emotionally complex drama." [9] Marjorie Baumgarten of The Austin Chronicle was less positive, writing: "There is no question Nim was exploited for human gain, yet there are important aspects which Marsh leaves unexplored." [10]
The film won 15 awards and was nominated for 27, including Best Documentary at the 65th British Academy Film Awards. [11]
In 2019, Dr. Herbert S. Terrace, who conducted the language study on Nim, published the book Why Chimpanzees Can’t Learn Language and Only Humans Can. In it, he said he perceived the documentary Project Nim as "mainly an ad hominem attack" on himself and stated that the allegation he had returned Nim to the primate colony as punishment for failing to learn sign language is untrue. Terrace also criticised the documentary for its "complete failure to present the scientific background of the work" done or the "theoretical significance" of that work. [12]
The chimpanzee, also simply known as the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close relative the bonobo was more commonly known as the pygmy chimpanzee, this species was often called the common chimpanzee or the robust chimpanzee. The chimpanzee and the bonobo are the only species in the genus Pan. Evidence from fossils and DNA sequencing shows that Pan is a sister taxon to the human lineage and is thus humans' closest living relative. The chimpanzee is covered in coarse black hair, but has a bare face, fingers, toes, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet. It is larger and more robust than the bonobo, weighing 40–70 kg (88–154 lb) for males and 27–50 kg (60–110 lb) for females and standing 150 cm.
Dame Jane Morris Goodall, formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English zoologist, primatologist and anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, after 60 years' studying the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees. Goodall first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania to observe its chimpanzees in 1960.
Neam "Nim" Chimpsky was a chimpanzee and the subject of an extended study of animal language acquisition at Columbia University. The project was led by Herbert S. Terrace with the linguistic analysis headed up by psycholinguist Thomas Bever. Within the context of a scientific study, Chimpsky was named as a pun on linguist Noam Chomsky, who posits that humans are "wired" to develop language.
Washoe was a female common chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using American Sign Language (ASL) as part of an animal research experiment on animal language acquisition.
The Great Ape Project (GAP), founded in 1993, is an international organization of primatologists, anthropologists, ethicists, and others who advocate a United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes that would confer basic legal rights on non-human great apes: bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans.
Kanzi, also known by the lexigram , is a male bonobo who has been the subject of several studies on great ape language. According to Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist who has studied the bonobo throughout her life, Kanzi has exhibited advanced linguistic aptitude.
Research into great ape language has involved teaching chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans to communicate with humans and each other using sign language, physical tokens, lexigrams, and imitative human speech. Some primatologists argue that the use of these communication methods indicate primate "language" ability, though this depends on one's definition of language. The cognitive tradeoff hypothesis suggests that human language skills evolved at the expense of the short-term and working memory capabilities potentially observed in other hominids.
Project X is a 1987 American science fiction drama film produced by Walter F. Parkes and Lawrence Lasker, directed by Jonathan Kaplan, and starring Matthew Broderick and Helen Hunt. The plot revolves around a USAF Airman (Broderick) and a graduate student (Hunt) who are assigned to care for chimpanzees used in a secret Air Force project.
Lana was a female chimpanzee, the first to use lexigrams in language research. She was born at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University, and the project she was allocated to when 1 year old, the LANguage Analogue project led by Duane Rumbaugh, was named after her with the acronym LANA because the project team felt that her identity was well worth preserving.
The Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) was located on the campus of Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. CHCI included a sanctuary for chimpanzees who have learned to communicate with humans and each other using American Sign Language. CHCI's director was Mary Lee Jensvold. It was founded by former co-directors Roger Fouts and Deborah Fouts. The institute was closed in 2013 when the remaining chimpanzees were transferred to facilities in Quebec, Canada and the building the facility was housed in, was demolished in 2018. Portions of the specialized structures used to house the chimps were dismantled and moved to the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest in Cle Elum, for future use.
The Passionate Eye is a Canadian documentary television series—and online playlist—that showcases documentary programming from around the world focusing on topics of news, current affairs, politics, and social issues. Airing on CBC News Network, it has been on-air since 1992, and has had a website since 2002.
Lucy (1964–1987) was a chimpanzee owned by the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma, and raised by Maurice K. Temerlin, a psychotherapist and professor at the University of Oklahoma and his wife, Jane.
Tetsuro Matsuzawa is a primatologist who was a past director of the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University. He graduated from Kyoto University with a B.A. degree in 1974, a Psy.M. degree in 1976 and a Ph.D. degree in Science in 1989.
Roger S. Fouts is a retired American primate researcher. He was co-founder and co-director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) in Washington, and a professor of psychology at the Central Washington University. He is best known for his role in teaching Washoe the chimpanzee to communicate using a set of signs taken from American sign language.
James Marsh is a British film and documentary director best known for his work on Man on Wire, which won the 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and The Theory of Everything, the multi-award-winning biopic of physicist Stephen Hawking released in 2014.
Panbanisha, also known by the lexigram , was a female bonobo that featured in studies on great ape language by Professor Sue Savage-Rumbaugh. Her name is Swahili for "to cleave together for the purpose of contrast."
Herbert S. Terrace is a professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Columbia University. His work covers a broad set of research interests that include behaviorism, animal cognition, ape language and the evolution of language. He is the author of Nim: A Chimpanzee Who Learned Sign Language (1979) and Why Chimpanzees Can't Learn Language and Only Humans Can (2019). Terrace has made important contributions to comparative psychology, many of which have important implications for human psychology. These include discrimination learning, ape language, the evolution of language, and animal cognition.
International Primate Day, September 1, is an annual educational observance event organized since 2005 largely by British-based Animal Defenders International (ADI) and supported annually by various primate-oriented advocacy organizations, speaks for all higher and lower primates, typically endorsing humane agendas where primates are at risk, as in research institutions or species endangerment in precarious environmental situations.
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