Project Nim (2011)

Captivating movie !

Absolutely brilliant

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The first ten minutes of this painful documentary goes beyond any justice. The scientists involved in this corrupt and mindless experiment should be tried by a court of law for intentional cruelty and torture. If my tax dollars paid for this experiment then our government is corrupt with eyes wide shut. A Mother is systematically tortured by having 6 two week old infants chimps taken from her. The 6th being the title character. What was gained here was pure psychopathy. There was no need for this experiment except for vain exploration. This film gives every reason why science needs regulations. However, since this is not going to happen then will someone please point to the red button so I can give it a huge push. This is perhaps the most horrifying film I have ever seen. What were these scientist hoping to accomplish; to raise a chimp to be human? For what purpose? To serve humans? To be slaves? To fill a void? We have to be a mutation in the gravest form. I want these scientists prosecuted.

This is the true story of what happened when a baby chimp, Nim, it taken from his mother and placed with a human family. He is taught sign language by a series of carers before becoming too big and dangerous around the age of 5 at which time he is returned to the ranch he was taken from. There is a huge amount going on in this documentary as the carers over the years are interviewed with footage from the time. What emerges will probably anger and sadden most viewers. Though I felt that Nim's carers genuinely bonded with him what emerges is a largely a tale of careless cruelty. Equally interesting and perhaps the root cause of what happens later is the relationships between the humans. Particularly between the project leader Professor Herbert Terrance and the numerous attractive research assistants. There are several references to the power he held and exercised. Overall it has to be said he does not emerge from this film as either likable or particularly competent. The various approaches of the teachers and carers differ so widely and even though there is much happy footage you have to wonder at the effect this had on Nim. I was left with the feeling that he eventually responded best to the people who recognised him as a chimp but still treated him as a companion within the limits this imposed. This is a powerful film that should be shown as widely as possible and would probably be good thing to included in school curricular.

To me, as a linguist, the ill-conceived professional designs of Columbia University professor Herbert Terrace kept getting more and more diabolical as the film progressed...and no one stopped him!As a humanist, I was appalled at Professor Terrace's misguided views of mankind; his on-going affairs with his female students; and his continuous disavowals of any responsibility of any part of anything at all ...except for publicity, of course.And, as a resident of NYC, I am astonished at the fact that he still teaches his outmoded doctrine of animal-behavioral studies ideas (based on the long-refuted BF Skinner) at Columbia University--(and, BTW, is rated by his students in the same manner as I am writing about him here).My helplessness to do anything about Nim has been echoed by other reviewers–so I won't cry any more literary tears for that poor animal--except to thank Bob Ingersoll for his dedication and caring spirit.Anyone who has read Kune knows that scholars ought not to keep beating one scientific approach for their whole lives (e.g. Skinner), but to see their discipline through as many approaches as will move that discipline along. Alas, Terrance appears to be the worst kind of professor, who viewed his discipline though only one poor lens, and did so with no one monitoring him.And, after viewing this film, I'm even more glad now that I chose to get my Linguistics Ph.D. at NYU and not Columbia, so many years ago.)The film itself was nearly perfect. It operated with less fuss than most and just tried to allow the story to shine though.

I saw Project Nim right after seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the similarities are startling. Nim and Caesar are both taken from their mothers at birth, raised in human families until they get to be too aggressive, and then put into primate shelters and medical research facilities. The difference is that Caesar leads an uprising of the apes and poor Nim is left in a cage until he dies.Most of the humans in both films come off as abusive and/or ignorant of what they have done to the chimps. One or two in each film tries to do the right thing but is thwarted by the other humans. As a psychologist, I was personally appalled by the behavior of the psychologists in the film. They should have known better than to remove an infant from its mother and try to raise it within the family of another species. That's insane! Colleagues at the university should have rejected any application for funding of such research. The license of the psychologist in the film should be revoked. He not only traumatized Nim for his own purposes but also hired incompetent and inexperienced assistants to whom he was sexually attracted. It was the 1970's but that is no excuse. I believe that there actually was some interesting research data about the chimp's use of language that the psychologist dismisses. So in my eyes, he fails on an intellectually professional level as well as an ethical one. Both films are sad commentaries on the human race and the chimps seem like the better species. Would be an interesting double bill to have the fantasy feature film and the documentary shown together.