features a cute, young chimpanzee who dresses up in children's
clothes, drinks beer, smokes dope, and even communicates with
humans. However, be warned, this is no feelgood movie. It's a
fascinating, poignant and unsettling tale about a chimp plucked
from his world and forced to behave like a human, all in the name
The first film by director James Marsh since his excellent
Oscar-winning documentary Man on
Wire, and based on Elizabeth Hess' 2008 book Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human, Project
Nim tells the bizarre and true story of the animal who
unwittingly found himself the subject of a human language
The study, launched in 1973, was arguably the most radical
experiment of its kind. Herbert Terrace, behavioural psychologist
at Columbia University, wanted to disprove linguist Noam Chomsky's
theory that language skills are a uniquely human trait. Days after
being born at an Oklahoma primate research centre, an infant chimp
was taken from his tranquilised mother and shipped to New York. The
newborn chimp, named Nim Chimpsky as a dig at the popular linguist
(a fact the film mysteriously fails to mention), lived with humans,
dressed and learned manners as if he was a regular child, and was
taught American Sign Language.
From this point forth there will be spoilers, so
if you haven't seen the movie turn away
Over the course of several years, Nim managed to learn up to 125
signs, communicating in short phrases like "play me Nim" and
"banana me eat". And he enjoyed a taste of fame, appearing in
newspapers, magazines and on TV chat shows. However, any hope that Nim
could acquire linguistic skills under these conditions was quashed
1979 Science paper, where Terrace concluded that Nim
was merely a skilled mimic, using the phrases he learned as a way
of getting rewards. In other words, Terrace said that Chomsky was
right. Nim's signs showed none of the hallmarks of language like
syntax, i.e. he couldn't use words and phrases he learned to
construct more complex or grammatically correct sentences.
Nim isn't the only non-human primate taught sign language --
other well-known examples being Washoe the chimpanzee,
Koko the gorilla and Kanzi the
bonobo. But Terrace's findings stunned the field, setting it
back many years. In response, researchers switched from sign
language to lexigrams,
using symbols that stand for words, and created more "child-like"
learning environments, allowing animals to imitate others before
trying to string words together themselves. Decades after Nim, the
issue of whether any learned behaviour is genuine or mimicked is
far from settled, and the ape-language field continues to be a
highly contested one.
Perhaps wisely, Marsh opts to side-step these thorny scientific
issues. Instead, he presents the film as a narrative account of
Nim's life. Like a simian David Copperfield transported to 1970s
New York, you laugh and cry throughout Nim's adventure, which
reveals far more about the idealism and self-absorption of the
humans who occupied his world than it does about him.
As with Man on Wire, Marsh tells the story using a
skilled blend of archive footage, talking-head interviews with
those who cared for Nim and (perhaps an over-use of) reconstructed
dramatisations to build a compassionate and compelling portrait of
the chimp's life.
Thanks to the refreshing candour of the interviewees, Marsh
teases out the stories, conflicts and even sexual relationships
surrounding Nim. We discover, for instance, that Nim's first
surrogate mother, Stephanie LaFarge brought Nim into her bohemian
Upper West Side household without permission from her husband or
children, allowed him the occasional drag from her joint and even
breastfed him. Her bohemian ways conflict with those of another
research student, Laura-Ann
Petitto, who formed a deep bond with Nim, but also with Terrace
(as had LaFarge before the study), after which she left the
project. While LaFarge and Petitto come across as caring, Terrace
comes across as cold and clinical, especially in his decision to
end the study abruptly once Nim's inner chimp began to appear and
his habit of biting became increasingly dangerous.
Marsh gives his interviewees room to speak, never taking sides,
even when colleagues reveal the grudges they still hold with
Terrace for calling off the study, the perhaps flawed methodology
and the astonishing lack of thought as to what to do with Nim after
the project was abandoned.
Nim was shipped back to Oklahoma at the age of five, and was
forced into an unfamiliar and distressing existence with other
chimps. He was sold to a medical lab for hepatitis vaccine testing,
but was rescued by a high-profile animal-rights activist, and moved
to a sanctuary for horses in Texas.
There is a brief, bright spot for Nim along the way, in the form
of Bob Ingersoll, an amiable, long-haired deadhead who worked at
the Oklahoma research centre. Perhaps Nim's best friend, Ingersoll
took him on walks and (yes, again) smoked joints with him.
Ingersoll provides one of the best laugh-out loud moments of the
film, when he describes his time with Nim as his best experience
ever, even better than a Grateful Dead concert.
Alas, there isn't the happy ending you crave for Nim. In 2000,
he died of a heart attack at the age 26, a relatively young age for
a chimpanzee in captivity. Was the experiment worth it? It's easy
to dismiss the arrogance and hubris of the study viewed through the
prism of today's values and ethics, and again Project Nim makes no
judgement. But as you listen to the love that almost all of the
interviewees clearly still have for Nim, you get the overwhelming
impression that we benefitted very little from the study, but the
least benefit was to Nim himself.
Project Nim opens in the UK on 11 August.