By coincidence, two of the more interesting films of late have been about human beings mistreating their closest relative, the chimpanzee. More specifically, they deal with the betrayal of animals that have been raised as members of a human family in the hope of developing their ability to use language or other intellectual abilities once understood as unique to homo sapiens.
“Project Nim” is a documentary now playing at the Angelica Theater in New York that describes the experiment conducted by Columbia psychology professor Herb Terrace in the early 70s to determine whether the chimp called Nim Chimpsky (after Noam Chomsky) could be taught to use sign language. After integrating the chimp into a family of wealthy hippies on the Upper West Side, the animal is progressively removed from human relationships as the experiment wears on until it is finally cast aside. The level of grief that the animal suffered as a result of the abandonment is hard to determine, but we as human beings can only feel a sense of anger at Herb Terrace for caring so little about the animal’s feelings. In “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, the chimpanzee, called Caesar, is the subject of an experiment with a genetically engineered retrovirus that can cure Alzheimer’s. As is the case today, chimpanzees are used in clinical trials since they are so closely related to homo sapiens physically. When Caesar—still a wild animal even with advanced cognitive skills—attacks the neighbor of the scientist who is raising him as part of his, the animal control authorities remand him to a prison-like primate compound. Caesar’s fight to liberate himself and the other abused members of the compound deeply stirring, evoking some of the best prison break movies of all time. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/project-nim-rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
