Product Details

• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Lions Gate
• DVD Release Date: February 7, 2012
• Run Time: 93 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B006DBY6GE
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,515 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

From the Oscar® -winning team behind MAN ON WIRE comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who became the focus of a landmark 1970s experiment to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. But as Nim's natural instincts take over and the humans trusted with his well-being fail to protect him, PROJECT NIM uncovers the unflinching and extraordinary journey of one animal thrust into human society.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Nim gives a lesson in human arrogance December 28, 2011

By Dawn Forsythe

Format:DVD

I remember the first time I held a chimp's hand. The first touch between human and ape fingers establishes a connection, and you never forget the soft leathery feel of a chimpanzee's palm. What should be an ordinary sensation is not. It is unforgettable and forever.

The problem arises when the chimp-human connection becomes subject to human arrogance, sometimes cloaked in love, other times defined by science, and often supported by stupidity.

Project Nim is the true story of a chimpanzee who was taken from his mother to participate in a 1970s university research project on communications. The movie has all three components: love, science, and stupidity, all adding up to a level of human arrogance that is almost incomprehensible.

Nim's story begins at an Oklahoma primate research project, when the mother chimpanzee, Carolyn, is shot with a tranquilizer so the research director can grab Carolyn's sixth newborn, Nim, as they stole all the others. Nim goes from his mother's arms, to adored and beloved "child" of a human mother, to precocious subject of young college students' attention, to an independent young male actually starting to act like a chimpanzee. All along the way, we hear directly from the people who played the supporting roles in Nim's young life. As I listened to them tell their stories, from their perspectives, I could identify with their good intentions.

And arrogance. A university researcher who doesn't believe the "science" was compromised when he seduced the project's sweet teenage "education director." A college graduate who lets a chimpanzee nurse from her breast for months, and then years later thinks she can walk into the (by now) adult chimp's cage, when he is screaming and "displaying," and thinks the chimpanzee won't hurt her. So much arrogance.

Fortunately, Nim also had people who related to him as a chimpanzee, who cared deeply and personally for his welfare.

After Herb, the university researcher, realizes that the adult Nim is a chimp (d'oh!), with all a chimpanzee's strength and unpredictability, he sends Nim back to the Oklahoma facility where Nim has to be in a dark cage for the first time in his life. When the facility runs out of money, Nim is sold to LEMSIP, an infamous experimental research facility, and he is subject to conditions and protocols that are deeply disturbing for any chimpanzee, but are unspeakable for a chimpanzee raised as a human.

Enter Robert Ingersoll, who met and befriended Nim in Oklahoma. Thanks to Robert, and a good lawyer who brought public attention to Nim's situation, LEMSIP decides to sell Nim to a horse sanctuary. From there, Nim's life starts to improve again - not to a standard we would wish for, but at least one that is better.

Project Nim shows us, in a totally engrossing - almost haunting - movie, how keeping a chimpanzee, essentially as some kind of sub-human in costume, is grossly unfair to the chimpanzee, besides being just plain stupid and dangerous. I'm not sure if most of the audience realizes that decades of human arrogance has hurt innumerable chimpanzees, before and after Nim. The unforgiveable thing is that, in the U.S., it still happens. And we let it continue.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Utterly Engaging, Unbearably Tragic February 17, 2012

By IronGirl

Format:Amazon Instant Video|Amazon Verified Purchase

About half way through the fascinating, absorbing and unsettling PROJECT NIM, a tear-stained former female caretaker of the chimp looks right into the camera and states "Shame on us." That sense of shame at humanity's awesome hubris is just one of several very strong emotions that filmmaker James Marsh effectively evokes in a film that asks some very big questions, even as it moves and breaks your heart.

Poor Nim. From the day he was torn from his mother's devastated arms, he was unwittingly entwined with human machinations he could never understand nor hope to escape. For an animal lover, it's hard to watch his tragedy unfold, yet also impossible not to watch its moments of sheer joy and revelation; and impossible not to want to comprehend what happened and what it all meant . . . for us, for science and for Nim.

Some might take issue with Marsh's playful directing, which fuses some rather graphic and overtly dramatic recreations with real documentary footage. But I felt he did a great job of allowing the audience to feel what Nim's caretakers appear to have felt -- charmed, seduced, amused, uncertain, sometimes frightened, and often too caught up in their amazing relationship with a wild animal to perceive the moral dangers or eventual consequences.

The film brings up many intriguing issues -- questions about the nature and purpose of language (did scientists really believe that intelligent animals who for millions of years experienced the world without language were going to learn a few signs and suddenly express to us everything they are thinking?); questions about academic and sexual power (the skeevy Herb and his phalanx of fresh-faced, sexy girls is really something!); questions about the shaky moral ground of animal experimentation of all kinds. But it seems the most disturbing question of all is just why of all the smart, sensitive, searching people who worked with Nim over the years . . . only one was willing to fight for his life.

If there is a hero of PROJECT NIM, it is Bob Ingersoll, the young primatology student who befriends Nim like so many others -- but, unlike all the rest, does not abandon him when circumstances bring the highly social chimp first to a gruesome medical lab and then to an even more gruesome refuge, where he nearly fades away of loneliness. Only Ingersoll seems to have Nim's best interests iin mind.

PROJECT NIM is never simplistic. The persons involved, including Nim, are all highly complex and deeply flawed. But at least Bob Ingersoll leaves us with some hope for our own species.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars For a wide audience December 9, 2011

By Stephen Pellerine

Format:DVD

Project Nim is a fascinating video comprised from wonderfully logged archives of videos, along with more recent interviews from his caretakers: past and present. It's a great documentary that you don't need to be a naturalist or linguist to enjoy. I enjoyed the "science" from the film, my 9 year old daughter felt the story, and my wife felt so bad for Nim she could barely watch - but did so with great interest. A couple of days later we still find ourselves discussing Nim in the household.

This resource would be a great one for a range of classes, in various educational settings, from kindergarten to graduate school.

The story of Nim, as revealed here, will engaged the viewer with questions: from the nature of language, to the linguistic capacities of "other animals", along with the humane treatment of subjects used in clinical and experimental research. I appreciate the honesty put forth in the documentary as there are aspects of Nim's treatment that will certainly irk you. At the same time as being irked by what had been done to Nim, I feel that many of the decisions made are understandable in the light of events that arose (i.e. Nim badly injuring his volunteer caretakers). One could have simple reported the cute and cuddly successful sides to this story - but thankfully the rougher edges were presented giving us what feels like a complete picture of Nim's life. Nim is an animal and had violent instinctive behavior from time to time. Behavior that made coexistence with its human animal compatriot difficult. I am not suggesting in any negative way that this is Nim's fault, the experimental design was new and did not anticipate such catastrophic encounters. Had Nim taken on language as Columbia University had anticipated, the world would have gained a lot of knowledge from this trial. He didn't do as expected. Lessons were learned at his expense. The video documents this trial, honestly, I believe.

Nowadays I think that research-ethics-committees and protests groups would curve and influence the treatment of "modern" Nim-like cases, and this is a good development, although I am not naďve enough to think that science and research today is 100% animal-friendly.

Understanding that this is not a Hollywood blockbuster (thankfully so) I can see how it could easily be turned into one. I like the vintage film. I like the direct approach here. If you enjoyed books and/or literature that have dealt with Nim and want to know more I think you will really like this educational film. The case is presented here in a fascinating and thoughtful way.