Bob Ingersoll & Nim
This week sees the release of Project Nim a movie which tells the story of a chimpanzee taken from its mother at birth and raised like a human child by a family in a brownstone on the upper West Side in the 1970s.
I caught up with Bob Ingersoll, who features in the movie as a carer and ultimately friend for Nim, to chat about the movie and his relationship with the chimpanzee.
* Project Nim is set to be released later this week so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
It’s about my relationship, as well as a number of other people, with a chimpanzee called Nim that was born at the University of Oklahoma in 1973 and it’s his life story - the trials and tribulations of Nim.
* How did you get involved in the documentary and how keen were you to be involved in the telling of Nim's story.
Well, as you know, there is a book by Elizabeth Hess called Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human and Simon Chinn (producer) and James Marsh (director) contacted me. I had a little reservation but after talking to Simon I felt that we were on the right track.
Then I talked to James- after we had our first conversation we decided to meet and he came to see me in San Francisco; he was in Copenhagen at the time and that made me think that ‘well he is serious’.
We hit it off fairly well, he’s a nice guy, we like each other so we decided not only could we deal with it but we were going to work together. It’s a b it difficult to hand over your home movies to the guy that has just won the Academy Award (laughs) so for me there was a little bit of… I’m not sure how to say this - I just wanted them to get it right.
They could have done a film that is not nearly as serious, not nearly as beautiful, not nearly as troubling it could have been a lot softer or harder but I think they have done just a marvellous job.
You can’t possibly but every single detail that went into Nim’s life but they did a darn good job of letting you, the public, access Nim in a way that had not happened up to this point, except for people like me and there weren’t many people who had interacted with him on the level that I had and my friends and colleagues had.
* We don't see you in the movie until about half way so can you explain your role in Nim's life?
I would consider myself Nim’s best friend, if you can say that about it. I met Nim at the university after he had been in New York and I felt like I could help Nim if he wanted to be my friend.
So I made myself available and then once I realised that we were forming a pretty cool friendship I pretty much spent every single day that I could with Nim for the time that I was with him - until I was banished and was couldn’t go and see him and other humans thought they knew better than me in terms of Nim’s situation.
It was very unfortunate for Nim because several old friends were cut out of his life and a lot of things happened to Nim that shouldn’t have happened - a lot of the chimps that when to Lemsip with Nim stayed there, they didn’t get rescued, so I was very concerned, not just for Nim, but all the chimps from the IPS.
It was a complex issue for me I did a lot of stuff to bring attention to the issue, which brought a lot of attention to me which was exactly positive, there were a lot of times when people would say ‘man you were out there’ but I am unapologetic about it because I think if the roles were reversed Nim would have done the same thing.
* You battled hard to prevent the chimps from being taken away by Dr Mahoney so how surprised were you by the lack of support from the other people who had been in Nim’s life?
Shocked! I approached them all, I approached them all including authority figures and the most famous of the famous chimp people, and they seemed uninterested in helping me to help me to help Nim.
I was floored I just couldn’t believe it and to this day people that you would think would be raising a huge stink about what’s going on in America in terms of chimpanzees don’t seem really that engaged.
I’m afraid that this stuff will continue for a long time to come. I think that anyone who cares about chimps should put aside whatever it is that they are getting out of the chimps and work for the chimps - there are 2,500 that are in captivity in on situation or another and they need to be attended to.
They need to be at Save The Chimps, there are 300 chimps at this fabulous sanctuary in Florida, there are another fifty at the Centre For Great Apes, both wonderful organisations. There is now a national chimpanzee sanctuary in the United States called Chimp Haven but there are also hundreds of chimpanzees waiting to go and it’s just a shame.
* I watched the movie on Tuesday night and in my opinion Herb was only ever interested in the results of the 'experiment' never Nim himself - how much would you agree with that?
100%.
* What did you think of him when you met him?
I only met him very briefly twice: one when he came back with Nim, I spent literally two or three minutes with him; but I spent three or four hours with Joyce and Bill. I know who cared about Nim it wasn’t Herb, in my opinion, it was Joyce and Bill - I only had interaction with those three people that day and then they left and I dealt with Nim.
But when I got to see Nim again at the Black Beauty Ranch I made a point of getting back in touch with Joyce because not only did I know that Joyce cared about Nim but Nim cared about Joyce.
The moment I told Joyce it was possible to come and see Nim in two days she came to the ranch and she continued to come there until Nim passed.
I allowed myself to realise that I wasn’t the only human being that Nim cared about and for him to have at least one of his old friends fro New York I’m sure was very reassuring for him.
Herb on the other hand, the other time that I interacted with him was when he came back to see Nim a year later. I stood behind the cameras and watched him work with Nim and when he had finished I engaged him in the three minute walk to his car.
I tried to engage him in the work that we were doing with Nim and sign, we brought a naive human out there who didn’t know any sign and after each session we wanted to know if he had learnt any signs from Nim - of course within about 10 sessions picked up 17, 22, 25 signs - it was a very preliminary study.
So I told that to Herb and he looked me square in eye and say ‘that is not interesting to me whatsoever’ got in his car and drove off. So I have very little respect for Herb in that sense. It’s a personal thing as Nim is my friend and for him to act so matter of fact about when it was obvious he created this whole mess it really made me angry.
Sometimes you have to put that aside and he has to deal with his demons now - I did what I did and I’m proud of myself, I’m not a righteous person in ever aspect of my life, but in the sense that I stood up for my friend every chance that I got.
I can’t imagine that Herb doesn’t have the slightest bit of remorse about the way that he acted in the sense that… to me it seemed that when he acted it wasn’t in Nim’s best interest but it was really first Herb or the science, if you can call it science. That’s disappointing especially coming from someone who is a teacher - hopefully I teach a different course than Herb.
* When Nim came to you he had never seen another chimpanzee before so how long did it take for him to interact with the other chimps at the facility?
He didn’t have a lot of choice as the cages and the living situations that we had weren’t isolated so he had to go in there with the other chimps right off - it was a baptism of fire shall we say.
That is a very difficult situation and we were concerned about it that is one of the reasons that we paid special attention and we were very careful to monitor that.
But it didn’t take long, I would say less than six months, for Nim to get his chimpanzee on - you but one chimpanzee with another that’s great you put a chimpanzee with ten others that is the best - the reality is chimps need other chimps. So Nim was integrated into a group of chimps and quickly learnt, I think, who I am - I am a chimp.
* In the film you call your time with Nim as 'the best time of your life' so what was it about your time with him that you enjoyed so much?
You saw the film; you saw how much fun I am having. You have a best friend I’m sure and when you hang out with your best friend you know how you feel like you are in such a comfortable space and the trust level is much certain and you can be yourself. That’s what it is all about and that is how I felt.
* Towards the end of the movie Herb questions the findings of his research but you contradict him and believe that there was a language understanding - and it was spoken between yourself and Nim. So what did you think when he Herb went back on the results?
Well I found that very interesting that sentences, syntax and grammar makes communication when obviously we were seeing communicate. So I think that his assessment that in order to have language you have to have syntax and grammar and the kind of things that you have in spoken and verbal English I think that that is wrong.
Plus as we know now that evolutionary biology points out that we have a common ancestor, chimpanzees and humans have a common ancestor, so there obviously must be something that this common ancestor gave both chimps and humans that is the basis for language.
I’m not willing, even now, to say that chimps that have or don’t have a language because I don’t know what language is yet and I don’t think that linguists have even come to the conclusion definitively so that it works across the board for every human group.
I would rather have had less loft goals than Herb in the sense that I would have liked to have seen a study to see if chimps could learn signs and use them in the right context and then we would have a discussion as to what language was.
He pretty much decided for us all what language was, even if it was wrong - he didn’t even address the deaf community when he started his study which really annoys the deaf community because they don’t use syntax and grammar in the way that hearing humans do but they certainly have language and communication.
So I think Herb was somewhat misguided because he was looking for too lofty a goal - he wanted to look in the mind and know what Nim thought. In 1975 when that New York article came out that said ‘soon we are going to know what it’s like to be a chimpanzee’ that’s a bit ridiculous and I would hope that Herb would agree that the goal of his study was a bit too lofty.
* Finally what was your reaction to the movie when you saw it for the first time?
I cried like a baby. I saw it at Monkey World the other night with a group of like minded people who work with chimpanzees and we were all teared, and I have seen it twenty four times now.
I find it very emotional and it’s a bit difficult for me because I loved Nim and I wished he was here now. But I also know that letting you guys access Nim and my relationship with Nim is important to chimps that are alive now and in cages in the United States - I think Nim is going to be a great representative for them.
We are hoping, really hoping that the public understand that it’s up to them to get those guys out and treat them with respect and dignity. So I hope that Nim becomes an ambassador for chimpanzees from now on and that we make a difference.
I think the film is that good because it doesn’t preach, it doesn’t tell you what to do it just opens you mind up to the possibility that we might be doing something wrong and that we might do something differently if we just… this isn’t going to be easy but nothing good is ever easy. It’s not cheap and it’s not easy but it’s the right thing and we ought to do it
Project Nim is released 12th August
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
This week sees the release of Project Nim a movie which tells the story of a chimpanzee taken from its mother at birth and raised like a human child by a family in a brownstone on the upper West Side in the 1970s.
I caught up with Bob Ingersoll, who features in the movie as a carer and ultimately friend for Nim, to chat about the movie and his relationship with the chimpanzee.
* Project Nim is set to be released later this week so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?
It’s about my relationship, as well as a number of other people, with a chimpanzee called Nim that was born at the University of Oklahoma in 1973 and it’s his life story - the trials and tribulations of Nim.
* How did you get involved in the documentary and how keen were you to be involved in the telling of Nim's story.
Well, as you know, there is a book by Elizabeth Hess called Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human and Simon Chinn (producer) and James Marsh (director) contacted me. I had a little reservation but after talking to Simon I felt that we were on the right track.
Then I talked to James- after we had our first conversation we decided to meet and he came to see me in San Francisco; he was in Copenhagen at the time and that made me think that ‘well he is serious’.
We hit it off fairly well, he’s a nice guy, we like each other so we decided not only could we deal with it but we were going to work together. It’s a b it difficult to hand over your home movies to the guy that has just won the Academy Award (laughs) so for me there was a little bit of… I’m not sure how to say this - I just wanted them to get it right.
They could have done a film that is not nearly as serious, not nearly as beautiful, not nearly as troubling it could have been a lot softer or harder but I think they have done just a marvellous job.
You can’t possibly but every single detail that went into Nim’s life but they did a darn good job of letting you, the public, access Nim in a way that had not happened up to this point, except for people like me and there weren’t many people who had interacted with him on the level that I had and my friends and colleagues had.
* We don't see you in the movie until about half way so can you explain your role in Nim's life?
I would consider myself Nim’s best friend, if you can say that about it. I met Nim at the university after he had been in New York and I felt like I could help Nim if he wanted to be my friend.
So I made myself available and then once I realised that we were forming a pretty cool friendship I pretty much spent every single day that I could with Nim for the time that I was with him - until I was banished and was couldn’t go and see him and other humans thought they knew better than me in terms of Nim’s situation.
It was very unfortunate for Nim because several old friends were cut out of his life and a lot of things happened to Nim that shouldn’t have happened - a lot of the chimps that when to Lemsip with Nim stayed there, they didn’t get rescued, so I was very concerned, not just for Nim, but all the chimps from the IPS.
It was a complex issue for me I did a lot of stuff to bring attention to the issue, which brought a lot of attention to me which was exactly positive, there were a lot of times when people would say ‘man you were out there’ but I am unapologetic about it because I think if the roles were reversed Nim would have done the same thing.
* You battled hard to prevent the chimps from being taken away by Dr Mahoney so how surprised were you by the lack of support from the other people who had been in Nim’s life?
Shocked! I approached them all, I approached them all including authority figures and the most famous of the famous chimp people, and they seemed uninterested in helping me to help me to help Nim.
I was floored I just couldn’t believe it and to this day people that you would think would be raising a huge stink about what’s going on in America in terms of chimpanzees don’t seem really that engaged.