On the
surface, the story of Project Nim, the new film from director James
Marsh (Man on Wire), resembles
fiction rather than non-fiction. It’s late 1973, and a chimpanzee born in a
prison-like research facility is shipped to New York to live with a family as
part of a controversial and bizarre behavioral experiment. Herbert Terrace, a
psychologist at Columbia University and mastermind of the proceedings, enlists
one of his former students—now married with children—to be the surrogate mother
to the chimp. The impetus was to show that the chimpanzee, raised naturally as
part of a human family, could learn to communicate with language. It was a bold
attempt to succeed where others had failed. In a brazen move, Terrace named the
chimp Nim Chimpsky, a dig at the linguist Noam Chomsky and the academic
establishment that decried the experiment before it even began.

It didn’t go
exactly as planned. As everyone quickly realized, Nim was a troublemaker,
though a lovable one with equal propensity to cuddle and smash valuable
household items. As he was moved from one family to another, and as a revolving
door of research assistants moved in and out, Nim grew more attached and more
angry at the same, developing a nasty habit of wanting to chew the faces off
his friends. Intelligent researchers were shocked to find that a chimpanzee,
even while wearing a cute pint sized sweater, could develop such animalistic
tendencies. He was quickly shipped away, but not without a fight.

The film is
a swifter, more nuanced cinematic adaptation of Elizabeth Hess’ non-fiction
account Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human. The book stakes a
firm moral position in the battle ground of animal rights, coming down brisk
and hard against the experiment. (The book’s extremely clear introductory
salvo: “Chimpanzees were never meant to be born, or live, in captivity.”) Project
Nim avoids snap judgments and righteous generalizations: the focus is on
what happened instead of what should have happened, never presenting heroes or
villains, although some appear more qualified for the position than others.

“That’s
probably a distinction I was aware of making the film,” Marsh explained during
a recent conversation. “I don’t know; I wouldn’t want to speak for Elizabeth,
but clearly she was more familiar with the world of animal rights and animal
culture then I am. What I wanted to do was try to tell the story in a more
neutral kind of way.”

Emotions run
rampant, and the story of Nim means many things to many people. Everyone has
their side of the story, most detailing what they did right and others did
wrong. Nobody can step back and see themselves as part of the problem. What’s
clear across the board is how much of a personal connection the animal made on
the lives involved; the film deals more in tears and anger, little in facts and
figures and data.

“You can
potentially fault the film for its lack of scientific rigor interest,” Marsh
noted, “but I was personally more interested in the behavior aspects of all
this. And what we would find out about ourselves in the context of this animal.
What behavior he fleshes out in us.”

Much of the
behavior in Project Nim is funny, sometimes bordering on the ridiculous.
Nim occasionally smokes pot, and is cared for by a series of sexually
intertwined research assistants, down on their knees for the father-figure
Terrace. The whole scene is heady, leftovers from the Age of Aquarius. At
times, it’s hard to believe any of these people could take care of themselves,
let alone a wild animal.

“It’s a
comic idea, ultimately,” Marsh said. “Bedtime for Bonzo, the Ronald
Regan film, which I saw again in relation to this, did something similar. It’s
a scientist who makes friends with a chimpanzee and lives in a house with him.
So clearly you can’t be puritanical about this stuff—it’s funny. It’s comic,
you know? Comedy is built on misunderstanding and here we have a
misunderstanding between two different species. That’s a pretty broad gulf that
you’re dealing with.”

The tone
never veers toward irreverence, countering the comedic utterances with a highly
formed style resembling a thriller instead of a fly-on-the-wall documentary.
Dramatic lighting and subjective camera movements are part of a larger mosaic
that includes standard talking-head interviews, rediscovered footage from the
period, and recreated scenes staged for the film. Marsh is a filmmaker who
moves casually between fiction and non-fiction—he directed a piece of the Red
Riding Trilogy, and is currently shooting a thriller starring Clive Owen—and
uses the techniques of both to great effect.

The end
result is something much stronger. Before making the film, one of the questions
Marsh said he asked himself was: “Can you make a biography of an animal?” The
answer is a resounding yes: one which is funny, tragic, and ultimately human.

Project Nim opens
July 8 at Angelika Film Center and Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln
Center

Jimmy’s

43 E. 7th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.)

212-982-3006

Ahh, October: cooler weather, dwindling
daylight and a time to laud Germans, or at least their gastronomy. ‘Tis Oktoberfest season, those
31 days of pilsners and cylindrical tubes of grilled swine. Strap on lederhosen, bake some rope-thick
pretzels…and open a bar-restaurant specializing in meaty cuisine and pints of knock-you-on-your
ass beer?

Such is Jimmy’s, the latest addition to the East Village’s sudsy East
Seventh Street. In the grand, narcissistic tradition of Jean Georges, Jimmy’s is named after its
eponymous owner, Jimmy Carbone, previously of Second Avenue’s Patio bar.

His new joint’s difficult to locate, but it’s not La Esquina trickery
as much as subterranean positioning. Jimmy’s is half a block from McSorley’s, beneath Standings,
a ghost town of a sports bar. Open the gate, descend the stairs and enter an oompah-loompah canteen.

Various antlers line the low-ceilinged rooms (seating about 40), which
are decorated with empty beer kegs. The color scheme is as dark and rich as the sustenance I will soon
describe: wood fixtures the color of midnight, enough mirrors to appease a vain supermodel and
a smidgen of brick. Candlelight makes the package as cozy and comforting as grandma’s hug.

I visited Jimmy’s twice. The first time, I sat at the six-person bar and
sampled a $20-all-you-can-eat-and-drink special, which let the kitchen test and tweak recipes.
When I say kitchen, I really mean Carbone. He stands in a watch-him-cook nook, sizzling and sautéing
foodstuffs centering on beer and pig. Highlights included sautéed escarole with quarter-size
bacon slabs ($7), a belly-stuffing beef stew flavored with Victory IPA ($10) and crisp addictive,
skillet-fried beer sausages ($5) and a chickpea soup topped with spareribs ($12). The food was
proudly utilitarian: My taste buds didn’t do a conga dance, but the grub was affordable and ruthlessly
assassinated hunger.

I slaked my thirst, until my tongue grew thick, on Chimay ($8), Six Point’s
Belgian IPA ($6) and Victory Hop Devil IPA ($6). The prices were a buck or two north of acceptable,
which would’ve irked me if the beer wasn’t limitless. Finally, after five hours of imbibing and
eating, bartender Delia wised up: “I’m kicking you out now,” she said. “No more.”

I waddled upstairs with a sumo wrestler–like stomach, but I remained
unconvinced of Jimmy’s worth. Great times are a dime a dozen if booze is plentiful and uncommonly
cheap. Last year, for instance, I spent three hours drinking stolen Jägermeister inside
a phone booth.

So I returned to Jimmy’s a few weeks later. On a Thursday evening, the
restaurant was partly filled with parents, a baby or two and a pre-theater crowd. In the restaurant’s
rear there’s an adjoining room called the Seventh Street Small Stage, which hosts plays and jazz
acts. A captive audience. A brilliant conceit.

I root myself to a stool while Delia rests her arms on the bar. “Back so
soon?” she says, smiling. “Didn’t drink enough last time, did you?”

The answer, as always, is no.

“Well, we’ll just have to do something about that,” she says, passing
me a menu as I grab a thick pretzel from a bowl. Friendliness, a bit of sass: this is a refreshing change.
In fact, the rest of the all-women waitstaff is equally amiable and easygoing. They make you feel
welcome, not a wallet with a pulse.

I select Six Point’s smoked porter pint for seven dollars. Why seven
bucks? I muse.

“We just invented the prices,” Delia explains.

“Perhaps you could’ve invented them lower,” I reply. She passes me my
porter, which has a delicious chocolate undercurrent. I sip it like it’s precious serum.

There are numerous precious serums on the menu. Jimmy’s serves no liquor
and no wine worth mentioning, but it features several dozen rarefied beers identified by bin numbers.
Across-the-pond brew like Belgium’s Corsendonk Pale Ale and Val-Dieu triple run about a ten-spot
apiece. This is fantastic for experimentation, not Oktoberfest-style plastering.

So what: Jimmy’s is no boozitorium. It’s a rathskeller refuge, a comfortable
sweatshirt, a faithful homage to Eastern European consumption. You are here to be cosseted by stewed
animals and artisanal beers, not chicken wings and watery Bud. Sure, the culinary compass treads
well-stomped territory, but wheels don’t always need re-invention. Jimmy’s is designed for a
meaty nosh, a beer to relish and chats that stretch into the hours while upstairs, the city hums past,
ignorant of another land lurking below.