Nim & Noam “Project Nim” is a twisted mirror image of “Grizzly
Man.” The former is about a guy who thinks he can make a wild
animal human by raising it in civilization. The latter is about
about a guy who thinks he can make himself a wild animal by
living in the woods. The former gets tenure. The latter gets
eaten. Both want to be famous. “Grizzly Man”, a 2005 documentary
by Werner Herzog, concerns one Timothy Treadwell, a suicidal
misfit who goes to live among grizzly bears in Alaska every
summer for 13 years. He videos his encounters with grizzlies and
concludes that because he hasn’t been eaten yet, he is one of
them. He also sees himself as their protector, even though they
are already protected in a national park. And then the bears
decide to eat Treadwell and his girlfriend. Moral: Bears will be
bears. The tragic hero of “Project Nim,” a 2011 documentary by
James Marsh, is Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who is raised by
humans who think they can teach him to communicate using sign
language (chimps don’t hav