… a monkey.Well, specifically a female capuchin monkey named Capucine, who finally had a film Oedipe accepted into the Clermont-Ferrand film festival in France. After ten years in training to use all the equipments needed to direct a movie, Oedipe is her very own film. Ordering around the people and sitting in her director's chair, she has become the very first non-human animal to direct and film a motion picture.
Capucine actually started training as a service animal for disabled people and was serving a quadriplegic man, until the man and others started to notice her high interest in television and cameras. With such passion, the people at the Japanese primate research center started the filmmaking project for primates, although Capucine remains the top talent. Her film Oedipe had received mixed reviews. Some claimed it as a "cut and paste" job while others comment on its "originality and modern approach."
Nonetheless, Capucine is just like any other monkey. She only has a high interest in a certain "human" category, which makes her one of the many animals that does human-like activities. As of late, we hear about all kinds of animals learning to paint (e.g. elephants and chimpanzees), playing instruments (e.g. cats on the piano), and much more. Clearly these skills are mainly gained through captivity (although I do remember an orangutan in the wild that lives near the village that enjoys doing laundry for no other reason than enjoyment perhaps… I just don't remember when I heard about this), as these animals adopt "human" activities. This is just one of the ways an animal adopts a certain skill that allows people to understand them (or just for the pure pleasure of having fun). It is difficult for people to understand or communicate with animals without turning the interaction into a sort of dog-and-man relationship (i.e. we teach the animal do something, and they do it with an award). Capucine is just one monkey that likes to show her ideas or works through a media she enjoys using and is understandable to people.
Fun fact: Capucine enjoys watching King Kong and ET on her free time. She also likes to play Donkey Kong.
For the Article: Monkey Directs and Creates her Own Film
Posted by Leona Chan (Group A, Due: 11-9-10)
That is really cool! It reminds me of those children’s movies about animals that I used to love when I was younger. Do you know if Capucine was actually trying to create a movie or if he was merely pointing a camera and getting people to do different things? Also as a director what did Capucine do?
ReplyDeletePosted by: Sara Weaver
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ReplyDeleteDo you think Capucine is trying to convey a message or is it something that people step-by-step taught her to do over the ten years? I'm curious to know how much of film-making she can do and how much she understands vs. copies from people? Do they describe any of this information or about other primates doing similar activities? For example, what kind of teaching process do people go through with the primates? Very fascinating topic! Thanks.
ReplyDeletePosted by Shyla Morsbach
Hey Leona this is a very interesting article of squirrels interesting in/trying to learn human behaviors. I have noticed that the squirrels on campus are more receptive to human activity than squirrels back at home. Did the article delve into any of the type of training Capucine received before being able to help others and filming?
ReplyDelete-Himanshu
I love this post! It really makes me think about how humans are affecting nature as well. In a natural environment animals would never be able to do different art forms like filming and playing instruments. This shows that they don't always learn just based on necessity for survival (although these animals probably have incentive based training). Very cool to think about.
ReplyDeletePosted by: Bailey Mannix