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Proteus: A Nineteenth Century Vision

by David Lebrun
First Run / Icarus Films, Brooklyn, NY, 2004
DVD, 59 mins., col.
Sale: $390
Distributor’s website: http://www.frif.com/.

Reviewed by Amy Ione
PO Box 6813
Santa Rosa CA 95406

ione@diatrope.com

Mixing an array of visuals with a powerful script, Proteus: A Nineteenth Century Vision is a remarkable movie that continually urges the mind to reach beyond what is examined on the screen. David Lebrun, the director, achieves this result by framing the hour around the life of Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). Opening with a collage of details from engravings of this time, the viewer immediately senses that Proteus is not a typical film. This intuition is confirmed as animated sequences of Ernst Haeckel’s geometric drawings are joined with well-edited sequences showing images of nineteenth century painters, graphic artists, photographers and scientific illustrators. Culled from European and American collections, these images expand on the environment that led to the formation of Haeckel’s vision of a unity of all nature.

What I liked most about the film was the interweaving of Haeckel’s paintings and intricate drawings with the narrative. Raised as a Christian and trained as a scientist, the young Haeckel found himself torn between science and art, materialism and religion, rationality and passion, outer and inner worlds. His early sense of "conflicting realities" was turned around when he envisioned a unity while working with the intricate geometric skeletons of the tiny undersea organisms called radiolaria. The scientific projects that followed were capable of touching his deepest artistic tendencies. Ultimately forming a vision of confluence, he was able to discover, describe, classify and paint 4000 species of these one-celled creatures. Haeckel’s greatest contribution grew from their strikingly crystalline structure, which led him to maintain that the simplest organic life had originated spontaneously from inorganic matter by a sort of crystallization. Eventually, Haeckel proposed his Biogenetic Law, and his research in the development of higher organisms led to the famous phrase ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny’ that we now associate with his name.

Well-known as a zoologist and evolutionist who was greatly influenced by Darwin as Haeckel was, Proteus does an excellent job in explaining that Haeckel initially saw the pull toward art and science in terms of a conflict between the rigors of science and the Romanticism of the nineteenth century. LeBrun meticulously parallel’s Haeckel’s evolution toward a holistic vision through his documentation of the era’s focus on the ocean depths, including key events such as the laying of the transatlantic cable. This well-orchestrated approach aids the viewer in perceiving how the exploration of underwater variations influenced his path and places Haeckel within both the scientific and artistic communities. Indeed, as Proteus seamlessly blends the empirical and visionary relationships to the invisible, mysterious ocean depths we see him in terms of how the spiritual view of Romantic poetry, myth, and painting related to views of history, biology, and oceanography. For example, a taste of the Romanticism that was in the air is exquisitely captured when the film juxtaposes Gustave Dore’s illustrations of Coleridge’s "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" with commentary on the poem itself without losing sight of how the ocean’s mysteries stimulated investigative problem solving. Haeckel’s interest in examining the variety of living creatures that inhabit the sea was a part of the scientific worldview, and thus his projects offered another kind of commentary on how the ocean’s secrets were exposed and brought to the surface.

Watching the video I was captivated by the integration of the images and its flow. It was only when it concluded that I began to think that evolution continues to have difficultly explaining the variety and specificity of the radioloarian and dinoflagellate species. [They have eyes, whipping tails, and hunting behavior even though they are single-celled!] While not sure where this "fits" in terms of the film’s thesis, it still seems important to not lose sight of this "detail". I also found I did not fully accept the script’s idea that the nineteenth century was drawn to the ocean depths much as those of twentieth century looked toward outer space. Without a doubt, I agreed when the early narration stated that each age has its own image of the world, and those of the nineteenth century were drawn to the ocean depths much as the twentieth century turned toward outer space. However, as the story unfolded I found myself thinking of the twentieth century figures influenced by Haeckel and how powerfully their ideas established the later century’s trajectory from psychology to the brain and consciousness.

In light of Haeckel’s reach, it seems more astute to compare the draw of the ocean in the nineteenth century with the turn toward both inner and outer space throughout the twentieth century. Both Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Carl G. Jung (1871-1961) acknowledged their debt to Haeckel. Jung was inspired by Goethe’s Faust, much as Proteus outlines to have been the case with Haeckel, and many of the events in Haeckel’s life were reminiscent of Jung’s biography. These include his internal conflict early in life when he was pulled towards art and science, his fascination with Goethe’s work, and his religious upbringing. Given the many similarities, it is perhaps not surprising that I kept seeing Jung’s drawings and mandalas in my mind as the varied images flashed on the screen. This enlarged conclusion is buttressed when we add in another thinker, Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1954). Cajal is often called the "Father of Neurobiology" and, like Haeckel, had considered a career in art. Instead, he too studied medicine, eventually bringing his love for drawing to his studies of the brain, often sketching out his ideas. While we know Cajal was impressed by Haeckel’s evolutionary theories, it is hard to say if the neuroscientist contemplated how this nineteenth century figure similarly found a way to integrate his artistic talents with his scientific research.

Wonderfully edited and animated, the final product is an indescribable viewing experience. Moreover, the release of Proteus suggests that the urge to re-examine this visionary thinker is justly gaining momentum. The late Stephen Jay Gould, who re-visited this thinker’s contributions in his Ontogeny and Phylogeny (1977), provided an examination of the relationship between evolution and the development of the individual organism. Like Proteus, Gould offers a sympathetic reconsideration of Haeckel in his effort to re-acquaint the reader with this German biologist’s "Biogenetic law", largely dismissed today. Proteus, almost 30 years later, has expanded Gould’s work. It offers a stimulating and stunning experience in the form of a poetic statement. As such, the film demonstrates that creative minds are fertile and varied. It reminds us that many thinkers who link art and science see a world in which there is synergy rather than conflict between these modes. Perhaps this statement is Proteus’ (and Haeckel’s) greatest gift.

 

 




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