Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)As an avid fan of sequenced graphics used to animate a story-line, this 20 year labor of love tells the tale of the radiolarian discovered(?) and lavishly illustrated (4000 drawings) by Ernst Haeckel. As fantastic as the story is in describing the effect that this single-celled organism had on the world of its time, it is the behind the scenes making-of by the director that reveals a dedicated researcher and phenomenally patient compositor. I started my career in animation & then computer graphics some 20 years ago, and know full well the tedium that single frame animation places on the animator prior to computer aided pieces. Add to that a fabulous and captivating story, plus brilliant displays of this unique and unequaled protozoan, and the viewer will be transported to a time where discoveries opened the minds and hearts of a curious population. A must see.
Please buy this and do not try to download it for free anywhere. The effort that went in to producing this by the solo editor, writer, animator should be aptly rewarded with as much capital as possible.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Proteus (2004)
{WINNER! Jury Award Best Documentary - Philadelphia Int'l Film Festival}{WINNER! Audience Award Best Documentary - Santa Cruz Int'l Film Festival}{WINNER! Outstanding Creative Achievement Award - Santa Barbara Int'l Film Festival}For the nineteenth century, the world beneath the sea played much the same role that "outer space" played for the twentieth. The ocean depths were at once the ultimate scientific frontier and "the reservoir of the soul": the place of the unconscious, of imagination and the fantastic.The central figure of PROTEUS is biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel. As a young man, Haeckel found himself torn between science and art, materialism and religion, rationality and passion, outer and inner worlds. Through his discoveries beneath the sea, Haeckel eventually reconciled these dualities, bringing science and art together in a unitary, almost mystical vision. His work profoundly influenced not only biology but also movements, thinkers and authors as disparate as Art Nouveau and Surrealism, Sigmund Freud and D.H. Lawrence, Vladimir Lenin and Thomas Edison.The key to Haeckel's vision was a tiny undersea organism called the radiolarian, one of the earliest forms of life. Haeckel discovered, described, classified and painted four thousand species of these one-celled creatures. In their intricate geometric skeletons, seemingly infinite variety and stunning beauty, Haeckel saw the future possibilities of organic and created life.20 years in the making and based almost entirely on images of nineteenth century painters, photographers and scientific illustrators, PROTEUS brings these undersea worlds to life in a "visually stunning fusion of art, cinema and science" (David Caron, Chair of Biological Sciences, USC).
