Mueller cautioned that “we misinterpret interactions with dogs and cats all the time because we are projecting our human behaviors on them,” and that the same could have been happening in the film. She suspects that rather than the octopus befriending Foster, its repeated close encounters with the filmmaker were likely the result of a “fear barrier” being broken down and a “gained familiarity” that allowed for a more “intimate interaction.” Foster frames it as a friendship, said Schnell, “which is beautiful in its own way, but I don’t think that’s exactly what’s happening.” The filmmaker’s own strong emotional attachment made it hard for him not to “assume what the octopus might be feeling,” said Schnell. The panelists agreed the film involves some level of anthropomorphism, and that Foster slips into complicated territory when describing his close connection with the animal. During the film Foster struggles with his own emotions, in particular whether to interfere when the octopus is threatened, lending the narrative another level of complexity. “It’s presented as the story of the octopus, but really it’s about, and it’s through his lens,” said Mueller. Mueller, co-director of the Tufts Institute for Human-Animal Interaction, part of the reason the film is so compelling is because it’s not entirely clear who the main character is. Foster brings a “new perspective to this animal without a backbone that one might think you wouldn’t normally relate to … you can’t help feeling really emotional throughout the entire film, and I think that makes it really special, the intimacy of the whole interaction,” said Schnell.įor Megan K. “Unless you have some sort of tracking device, it’s going to be very difficult.” (Foster notes in the documentary that he honed his tracking skills while in the Kalahari Desert on another film project where he met “some of the best trackers in the world.”)Īlex Schnell, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s psychology department who studies intelligence in cephalopods, said she was impressed with Foster’s perspective on “this intimate interaction” with an animal known for being antisocial. Edelman offered his comments during a wide-ranging discussion about the film on Monday, sponsored by Harvard’s Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative and moderated by Harvard Law School Professor Kristen Stilt, who also directs the School’s Animal Law & Policy Program.įollowing an animal like that in the wild, particularly in the ocean, is “extraordinarily rare,” said Edelman, adding that such a feat proved challenging for even the great marine biologist Jacques Cousteau. That persistence and his ability to track and follow an animal in the wild, particularly in a marine environment, struck neuroscientist David Edelman, a visiting scholar at Dartmouth who is researching visual perception, cognition, and their neural bases in the octopus. “Then I had this crazy idea,” he tells an off-camera interviewer. It was during one of his first excursions that he spotted the octopus. But for others, including a number of scholars who took part in a recent virtual Harvard talk, the film’s appeal has as much to do with its emotional weight, the allure of its unlikely, nonhuman star, and the filmmaker’s perseverance.īurned out by his work and suffering from depression, Foster explains early in the film that he was seeking a way to recharge and reconnect with his family when he started free diving near his home. But the question remains: Why?įor many it was likely the perfect pandemic-era antidote: a feel-good, otherworldly escape from a horrific year. The 2020 Netflix release “My Octopus Teacher” became a viral sensation, a critical darling, and an Oscar winner. A quiet nature documentary shot by naturalist and filmmaker Craig Foster in his backyard - a lush kelp forest in False Bay, South Africa, teeming with marine life - and depicting his yearlong encounter with a cephalopod.
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