Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? (2013) User Reviews

totally unique, surprisingly compelling

[remembervhs · 8/10 · 6 December 2013]

One of the other reviews here is very negative. That review's author uses terms like "self- indulgent" to describe this film.

That term is totally accurate. This movie is the definition of self-indulgence. A series of edited interviews is played while hand-drawn animations form and transform on the screen. That's the film. It sounds ridiculous.

But it drew me in and captivated me. The topics range from linguistic theory, Noam Chomsky's views on various things, and musings about his childhood. Gondry's own thoughts and interpretations, also included, seemed to miss the mark fairly often. But I felt like Gondry's voice ended up adding something to the movie. He is someone trying to understand complex concepts: sometimes he gets it, sometimes it doesn't seem like he does. From what I've written so far, this movie may sound like a nightmare to you.

However, the whole concept was so original, and the drawings were engaging and interesting - - like a hand-drawn kaleidoscope with patterns that change depending on the topic being discussed. Gondry's thick french accent might distract some viewers, but I found it intelligible (there are also hand-drawn "subtitles" when he speaks, although I found them harder to read than I did to understand Gondry's accent). Chomsky has always struck me as a compelling speaker. He is soft-spoken but knows his lines (speaking figuratively) and makes his points well.

All in all a unique and surprisingly entertaining experience. 8/10

A Bit of a Jumble

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 17 June 2014]

A series of interviews featuring linguist, philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky done in hand-drawn animation.

Because of Gondry's accent, and at times because of Chomsky's age, the discussion is a bit difficult to understand, and you have to focus. Interestingly, there is a communication breakdown between Gondry and Chomsky, as well, because of translation and pronunciation issues.

The film is part biographical, part about language acquisition. There is no discussion of politics, which is probably good, because it makes this a much more timeless presentation.

There is mention of "irreducible complexity", which seemed odd, and then Gondry mentions astrology? He seems to be a bit out of his league at times. At least he was able to get Chomsky to talk about his wife Carol, which has been a sensitive topic.

Worth watching but irritating at times

[Imdbidia · 7/10 · 18 February 2017]

Gondry, a visionary whimsical director and director of some of my favorite movies ever, and Chomsky, one of the most important thinkers and linguists of the last century, and one of the 'idols' of my youth, sit face to face and talk about stuff. What could go wrong? A lot!

Gondry is an artist, not a linguist or a scientist, so I wasn't expecting him to be at Chomsky's level on what Chomsky knows best: linguistics and cognitive science. However, he does a good job at extracting some juice about many personal matters as well as a general discussion on Chomsky's themes. The conversation is not a chit-chat for sure, the subjects discussed are complex and need of your full attention, unless you are a linguist and familiar with those. The naive animation is whimsical and humorous, hilarious at times, sentimental at others, surreal at others, but very engaging; without the animation, I might have been watching my watch as much as the movie. Besides, the animation was really on point quite often, and Gondry is able to get onto animation difficult concepts, quite abstract at times, and make them look simple for us. When Chomsky relaxes, he seems to be a nice man, and it was lovely getting to know a bit about his family background and personal life, the human behind the brain. Finally, I also loved the introduction made by Gondry on how a documentary or a film about a person is the film-maker's filtered version of a given subject or person as the film-maker decides what goes on and what doesn't in a film, how a person is portrayed etc.

A few things irritated me or disappointed me in the film. The first is Chomsky's attitude at times, arrogant and elitist, who doesn't listen to Gondry. I found ironic that he, the quintessential linguist, had difficulty understanding that Gondry's mother tongue not being English, there were some semantic confusion of misinterpretation on his part, and that Gondry wanted to explain himself properly; however, every time he did so, Chomsky cut him sharply.Also, I expect Chomsky not to act as God, as this is not an academic symposium but a documentary for the general public. Several times in the film, he says "and that is wrong" and doesn't explain why is wrong, and moves on expecting us, the viewers, to get what he means by magic!

The second thing that annoyed me was the fact that Politics were left off the movie, except for a brief comment on Sarkozy. This was never going to be a film for the Masses, or the sort of film that attracts ultraconservative viewers, so why skipping Politics altogether?

Finally, Gondry himself irritated me a bit. I love his work, his vision, the fact that he doesn't take himself too seriously, and his endless curiosity and creativity. However, at times, I felt the film was as much about himself as was about Chomsky, and there was not need for that. Chomsky is not the Kardashians, he doesn't do this sort of stuff that often, why wasting time on Gondry's personal musings? I also found surprising that Gondry didn't discuss or establish which sort of questions were off the charts beforehand, because it's a bit painful hearing him asking Chomsky how he felt about his wife's death (can't you imagine that?) or what makes him happy.

Overall, a fascinating film that requires of your full attention, but it is rewarding, never boring, and offers an insight, albeit limited, into Chomsky the real man and some fascinating subjects as the way we humans apprehend reality.

A Must See for Anyone Interested in the Creative Process

[jlevine5 · 9/10 · 25 November 2013]

While Mr. Gondry's accent took a little getting used to, the effort was well worth it. I applaud Mr. Gondry's creativity in presenting Chomsky's ideas about science and philosophy and the doggedness he exhibited in certain instances in delving into the meaning of Chomsky's notions about how we learn and think. The use of animation transformed what for some may have been a droll lecture into a lively and interesting narrative about philosophy, religion, and of course linguistics. I also applaud Gondry's decision not to focus on Chomsky's radical and divisive political views, which would have only detracted from his views about philosophy, science, linguistics and religion. I recommend the film to anyone who is interested in learning about the type of mind-set necessary to think clearly and originally and to make sense of how the world works.

Reel Look: 'Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?'

[JosephPezzuto · 7/10 · 30 October 2014]

"What makes you happy?" "I don't really think about it much." What do you get when two you combine the innovative brainwaves of French director Michael Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep) with that of esteemed American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator and activist Noam Chomsky? You get an animated documentary film in which challenges the mind and provokes thoughts to arise within the deepest spectrums of our psyches we never knew were there, with a unique choice of aesthetic. So, is the man who is tall "happy"? Let's take a look.

Released in February 2013 and directed, written and animated by Gondry, he uses his own drawings to allow complex ideas into more accessible and tangible ones to expand the forum of the documentary to its fullest extent. Painstakingly taking two years of his life to doodle each and every sketch to match the soundtrack of the learned wisdom of Chomsky, Gondry indeed pulled off yet another feat with his original, audacious and colorful animation. So, is the man who is tall happy? It was twice in 2010 that Gondry met with Chomsky for a series of conversations about his deep knowledge in philosophy, linguistics and also for a glimpse through the window into the author's childhood in Philadelphia. Gondry was inspired by picking up the work of Chomsky in a New York bookshop. Deciding to first record talks with the professor at MIT, where Chomsky teaches, Gondry then used those discussions as a springboard for animated explorations of their content. Chomsky says at one point in the film, "If you're willing to be puzzled, you're able to learn," a concept he stands by as he grows. Even an intelligent man like Chomsky can be confused, it seems, and through this, we as the audience learn quite a lot indeed. Even though no one specifically asked or confronted Gondry to create a 16mm animated documentary about one of the most prominent thinkers in society, he explains that he was looking for a project to occupy his free time while editing 'The Green Hornet' and producing 'Mood Indigo'.

As we the audience are seeing the ideas and theories of Chomsky come to life on the screen through the animation of Gondry, what we are actually viewing is the interpretation of those ideas and theories as Gondry depicts them. The drawings show themselves to be vivid and playful, but also a tad crude. But one cannot blame a director he intrepidly keeps us intrigued with his dancing and lively animation at 24 frames per second.

Not all of the movie is theory and concept. We actually meet Chomsky halfway into the picture. H speaks of growing up with an academic "Zionist" father in Philadelphia, his experience in a grade school, the terror of race riots during WWII—filling the rounded portrait of an intensely guarded but affable man. Near the end of the film, in the sole musical portion (scored to Mia Doi Todd's "I Gave You My Home"), Gondry pays a poignant homage to Chomsky's wife of 59 years, Carol, who passed away in 2008. It appears that the man, Chomsky, is tall but not so happy, due to the death of his wife. At the end of the movie, it seems that, perhaps for the first time, the two men with very different minds might finally be on the same page.

At 89 minutes, one might argue that that is too much time to be listening to a great thinker discuss theorems and ideologies of scientific concepts. In its nicest and truest form, the film plays out as a cool after school meeting with that certain professor you've always admired. Chomsky and Gondry, although mismatched on paper, share an odd but genuine chemistry when it switches back to real life.

Bill Stamets from the Chicago Sun-Times puts it well: "The film's title dates from the '50s, when it served linguists as a specimen of a polar interrogative to demonstrate a structure-dependent syntactic rule. Or, in ordinary language: how a child knows which 'is' to move when changing a sentence like 'The man who is tall is happy' into a question. Chomsky explains generative grammar with ease, even as he calls language "an infinite array of structured expressions which have a meaning and a sound." The animation was truly a labor of love, dedicated solely to his "professor" that Gondry, the "pupil," looked upon with admiration and respect. Stylistically capturing beautifully abstract and yet sophisticated drawings to clarify Chomsky's occasional drivel, 'Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy?' is indeed a creative and colorful sojourn into the kaleidoscopic minds of a modern linguist and a director's whimsical and whirring animation. Again, is the man who is tall happy? Yes...yes I believe he is.

Perfect for What It Is

[rzajac · 10/10 · 12 December 2013]

This is a fantastic, intelligent wedding of word and image. It's like a genuine synthesthetic experience, like the animator wanted us to have a cogent, dependable hallucination of Chomsky's brilliant, eloquent statements. From time to time I would sort of "forget" whether I was hearing Chomsky or seeing what he was saying; they sometimes switched places... or (perhaps more accurately) truly merged in my mind, like finally having the image of one of those 3D "art" images pop out at you when your eyes finally settle into the correct parallax and focus mix. I found that when I was relaxed and letting the flow of ideation wash over me, my experience was "of a piece"; almost psychedelically.

What can I say? It's just a lovely way to mainline a genius' thinking; the filmmaker succeeds in his quest to enhance and tease out the intuitive aspects to technical/scientific thinking; and that's downright inspirational!

Check it out.

--------Addendum

Just want to add one more point. As much as I find Chomsky's politics to be vital and morally attuned, it STILL strikes me as a great artistic decision on the part of Gondry to 1) minimize the politics, 2) put them off 'til (largely) the end, and 3) subsume them to the task of conveying warmth (not urgency). You get a measured, requisite dose of Chomsky's politics, *without* the overwhelming sense one often gets with Chomsky that, up against so much troglodytic inertia, the task truly daunts. Bravo.

If you want to see noam chomsky be mean

[Pukeonthestreet · 6/10 · 11 February 2020]

Then see this. Otherwise it's just sad to shut down Michel s optimism at every turn. Ugh.

An interview with Chomsky like no other

[xWRL · 9/10 · 13 July 2014]

As is usual, this new interview with Noam Chomsky brings out his analysis of current and recent goings-on in the world, focusing on how U.S. might and knowledge has been misused to advance U.S. interests, not always successfully. You'll either agree or disagree, but his extensive reading and his bent for radical inquiry produce some striking eye-openers.

The interview also covers Chomsky's views on linguistics and evolutionary biology in terms that will make sense to most lay people.

But what's really new in this particular film is that we learn from Chomsky about his upbringing, his family, and his life since the death of his wife in 2008. Coming from the horse's mouth, this is quite an important addition to our understanding of a remarkable life.

Accompanying the interview are lighthearted stick-figure cartoons illustrating the points at hand. Probably the filmmaker's idea was, laudably enough, to move away from the talking heads format, but the result is pretty goofy and distracting. The interviewer's thick French accent makes his questions hard to follow, but the DVD comes with English subtitles. Plus, over the course of the interview your ears may get habituated enough to the Frenchman's distortions to make out what he's trying to say.

It's a warm, incisive, broad-ranging interview, with lots of new material for even the most dedicated Chomsky devotee.

Interessting introduction to Chomsky by a stupid interviewer

[dominik1812 · 6/10 · 21 June 2020]

Interviewer puts himself in the focus too much and is blamimg his lack of understanding on his lack of english skills. Overall the animation are cute and enjoyable.

Immensely refreshing 'little' film about a 'great' thinker

[Pasky · 8/10 · 25 November 2015]

Even when they are full of ideas, some filmmakers can be sometimes a bit 'stingy' when they try to film great thinkers. What happens when an image inventor confronts a creator of concepts? There can be many misunderstandings (maybe due to the language barrier?) and theaters can remain painfully empty. Not long ago, in 'Film Socialism', Jean-Luc Godard filmed Alain Badiou talking in front of an empty theater.

It seems that Michel Gondry accepts with great pleasure the emptiness that can sometimes separate images and philosophy on the screen. His film plays with the principle of 'illustration': this funny documentary is made of (often) naive drawings, coming from the discussion between the two men.

The viewer will not leave the theater with a manual on 'generative grammar' of the American linguist, MIT star. Instead he will be struck, blown away by the creative explosion of a free filmmaker, an inventor renewing at a rate of a thousand digressions and associations of ideas, with its memorial vein and dream, like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep (his most romantic period). No wonder that the film is secretly haunted by Chomsky's absolute love for his late wife, Carol. Nonetheless, I found this 'little film' immensely refreshing.

It could've been wonderful - it's just pointless

[ana-arist · 3/10 · 27 September 2014]

As deep as a saucer, Gondry take on the nature of human language is just a giant waste of time, both Chomsky's and ours. Gondry interviews one of the leading authorities on human language and he cannot think of better questions to ask him than "what makes you happy?" or "do you miss your dead wife?".

If you're interested in Chomsky works, look somewhere else. If you happen to like Gondry - and want to maintain any respect for him - do yourself a favor and skip this movie.

I understand some people appreciate Gondry lavish visual creativity (I usually do, too), but in this movie they cannot compensate for the fact the Gondry has no idea what his own movie is about (since he has no clue what Chomsky is talking about most of the time).

One of the best

[alexnicolaj · 10/10 · 13 September 2018]

This is seriosly one of my most favourite movies. I liked it so much that i even used the footage of it to make two music videos. It hasn't really gotten much feedback other than my close friends and they all seem to be positive.

An enlightening animated maestro which makes accessible, the worlds of philosophy and science

[akshaylakhi · 10/10 · 17 June 2017]

Gondry, by posing as a layman and genuinely trying to understand, asks the most basic questions which Chomsky goes on to address fundamental issues in philosophy and the foundations of modern science.

The animations and illustrations merging with the voice of Chomsky in the background makes the loaded philosophical and scientific content accessible to the viewer. References from classical science to Galileo and Newton drive home the essence of science, a true endeavor to move from a description to an explanation about the world. Gondry's honest admissions of losing Chomsky's line of thought, further help in bringing the viewer on to the same page.

The film's frank rendition of Chomsky's personal life and academic journey sets the context for the viewer to understand the 'greatest academic alive,' thus making the film more humane and relatable.

PS: do watch the film with subtitles; because their accents make it difficult to follow their speech.

Possibly one of the most insightful documentairies ever made

[user-968-582176 · 10/10 · 1 April 2020]

The film itself is something of a contraction of terms. It is a documentary and it is also animated, which makes it something of an cinematic oxymoron. Yet, the end result is something far more honest than a typical documentary.

Most documentaries are filmed and edited, giving only the aspects of the story the filmmaker wishes to the audience to see. By making an animated documentary there is no way someone could misinterpret this film as reality. It causes the viewer to question the very nature of the film they are watching as well as question the nature of reality itself which is in fact the essence of the film.

The film features unconventionally creative visuals accompanied by the radically intellectual thoughts of Noam Chomsky. It gives an intimate and illuminating look into Noam's mind, painting a portrait of a mind that is both complex and compelling.

The sheer uniqueness of this film makes it worth watching. It is a must for anyone studying the art of documentary film. Ultimately, the film stops short of nothing less than brilliant.

It might work for some, but it didn't for me

[KineticSeoul · 3/10 · 31 July 2015]

This could have been a very thought provoking interview movie, but it didn't turn out so well. Mainly because of the questions and direction the director decided to go with. The43 main points Noam Chomsky really delves into is the human mind from child to adulthood, religion, existentialism and linguistics. Some subjects are delved into pretty well and I found it interesting, although some parts was a bit difficult to comprehend. Because of the director's accent and Noam Chomsky monotone and gruff voice. Noam Chomsky really didn't seem to care if he was in this movie or not. If the questions were more impactful and well thought-out it would have been a far more compelling and interesting movie. The movie also didn't seem to flow in a coherent manner. Even "About A Son" has been done better. Despite the animation when it came to the interview, it didn't seem like whole lot of effort was put into this. Even in the beginning of the movie, the director even admits to egotistical and that is probably what ruined this. This movie just didn't seem to need all that artsy stuff.

3/10

All about the filmmaker

[abestark · 2/10 · 27 December 2013]

This film should have come with a prominent warning label. It is more about the unintelligible filmmaker than about Chomsky. It ignores Chomsky's fascinating political persona, other than to allow him to briefly mention that he was in jail several times, without elaboration.

Very little of Chomsky comes through, since about 98% of the visuals are animations and hard-to-read hand scrawled subtitles, and the interviewer/filmmaker, who talks a lot, has an cripplingly heavy French accent and badly mispronounces many words to the extent that they can't be comprehended at all. What immense irony -- a film about linguistics made by someone who can't use the language properly, yet insists on putting himself front-and-center, both verbally and visually.

Chomsky, one of the towering intellectual giants and political philosophers of our time, deserves much better than this.

Delusional

[vladoron · 1/10 · 25 November 2013]

Before Michel Gondry can use his own voice in a movie, he should learn English pronunciation. The "film" would've been a bit more tolerable if he simply had kept the camera on Chomsky's face and let him talk, instead of cutting away to idiotic doodles while he himself comments on it incomprehensibly. Early on in the movie Gondry says, "My English is so bad." That ain't no lie! Between his unintelligible accent and Chomsky's monotonous drone, I fell asleep. And that's a pity, because it is always compelling to watch Chomsky, one of the finest intellects of modern times and a keen observer of American civilization. It must have seemed like a bright idea to visually dissect Chomsky's notions on linguistics, religion, philosophy, and other topics, but unfortunately this is a wasted opportunity, as there was no rigor applied to match the respect the filmmaker obviously felt for his subject. What we have here is an example of utter self- indulgence that Gondry should share only with his family and friends - if they can stay awake.

Utterly annoying and distracting from the topic

[chijim70 · 1/10 · 7 August 2014]

I would have LOVED to hear a good film with some narration concerning Naom. Instead I got a constant annoying projector and misc sounds interrupting what was otherwise a potentially great film. The graphics were amateurish and often pointless. I felt it discounted from his responses more than enhancing them. I didn't see the point in the perpetual noise or randomly agitating the viewer with unnecessary sound. I'm not so schizophrenic I need perpetual noise in order to appreciate an otherwise potentially dry point. Not that I even think of Naom as dry! He's interesting and all that crud did was detract from his speaking or the ability to focus on it. You'd think you'd want to enhance what he is saying but this film does everything but. It just wasn't enjoyable . . . . . . . . . .

Chomsky answering questions for 80 minutes? I'm in.

[strangelove89 · 3 November 2018]

I mean not to sound sycophantic but any document that has noam chomsky talking for 80 minutes is a valuable one. Gondry is an awkward guy which is fun to listen. They get along well. Noam is, as always, insightful and inspiring.