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âIs the Man Who Is Tall Happy?,â a Michel Gondry Documentary
Anatomy of a Scene: âIs the Man...â: The director Michel Gondry narrates a scene from his animated documentary interview with Noam Chomsky, âIs the Man Who Is Tall Happy?â

An easygoing, sometimes tough-going meander through the world of ideas, the animated documentary âIs the Man Who Is Tall Happy?â finds the French director Michel Gondry playing wide-eyed student to none other than Noam Chomsky. Theyâre a charmingly unpredictable, appealing match. Mr. Gondry, best known for films like âEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mindâ and âThe Green Hornet,â has occasionally dipped into documentary, with titles like the expansive âDave Chappelleâs Block Partyâ (in which the comic hosts a rocking Brooklyn block party) and the considerably more hermetic âThe Thorn in the Heartâ (about Mr. Gondryâs aunt and her son).

A scene from the documentary âIs the Man Who Is Tall Happy?,â with Noam Chomsky.

Michel Gondry, right, interviewing Noam Chomsky.

Noam Chomsky is, well, Noam Chomsky: the linguist, philosopher and spectacularly prolific author â he has more than 100 books to his name â whoâs often better known for his leftist politics. Born on Dec. 7, 1928, Mr. Chomsky belongs to that rare American species, the public intellectual, and his website, www.chomsky.info, testifies to the breadth and depth of his impact in a section called âWritings on Chomsky.â Here, you can find more than 100 articles that chart his life, interests and controversies in terse, headline form: from âChomskyâs Revolution in Linguisticsâ (1972) to âThe Pariahâ (1985); âConscience of a Nationâ (2001); âDoes Noam Chomsky Hate America?â (2003); and âAfter Multiple Denials, CIA Admits to Snooping on Noam Chomskyâ (2013).

Mr. Gondry was introduced to Mr. Chomsky by watching several documentaries, including âManufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Mediaâ (1993). Eventually, the two men met and talked, and talked some more, a dialogue that led to âIs the Man Who Is Tall Happy?â Mr. Gondry decided to animate their conversations to reveal â in a Chomsky-ian move â the filmmaking process that ordinarily remains hidden for the viewerâs pleasure (and manipulation). Using old-fashioned, hand-drawn animation; a bright, pulsing palette; and live interviews shot with a 16-millimeter film camera (a Bolex â hurray!), Mr. Gondry lays bare his own process as well as his intellectual anxieties as he gently questions and sometimes prods the admirably patient Mr. Chomsky.

Among their topics is the sentence that gives the movie its title and that Mr. Chomsky has used, by moving one word, to argue that the linguistic information children receive is insufficient to explain how they acquire the grammar of language. âIt seems plain,â Mr. Chomsky has written, âthat language acquisition is based on the childâs discovery of what, from a formal point of view, is a deep and abstract theory â a generative grammar of his language â many of the concepts and principles of which are only remotely related to experience by long and intricate chains of unconscious quasi-inferential steps.â

When Mr. Chomsky diagrams the title sentence with a marker to reveal its grammatical structure, Mr. Gondry makes those words come richly, cogently, to life.

Blissfully unconventional as a documentary and as an intellectual endeavor, âIs the Man Who Is Tall Happy?â wonât tell you everything youâve always wanted to know about Mr. Chomsky, but its modesty is one of its strengths, along with Mr. Gondryâs entrancing, vibrant illustrations. Both go a long way toward smoothing over some rough patches. Mr. Chomsky speaks in a low, generally unmodulated voice that can border on the soporific, especially when he drifts into abstraction.

One of the pleasures of the movie, though, is that Mr. Gondry remains acutely tuned into these passages, which he addresses with a startling openness and a lack of directorial ego. This is a movie that celebrates the life of a great mind and makes a case for the mind that knows less but keeps on asking.

Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?

An Animated Conversation With Noam Chomsky

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Directed by Michel Gondry; animation by Mr. Gondry, ValÃ©rie Pirson and TimothÃ©e Lemoine; edited by Adam M. Weber and Sophie Reine; produced by Georges Bermann, Mr. Gondry, Raffi Adlan and Julie Fong; released by Sundance Selects. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. This film is not rated.
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The French filmmaker Michel Gondry studies Noam Chomsky in âIs the Man Who Is Tall Happy?â
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A look at the ‘yawn’ of time
It’s a date which will live in anonymity.

Sunday, April 11, 1954, was the most boring day in modern history, according to one computer scientist’s calculations.

It was Election Day in Belgium, a Turkish scientist was born, and — according to the front page of the following day’s New York Post — two Bronx cops attended an academic conference on juvenile delinquency.

“We analyzed hundreds of millions of facts about dates and famous people” to find the least eventful day since 1900, William Tunstall-Pedoe told The Post.

Tunstall-Pedoe did the calculation to promote TrueKnowledge.com, his new search engine, which answers questions by plundering troves of facts.

“Unlike a typical day in the 20th century, there were no significant deaths or births or notable events on that day,” he said.

The only notable birth was that of Abdullah Atalar, a Turkish academic.

New York news was slightly more interesting that day, however.

“Police sought two gunmen who were routed by the unarmed night manager” after trying to rob a Bronx garage, read one Post story.
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assistant: It’s a date which will live in anonymity. Sunday, April 11, 1954, was the most boring day in modern history, according to one computer scientist’s calculations. It was Election Day in B…