The animated documentary Proteus explores the nineteenth century's engagement with the undersea world through science, technology, painting, poetry and myth. The central figure of the film is biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel, who found in the depths of the sea an ecstatic and visionary fusion of science and art.
Direction
Lebrun's morphing animation makes Haeckel's drawings literally breathe.
Cinematography
19th-century etchings liquefy into hypnotic underwater hallucinations.
Score
Eerie ambient soundscape feels dredged from the ocean floor.
Director
David Lebrun
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Haeckel coined the terms 'ecology,' 'phylum,' and 'stem cell,' yet his fabricated embryo drawings were used as evidence in the Scopes Monkey Trial.
The film's animation technique—scanning and digitally morphing 19th-century illustrations—influenced the visual language of subsequent nature documentaries like 'Planet Earth.'
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