Microcosmos and Other Anthropomorphic Levels

Microcosmos moves beyond primitive anthropomorphism by including scenarios that draw on folk-psychology 

levels of anthropomorphism. Like humans, these insects must contend with a variety of external conflicts, 

for example, showing they have desires and strategically determine how best to fulfill them. In one scene, 

a beetle rolls a huge mound of dirt (a boulder from a human perspective), pushing it up a hill seemingly 

in time with the instrumental march in the background. In close up, the beetle looks like a soldier wearing

 protective armor. When this “boulder” gets stuck on a twig, the music heightens, building tension, but 

the perseverant beetle strategically frees the boulder from the obstacle and rolls on. When the camera 

zooms out, it shows the beetle on a gravel road, emphasizing the difficult obstacle it has overcome 

and its relation with humanity’s approach to challenging situations.

Other scenes combine primitive psychology and emotional anthropomorphism. In one scene, for example, 

a quail pecks up ants, killing and eating them one by one, the stamp of its beak louder than the woodwinds

 accompanying it, and the crack of ant exoskeleton turns this documentary into a moment of horror. 

The quail is meeting its basic needs, but the ants flee in what looks like fear, a fear heightened by 

the music and horrific cracks in the soundtrack. The horror continues in a pond scene where water

 bugs catch and sting flies, and amphibians feed on water bugs. Here again, the predators feed their hunger,

 and their victims attempt to flee in fear. 

The mood is lightened with images of water bugs seemingly dancing with their reflections in the water and

 spiders laying eggs in underwater nests filled with their own air bubbles, providing an emotional uplift to

 viewers, if not to the insects in each scene. When two snails are shown copulating, “engaging in a

 long and very loving wet kiss,” according to Ebert (1997), however, emotional levels of 

anthropomorphism are at the fore.

Folk-psychology levels of anthropomorphism are almost as prevalent as primitive psychology levels in the film, 

however. When insects battle the elements, for example, they are shown strategizing ways to avert rushing

 waters caused by a rainfall. For them, a steady rain erupts quickly into a flood. Water droplets larger 

than the insects they hit turn a summer storm into an eco-disaster. Orchestral strings reach a crescendo 

as water pounds both earth and insects.  To highlight their vulnerability, the film contrasts a sturdy

 single tree with a grasshopper that nearly loses its grip on a wavering grass shoot. 

After the storm, a snail drinks from a water hole left by the rain. Ants drink and find safety on grass leaves.

 Other insects feed, as well, but one is marooned on a rock in the middle of flooding waters. The music grows 

louder and more ominous as a flying insect cleans itself and a worm emerges from a hole, its skin transparent. 

Although the scene recalls a similar storm in Disney’s Bambi (James Algar and Samuel Armstrong, 1942), 

the clash of cymbals turns the scene to a damaged anthill where worker ants rebuild the structure, 

demonstrating in multiple ways the connections between human and insect approaches to difficulties.

microcosmos and primitive anthropomorphism

Directed by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou, Microcosmos (1996) asserts its positions regarding insects’
 relationship to humans through visual representations and a multi-modal vocal and instrumental soundtrack
 rather than voiceover narration. Yet, as Janet Maslin of The New York Times declares, “Not content merely to 
let the spiders spin and the bees buzz, they also play with anthropomorphism wherever it can be found” (1996). 
Despite the fact that the film includes only two voiceover sequences to begin and end the film that nearly mirror 
one another, “heightened sound effects and nimble editing help shape the film into something other than 
a passive view” (Maslin, 2006). In fact, the film suggests that our macro-world is mirrored in the “unseen” 
world the filmmakers have constructed for us beneath tall grasses and trees in their creation of this categorical 
documentary. In Microcosmos, insects are anthropomorphized on multiple levels, but in Microcosmos
 the emphasis is on an authentic visual representation that builds sympathy for this micro-world, perhaps
 encouraging a more biotic perspective on the natural world that sees human and nonhuman 
nature as part of an interconnected web.

Microcosmos most blatantly connects humans with insects in relation to a primitive psychology level of
 anthropomorphism that highlights parallels between how they meet their basic needs. For example, the opening 
tranquil female voiceover establishes a peaceful tone for the morning scenes of insects’ very human-like ablutions. 
As the camera pans down from hills to long grasses a boys’ choir heightens its rhythm. On the surface below, 
however, the music ends, and only background noises and bird whistles accompany the variety of insects that 
seem to be preparing for a new day. The voiceover heightens the comparison of these insects to awakening 
humanity: “Imagine a morning somewhere on Earth … [where] even the smallest pond becomes an ocean. 
Time passes differently here. A passing season is a lifetime. Listen to its murmur.” 

It is the creation of this miniature insect world, however, that most effectively connects insects with humanity,
 illuminating how their everyday rituals align with ours. As Roger Ebert explains, “The makers of this film 
took three years to design their close-up cameras and magnifying lenses, and to photograph insects in such 
brilliant detail that if they were cars, we could read their city stickers” (1997). In close-up, a spider web 
shimmers with morning dew as various insects prepare for the day. A wasp polishes its face. An ant drinks 
water from a drop on a leaf, its reflection disappearing as the water evaporates. The tiny world is both 
contrasted and compared with the larger world above when the camera pans up to trees and then back
 down to the ground, where a praying mantis washes its leg and a bee wipes its stinger and wings. 

            

After their morning baths, these insects eat breakfast, just like other animals, including humans. A bee searches
 for nectar in a poppy field. A ladybug climbs up a thorny twig and eats grubs. Ants feed their infants on the 
same twig after chasing off the ladybug. A caterpillar emerges from its cocoon and eats its own shell as its 
first nourishment. When a grasshopper jumps into a spider web, a single drum erupts, and when other 
percussion instruments join the rhythm, the spider wraps it in webbing. Another grasshopper feeds, as well. 
At a water hole, ants feed water to their young. Others pull seedpods and carry flower stems to their anthill. 
The mound of food grows tall. In a wasp hive, adult wasps feed larvae, who, when they emerge from 
their pods, clean themselves, dry their wings and begin feeding other wasps. Their basic needs are met 
just as ours are, and the camera amplifies the primitive rituals on display.

Detroit Art Museum Murals

Gardening in Illinois

It's no secret that the soil in my Central Illinois neighborhood has so much clay in it that it feels like cement when it dries. But I still want to grow vegetables, so raised gardens with good organic soil solved my red earth problem. Each year my little garden grows, and this year I added a squash bed beside my old shed. Here's the rundown: sweet potatoes in bags, cucumber and basil in buckets, tomatoes in one bed, eggplant and peppers in another, bush beans in two beds, and strawberries in the last. The squash bed used to be a compost heap. Plus the chives still grows in a broken bucket beside the tomatoes. Here are a few pictures.