The legendary Jane Goodall, the British primatologist and anthropologist commonly regarded as the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, has been interviewed and profiled countless times over the last 50-plus years. Everyone loves and admires her, and we all want to be as sharp, lucid and healthy as Goodall when we hit 83, which is where she is now.
Brett Morgen’s Jane (National Geographic, 10.20) is merely the latest filmed tribute to Goodall’s devotional calling, which began in Gombe, Tanzania in 1960 or ’62 or something like that, and continued into the 21st Century. The film covers her upbringing, how she got started at a chimp-watcher, her principal primate observations, anecdotes about her personal life, etc.
Does Morgen’s doc pass along anything new about Goodall? As far as I can discern, nope. It does, however, unspool a trove of heretofore-unseen 16mm color footage of of Goodall studying chimp behavior, shot during the ’60s and early ’70s by her then-husband Hugo van Lawick. The footage is luminous, well-framed and apparently was always shot around magic hour — Lawick had an eye, knew his craft.
On top of which Jane has been scored by Phillip Glass, whose symphonies always sound similar and I don’t care. (I know his Fog of War soundtrack backwards and forwards.) And it contains a lot of recent footage of Goodall talking to Morgen about pretty much everything.
Jane is a good and moving film. It has spirit, love…a glow about it. There have been many filmed studies of Goodall and her work, but this is the first smoothly composed, bucks-up, Hollywood-friendly version. Glass’s score encourages you to feel a bit of what Goodall probably felt or sensed as she began her studies. The film is comprehensive but not excessively so. It ignores a ton of material, but it only runs 90 minutes so whaddaya want?
I saw Jane last night at the Hollywood Bowl, at the invitation of National Geographic Films. Goodall and Morgen came out before the show began and shared a few words. Glass’s score was performed live as the film showed on a fairly large screen. The air was warmish, the sky was clear — a very soothing atmosphere. Will Jane be nominated for a Best Feature Documentary Oscar? Sure — why not?
Sidenote: A picnic bag of free food was provided to every invitee. The vittles included roast beef, watermelon and goat cheese salad, a sesame seed baguette, mixed berries and sweet cream, shrimp and a pint of shrimp sauce, a bottle of red and white wine, etc. I was concentrating on the shrimp and the shrimp sauce, and that was my undoing. At some point I shifted in my seat the wrong way and the open container of sauce flipped over and kerplopped on my lap. I moaned like a wildebeest being eaten by wild dogs. My right jeans leg was covered in red glop; both suede shoes, my socks and my black jacket got fuck-smeared also. “Ohhh, God…this is disgusting!” I went off to the bathroom and used about 75 paper towels to try and remove most of the shrimp sauce. It took me about 45 minutes to emotionally recover.
Did I let the shrimp-sauce disaster get in the way of my respect for Ms. Goodall or my admiration of her work or my enjoyment of Jane? Of course not. I’m not a six-year-old. On the other hand I’d be lying if I said I won’t think of that gloppy red goo every time I think of Goodall henceforth or consider a photo of a chimpanzee.