Jane (2017)

Directed by: Brett Morgen | 90 minutes | documentary

Jane Goodall is a name that has grown over the decades with in-depth nature research and passionate conservation. In the 1950s, the British traveled to Tanzania to conduct research into wild chimpanzees, commissioned by the renowned archaeologist and paleontologist Louis Leakey. The remarkable thing was that the secretary Goodall had no scientific degree or biological background. She knew almost nothing about the animals she had to study in Africa. Since childhood, she had cherished the dream of visiting the black continent and living among wild animals. Choosing a passionate person with no scientific background was a deliberate move by Leakey. Certainly at that time, the academic world was still strongly influenced by the Cartesian mental attitude, a philosophical movement that mainly sees non-human animals as instinctively driven automatons that have no real emotions, feelings or thoughts and are therefore miles away from humans. Precisely an open-minded tabula rasa, unaffected by the academic dogmas of the time, could pave the way for high-profile discoveries and an alternative view of the evolutionary relationship between humans and animals, Leakey said.

Jane Goodall’s study of Gombe’s chimpanzees also provided groundbreaking new insights, eventually developing into the longest-running study of a wildlife population in history. ‘Jane’ is a very personal account of Goodall’s life in the African wilderness. What quickly becomes apparent is that director Brett Morgen manages to avoid the pitfalls that turn many biographies into monotonous narratives or disguised hagiographies. Although the film does take a largely chronological approach, there are no interviews or dialogues, for example. It is Jane herself who tells her story on the basis of her own comments and many fascinating images from the old box, the majority of which has not been shown before.

The film contains many interesting anecdotes that nicely illustrate how revolutionary Goodall’s ethological and biological research work has ultimately been for our understanding of chimpanzees, as well as for facing our own human nature. Nowadays we are no longer surprised when a chimpanzee mourns a deceased congener or uses a twig to pick termites from a narrow opening. The same goes for the primitive form of warfare that chimpanzees sometimes pull out of the closet when they attack rival groups. But empathy, the ability to experience grief, tool use, and ritualized aggression have long been considered exclusively human traits and attainment.

Even more special is that director Morgen manages to connect the many small stories in an extremely fluid way through the clever use of more universally oriented thematic undertones. For example, consider motherhood. This topic comes up early in the film when Goodall talks about her helpful mother, but returns in a more extended form later when she talks about chimpanzee motherhood (which is very similar to the human relationship between mother and child) and her own experiences, choices and struggles as a mother. The beautiful soundtrack by Phillip Glass, which swings between light bombast and dreaminess, forms a harmonious whole with the film images shot largely by Hugo van Lawick (the well-known nature filmmaker and ex-husband of Goodall).

It helps that Jane Goodall is a passionate storyteller herself. This turns her story into a captivating life journey, in which we see a young adventurer eventually grow into a respected scientist and devoted mother and wife. This self-analysis is then translated into the research. This too has undergone a development. Thanks in part to the work of people like Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, we now know that apes are evolutionarily much closer to humans than was long thought. It is to the credit of the filmmakers that they manage to weave the personal and scientific sides of Goodall’s life into one story in a completely natural way. The message of ‘Jane’ is that passionate pioneers like Jane Goodall enable us to see the best in ourselves and other beings. This allows us to use the potential of the human intellect and learning for good. And precisely because that commendable message is packaged in an extremely entertaining jacket, ‘Jane’ is a memorable viewing experience that never gets boring.