Back to the Goodall days
Documentary a beautiful retrospective on the career of the young scientist
At 83, Jane Goodall continues to be a force for both chimpanzee research and conservation. Brett Morgen’s film takes us back several chimp generations to the early 1960s, when it all began. But rather than looking over our shoulders, we’re seeing the young primatologist afresh thanks to a recently unearthed archive of footage shot by National Geographic photographer (and her husband for 10 years) Hugo van Lawick.
Morgen interviews Goodall about her long career — she
remains refreshingly candid — but almost all the footage is from the ’60s, showing the triumphs and trials of being the first person to study chimpanzees up close in the wild. It’s a beautiful look back, backed by a powerful score from Philip Glass.
The basic beats of Goodall’s life are well known. She had always wanted to go to Africa and study animals, and she got her chance in 1957 when scientist Louis Leakey hired her to observe chimpanzee behaviour as a possible window into our past. For months she basically watched the chimps run away from her, but they eventually grew accustomed to her and the real science began, including the discovery that chimpanzees make and use tools.
It’s amusing to see how much makeup young Goodall wore, presumably for the camera. And a glimpse of the newspaper headlines of the day are also instructive.
“Comely Miss Spends Her Time Eying Apes,” says one. Others reference a “Pert Scientist.” Though my favourite has to be: “The Primates of Ms. Jane Goodall,” followed by the subhead: “Eat Your Heart Out, Fay Wray.”
Chuckles aside, the documentary Jane also shows the young scientist dealing with professional and personal adversity. For a time, the newly acclimatized chimps ran roughshod over her camp, stealing everything in sight.
After Jane gave birth, her young son had to spend time in a cage — shades of Planet of the Apes — to avoid being attacked by the wild apes. (Is it any wonder he likes chimpanzees far less than his mother does?)
There was also a time when polio swept through the ape population Goodall was observing. And when the troupe split in two, the halves then waged war, proving that tool use and social bonding aren’t the only traits they share with us. “I thought they were like us but nicer than us,” she says. “I had no idea of the brutality that they can show. It took me a while to come to terms with that.”
She also witnessed the death of one elderly chimpanzee female named Flo, followed just three weeks later by her son, Flint, whom it seemed died of a broken heart. You may decry this as anthropomorphism, but surely Goodall is in the best position to know.
“Staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee,” she says of her early days in Tanzania, “I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back.” And of the prevailing idea at the time, that chimps were nothing like us?
She replies impishly: “Fortunately, I had not been to university and I did not know these things.”