Jane of the jungle
Amazing historical footage helps bring Jane Goodall’s story to life, writes James Croot.
Hot on the heels of a three-part investigation into the life and brutal death of Dian Fossey, the feature-length Jane (which debuts at 7.30pm, Sunday, March 11, on Sky TV’s National Geographic channel) brings another famous primatologist’s work and legacy into focus.
Like Fossey, Brit Jane Goodall was personally chosen by renowned Kenyan-born paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey for an African-based primate research project.
But rather than studying gorillas in the mist, Goodall was charged with getting close to the chimpanzees of Tanzania’s Gombe National Park.
While their tales both involve struggles for acceptance, groundbreaking research, funding crises and more than a hint of romance, the way they’ve been brought to life couldn’t be more different.
For where Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist aimed to solve the mystery surrounding her demise true-crime style, through recreations and countless direct-to-camera interviews from key players, Jane is a far more intimate affair voiced almost entirely by the one-time Baroness herself.
Making fabulous use of more than
100 hours of never-seen-before footage of Goodall shot by her former husband Hugo van Lawick in the 1960s (material that was presumed lost until
2014), as well as home movies, diaries and letters, Morgen does a magnificent job of painting a portrait of how a young woman who had always dreamed of living like Dr Doolittle or Tarzan (originally a
26-year-old British secretary with no appropriate training or expertise) became one of the world’s most wellknown and beloved scientists.
It helps that he has such an open, honest and matter-of-fact subject to draw on. Goodall’s commentary is insightful, candid and occasionally slightly regretful. She details how her father didn’t really care about children, how her primate subjects were initially ‘‘unconscionable thieves’’, how Hugo proposed marriage via telegram and that her son ‘‘Grub’’ never liked his chimpanzee companions.
But while Morgen, whose previous documentary subjects have included Kurt Cobain, The Rolling Stones and famous film producer Robert Evans, also adds a few neat touches like a selection of now utterly inconceivable newspaper headlines (‘‘Comely Miss spends time eyeing apes’’) and a sample of creepy current affairs footage that would make even a certain Australian 60 Minutes correspondent blanche, some of his trademark audio-visual montages jar badly.
A rapidly cut collection of rutting primates feels tonally out of step and place with the rest of the documentary, while his occasional vocal intrusion breaks you out of Goodall’s, at times, spellbinding prose.
Then there’s the soundtrack. Perhaps in an attempt to ape the works of fellow documentarian James Marsh (Man on Wire, Project Nim), Morgen enlisted the services of minimalist composer Philip Glass, whose score here reminds one very much of Michael Nyman’s Wire work. Unfortunately the soundtrack’s ubiquitousness and unrelenting drive actually detract from what’s being said, distract the viewer and gradually start to grate.
Fortunately, it eventually settles down and the adventures of Jane, Hugo, Grub, David Greybeard, Goliath, Mr McGregor, Flo and Fifi rightfully take centre stage.