A-Directed by Brett Morgen Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Brett Morgen splices together dozens of hours of previously-unseen footage of Jane Goodall’s work with chimpanzees in 2017’s best documentary. Jane is devoted to ten years of Goodall’s early career, through her recruitment by famed paleontologist Louis Leakey and the successes and failures of her personal and professional life. Intercut with present-day Goodall putting wry cappers on events, the doc works as nature footage and excels as a first-hand account of misogyny within a family unit and in the whole of a society.
The footage, some of which was captured by Goodall’s photographer ex-husband Hugo van Lawick, contains some amazing sequences, like shots of Goodall and a chimp mother sitting next to each other on the beach, watching their respective offspring frolic in the waves. Like the best nature footage, it’s also unsparing in the harsh and unforgiving stakes of nature, even in a protected national park. Her copious and thorough observations pushed back the boundary between apes and humans, and Van Lawick and others are there to record these discoveries.
The more contemporary aspect, in which Goodall copes with the dissolution of her marriage and the rank sexism that she shoulders in the newspapers that give equal weight to her appearance as they do her research, is what makes Jane more than a well-made nature doc. The divide that ends her marriage to Van Lawick is his desire for her to come with him to a new assignment in the Serengeti while she wants to continue her work at the Tanzanian Gombe park. The idea that he would put his career on hold for her doesn’t occur to him, while she is assumed to do the same for him. She talks about her dreams of being a naturalist as a child, in which she had to dream herself as a boy because there weren’t any women doing that kind of work. Van Lawick getting his way might’ve meant that future female naturalists would’ve had to do the same.
Morgen puts all aspects of Jane together in an intimate package, making it feel thorough despite it leaving out the decades of productive work Goodall would do after the film ends. She comes off as an impressive and authoritative expert in her chosen field, but also in possession of an inviting spirit and an honest sense of humor. Pure admiration for a documentary subject isn’t required, but when it’s so obviously warranted, it doesn’t make a film worse. There are few individuals more deserving of such a relevant and endearing centerpiece. A-
The more contemporary aspect, in which Goodall copes with the dissolution of her marriage and the rank sexism that she shoulders in the newspapers that give equal weight to her appearance as they do her research, is what makes Jane more than a well-made nature doc. The divide that ends her marriage to Van Lawick is his desire for her to come with him to a new assignment in the Serengeti while she wants to continue her work at the Tanzanian Gombe park. The idea that he would put his career on hold for her doesn’t occur to him, while she is assumed to do the same for him. She talks about her dreams of being a naturalist as a child, in which she had to dream herself as a boy because there weren’t any women doing that kind of work. Van Lawick getting his way might’ve meant that future female naturalists would’ve had to do the same.
Morgen puts all aspects of Jane together in an intimate package, making it feel thorough despite it leaving out the decades of productive work Goodall would do after the film ends. She comes off as an impressive and authoritative expert in her chosen field, but also in possession of an inviting spirit and an honest sense of humor. Pure admiration for a documentary subject isn’t required, but when it’s so obviously warranted, it doesn’t make a film worse. There are few individuals more deserving of such a relevant and endearing centerpiece. A-
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