Jane

Few images are more imme­di­ate­ly sat­is­fy­ing than the one at the start of Brett Morgen’s archive-led bio-doc: a pic­ture-post­card scene that sees beloved pri­ma­tol­o­gist Jane Goodall sit­ting atop an arch­ing tree, sur­vey­ing the lus­cious green expanse in front of her. She is queen of her domain, and friend to all apes. This is one of many cap­ti­vat­ing scenes in a mag­nif­i­cent-look­ing doc which finds new life in a well-cov­ered subject.

Its visu­al nar­ra­tive is assem­bled from 140 plus hours of new­ly avail­able, almost incom­pre­hen­si­bly lus­cious 16mm archive record­ed by Goodall’s jun­gle con­fi­dant, ex-hus­band and famed nature pho­tog­ra­ph­er Hugo van Law­ick. Cut rhyth­mi­cal­ly over Goodall’s expos­i­to­ry nar­ra­tion and Philip Glass’ sonorous score, the footage alone – an intox­i­cat­ing wash of vibrant, hyper-sat­u­rat­ed colours and immac­u­late com­po­si­tions – is enough to sweep the view­er in. Goodall makes an irre­sistible sub­ject, describ­ing her expe­ri­ences affect­ing­ly as Mor­gen pieces togeth­er cut­tings from the record­ings to fit the shape of the sto­ry she offers, viv­i­fy­ing the footage through dra­mat­ic mon­tage and the inser­tion of arti­fi­cial sound.

Jane’s sto­ry – that of the self pro­claimed ​“strange white ape” who want­ed ​“to be like Doc­tor Dolit­tle” but end­ed up uncov­er­ing some of the most vital dis­cov­er­ies about man’s rela­tion to his four legged fore­fa­thers in the his­to­ry of mod­ern sci­ence – is a com­pelling, if famil­iar one. Ini­tial­ly cho­sen for the pio­neer­ing project which most of the footage focus­es on (inten­sive chim­panzee obser­va­tion in Gombe, Tan­za­nia) for her humil­i­ty and naivité, through an inten­sive ded­i­ca­tion to her work, Goodall became, as she sweet­ly puts it, ​“clos­er to ani­mals and nature, clos­er to myself,” observ­ing behav­iours believed impos­si­ble in non-human creatures.

It’s a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ing then, that a film all about the excite­ment of break­ing new ground does not reflect this inven­tive­ness in the shape of its own form.