Brett Morgen’s 2017 docu-mentary Jane is a remarkable portrait of primatologist Jane Goodall. It chronicles her early studies and field work on chimpanzees in Tanzania. She challenged and then revolutionized our understanding of the natural world and how we fit within it. And in an era when women weren’t really encouraged to be independent, it was extraordinary that Goodall—a woman with no scientific education or experience—went into the forests of Africa pretty much alone, and managed to not only find herself, but her passion and calling and the great loves of her life.
Jane is as much a vivid historical document as it is a profile of Goodall, made using a treasure trove of more than 100 hours of never-before-seen 16 mm footage. The footage was thought lost until its rediscovery in the National Geographic archives in 2014, more than five decades after it was originally shot by celebrated Dutch wildlife filmmaker and photographer (and Goodall’s eventual husband) Hugo van Lawick. The gorgeous footage looks as fresh and vibrant as the day it was shot, and it is edited together so seamlessly by Morgen that it nearly feels like one stunning mosaic made even more spectacular by Philip Glass’s original score.
