An Astonishing Return to Jane Goodall's Chimp Eden

Jane Goodall at Gombe with Hugo van Lawick and his omnipresent camera. (Credit: Jane Goodall Institute) During the 1960s, humanity's place in the universe changed dramatically as Soviet and American astronauts ventured off the planet and (for the Yanks, at least) onto the surface of the Moon. During those same years, humanity's place on Earth changed rather dramatically, too, as scientists took a closer look at our primate relatives and discovered that they are a lot more like us--far more complex and sophisticated--than anyone had suspected. One of the scientists most responsible for the latter revelation was not, by traditional standards, a scientist at all. Jane Goodall was all of 26 when she arrived at the Gombe Stream in Tanzania in 1960 to study the local chimpanzees. She had no college degree, no formal stamp of high academia. What she had was extraordinary perception, persistence, and a lack of blinding preconceptions. Due to a felicitous combination of circumstances, we are now able to relive her singular discovery process in the electrifying, astonishingly beautiful documentary Jane. The story of this new film begins early in Goodall's career, when wildlife photographer Hugo van Lawick arrived at Gombe to document her explorations on behalf of National Geographic. Over time van Lawick became her lover, husband, father of her child, and ex-husband. He also became the all-watching eye whose footage yielded a 1965 documentary, Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees. Fortunately for us, the story does not end there. In 2014, archivists found more than 100 hours of unseen footage by van Lawick, material that was thought long lost. Working with this wealth of material, documentary filmmaker Brett Morgen has created a completely new retelling of Goodall's work at Gombe. It records a landmark moment in the history of human self-awareness, but the film is neither portentous nor pretentious. It is beautiful, delicate, and above all loving. I caught up with director Brett Morgen to find out how he pulled off this bit of cinematic magic, and what the eponymous Jane thought about revisiting the moment that made her one of the most famous scientists on Earth. [For more science and science-culture news, follow me on Twitter: @coreyspowell.] I was surprised to learn that you were reluctant to work on the movie. Why? Morgen: Jane and I had one major thing in common: Neither one of us wanted to make this film. When we were approached about the film, we both had the same reaction, “Haven’t there been dozens of Jane Goodall films, and is there any reason to make another one?” But I’m happy to report, having made the film, we are both thrilled we ended up working through our issues and arriving where we are today.