Like its name suggests, Jane is a documentary about Jane Goodall, who is famous for being the expert on chimpanzees. After all, she has been studying chimpanzees since 1960, so much so that she was actually accepted as a member of a chimpanzee troupe for a short period of time. Something that has not been replicated by other researchers. Regardless, it should come as no surprise to learn that Jane provides interested individuals with an in-depth look at her life as well as the animals that she has spent her life studying.
Here are five reasons that you need to see Jane:
It Has Jane Goodall’s Approval
There are numerous documentaries that have been made about Goodall, so much so that she has become rather exasperated with them. However, it turns out that being talked into doing the documentary by her own institute for the sake of raising awareness of the chimpanzees had an unexpected side bonus, which is that it manages to take her back to her earlier career in a way that other documentaries have not managed. As a result, it can be said that Jane has Goodall’s approval in a way that other documentaries about her do not.
One Criticism Is Lack of Rusty
With that said, Goodall does have one complaint, which is that the documentary failed to bring up her beloved dog Rusty. For those who are unfamiliar with that name, Rusty was the pure bred collie who convinced her that animals had minds, feelings, and personalities of their own, thus leading into her career as a chimpanzee researcher. If this is the one complaint that Goodall has about the documentary, it speaks volumes about what she thinks of the rest.
Features Rediscovered Footage
The whole project started up because the people looking through National Geographic’s storage facilities found a box of lost footage featuring Goodall’s early career in Gombe Stream National Park. After they transferred the lost footage to a new medium, they used it to reach out to famous documentarian Brett Morgen, thus kickstarting the process. It is interesting to note that the footage was filmed by Baron Hugo van Lawick, who became Goodall’s first husband because the two ended up getting along so well during the filming.
Combines a Range of Material
Jane‘s narrative of a woman determined to follow her dreams no matter the costs that said pursuit will exact is told using a wide range of material. For example, there is the rediscovered footage that was filmed by Baron Hugo van Lawick. Furthermore, there are recordings of Goodall’s voice from the audio versions of her books, which provide a different feel from her interviews. Finally, there was even a two-day interview conducted into the present, which had to be woven into the narrative constructed using the rest of the components.
By the Same Documentarian Behind Montage of Heck
On a final note, people who watched Montage of Heck might want to watch Jane as well because it was made by the same documentarian. As a result, it is not unreasonable for them to expect to find some of the same things in Jane that interested them in Montage of Heck. With that said, it is entertaining to note that Morgen used to assume that Goodall was nothing but a “goody two-shoes,” though as Goodall pointed out, that was before he had gotten to know her.
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