Jane

It took a woman to unlock the secret of early man

Een ongelofelijk mooie en diep romantische film over de jonge jaren van Jane Goodall. Wonderschoon in de warme en tedere beeldenpracht van haar grote liefde, de Nederlandse natuurfilmer Hugo van Lawick, maar ook in haar intense liefde voor haar chimpansees en haar werk.

Als 26-jarige secretaresse krijgt zij van paleontoloog Leakey de kans om naar Afrika te gaan, haar grote droom. Zonder enige ervaring, kennis of wetenschappelijke opleiding (“een open geest, een passie voor kennis, geduld en liefde voor dieren” waren de vereisten) trekt zij, samen met haar moeder, naar de wildernis om de allereerste onderzoeker naar apengedrag in het wild te worden.

Het zijn paradijselijke en bijna onwerkelijke beelden. Met een in onze ogen ongekende naïviteit benaderen zij en Hugo de chimpansees en de gevaren in de wildernis. Het zijn de jaren zestig en in meerdere opzichten lijkt de wereld nog onschuldig.

Nooit eerder waren deze beelden over haar beginjaren, haar grote wetenschappelijke doorbraken en de opbloeiende liefde tussen Hugo en haar te zien. Pas in 2014 werd deze filmische schat, meer dan 100 uur aan prachtig warm en teder 16 mm materiaal, teruggevonden in de archieven van National Geographic. Brett Morgen bekend van oa Cobain: Montage of Heck, kreeg de droomopdracht om er een film van te maken. Philip Glass componeerde de muziek er voor. Samen met het nuchtere commentaar van de oude Jane Goodall (nu 83) creëerden ze een bijzonder ontroerende en wonderbaarlijke film.

Deze film draait niet meer in de bioscoop. Kijk bij het tabblad “Video on Demand” voor koop- en huuropties.

Jane Goodall’s thoughts on the film JANE                                                                                                                                             November 2017

The National Geographic’s recent documentary, “JANE”, has received consistently good reviews – in fact, so far not one bad one. And for those that understand, it scored a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (almost unheard of for a documentary). Brett Morgan, working with 140 hours of unmarked cans of 16mm film shot by Hugo (my first husband) in the 1960s, has created a film that moved me in a way none of the other documentaries taken at that time have.

When I watch it, it takes me back to those early days so that I feel part of it again. All those chimpanzees that I knew so well. The way Brett and his team tackled the editing of those unmarked cans of 16 mm film, not in any sequence, not numbered, not dated, is a story in itself. The editing room was lined with photos of all the chimpanzees, so that they could pick out shots of the special characters they chose to highlight – David Greybeard, Goliath, Mr. MacGregor, Flo and Fifi and Flint. Of course, I could recognize the others too – Mr. Worzle with his white sclerotic giving his eyes such a human look, and Leakey, and Fifi’s older brother Figan who is with his mother in so many of the shots.

Phillip Glass’s moving and sometimes dramatic orchestral score binds the various episodes together, adding considerable value to the film.

And I want to draw attention to another aspect of the film that is mostly overlooked – the sounds of Gombe, of the chimpanzees themselves, the birds and the insects. These sounds were recorded by Bernie Kraus*, a musician and soundscape ecologist (a term which he helped to define) when he spent one month in Gombe in August of 1990 together with a brilliant Harvard primatologist, Ruth Happel. In the cinema these sounds are all around you and for me, hearing the bubbling call of a coucal and the shrilling of cicadas, was nostalgic. I hope people will pay attention to these sounds of nature for they most definitely add to the immersive experience that Brett was striving for – and which he certainly achieved.

Shepherding Jane through all the stages of its creation was producer Bryan Burk. A huge responsibility, making sure that everything went smoothly throughout the production and marketing process – which meant, of course, constant vigilance, troubleshooting quickly when things occasionally and inevitably started to go wrong. And when I was pressured into attending screenings of the movie, and press conferences in Los Angeles and New York, it was “Burky”, almost always in the background, who helped me to get through a number of insanely hectic days in Los Angeles and New York.

In October I was in San Franciso at the time of the shocking wildfires when so many people lost their homes and some people and very many animals lost their lives. When I heard that Bernie had lost the house where he had lived for many years I called him up – and he told me the fire had arrived so suddenly that he and his wife, Katherine (Kat), had escaped with literally nothing but the clothes that they happened to be wearing and their lives.
Bernie lost all his equipment, his beloved guitar, his books – everything. I just received an email from him saying he had been back to the ruins and found that new green grass was showing through the blackened ground, after a sprinkling of rain, and there were even buds appearing on some of the burnt trees.

Bernie founded Wild Sanctuary in 1968, an organization dedicated to the recording and archiving of natural soundscapes. He has travelled around the world to record the sounds of nature which, in so many places, are already less rich than they were when I first went to Gombe in 1960. If you are interested in his brilliant work, one fascinating website is http://www.legrandorchestredesanimaux.com/ And there is much more about his work on the internet.

Krause and his wife, Katherine, live in Glen Ellen, California.
Bernard L. “Bernie” Krause (born December 8, 1938)
The Krauses’ home, with his archives, equipment, and all of their personal possessions were destroyed in a wildfire on 11 October 2017. His audio recordings, though, were backed up off-site.

In 1998 is het Jane Goodall Instituut Nederland geopend. De stichting maakt deel uit van een wereldwijd netwerk dat met 34 kantoren wereldwijd actief is. Het Jane Goodall Instituut beschermt chimpansees en hun leefgebieden.
Via de website https://www.janegoodall.nl/ lees je meer over de stichting van de biologe en kan je doneren of een chimpansee adopteren.

Nu beschikbaar op Video on Demand!

Jane is te koop of te huur via o.a. Disney+