debdshaw60 Jane Goodall is a pioneer of primatologist. Her work was controversial at the time for many reasons. In this documentary, Jane does the narration with occasional questions from the interviewer. She goes into detail about her life and thoughts.Jane was a remarkable and fearless woman and has been my idol since childhood. This is a beautiful look into her life. Some say the found footage is posed... of course it is. It's cut pieces of various National Geographic documentaries about her work. It was used to help bring them funding by focusing on a brave, beautiful young woman facing the hardships alone. There are naturally some posed shots. Also some personal home movie type shots. And some of the iconic footage at the end that are so well known.

milbankj "Jane" is a pretty good doco; indeed, among the best I have seen. Unlike many nowadays, including some other National Geographic product, it maintains a high standard in all respects. This includes its overall construction, the near-impeccable score, the absence of hysterical and breathless dialogue and commentary, and most of all, the editing and fine mixing of archival and new moving and still imagery. The story, of course, stands on its own two feet.So I have no quibbles. Any complaints about some fuzzy pictures ignore such realities as the quality of films made in difficult circumstances with the equipment of the day decades ago, even by professionals, and the few home movie clips which this production employs judiciously. Critics of fairly frequent footage of Goodall carrying and using binoculars, and staring into the jungled distance are a humorous reminder of my eight visits to Africa. I found many tourists (especially but not exclusively American) with such a low attention span that they complain if they don't see an amazing critter around every bush and have no patience for searching. I don't mind "Jane" reminding us that binoculars are among the most used and more important tools of wildlife watchers and photographers. Goodall's need for binoculars sits side by side with her discovery that chimpanzees, just like humans, make and use tools.

Paul Allaer "Jane" (2017 release; 90 min.) is a documentary about the life and times of Jane Goodall. As the movie opens, we are reminded that in 2014 hundreds of hours of 1960s film footage was unearthed at the National Geographic archives relating to Jane Goodall. From there we go back in time, and we get to know Jane, then 26, as she is chosen by Dr. Leakey to observe and mingle with the wild chimps in Gombe, Tanzania, even though she has no training or science degree (yet). It was important to Dr. Leakey that someone with an open mind without preconceptions would do the observing. Jane can't believe her good fortune as this is a dream come true for her. She throws herself into her work. At this point we are less than 10 min. into the movie.Couple of comments: this is the latest from documentary maker Brett Morgen, who previously brought us the excellent "Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck", Chicago 10" and "The Kid Stay in the Picture", among others. Here he sifts through mountains of rarely or never seen footage shot over half a century ago, showing us how a 26 year old single white woman decides to do whatever it takes to integrate herself into a community of wild chimps. Along the way we also learn a thing or two about Jane's personal life.But the primary reason to watch this is the 1960s footage of the bush and what life was like back then. There are some extraordinary scenes, and some frightening ones as well. But it always kept my attention. last, but certainly not least, Morgen was able to convince the legendary Philip Glass to write a brand new score for this movie, and that score is classic Glass, just gorgeous (available here on Amazon on CD and as a download). You can bet I will check that out shortly."Jane" opened to positive acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival last Fall. I was quite surprised that it didn't score a Best Documentary Oscar nomination, but that doesn't diminish the movie's quality or its appeal. This recently opened for a one week run at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati. The screening where I caught it at (on the very last day of that one week run) was attended quite nicely actually (probably other people who, like me, wanted to catch it before the end of its run). If you like nature/animal documentaries, or are simply curious to learn more about the life of this extraordinary lady, you cannot go wrong with this. "Jane" is a WINNER.

dokrauss Someone found a box of unused film clips that Jane Goodall's husband, cinematographer Hugo van Lawick, had left in a box and decided to piece them together into another Jane Goodall documentary. You'll see why van Lawick left them in a box because they are posed shots of Jane looking through binoculars, climbing trees, washing her hair, looking through binoculars, walking through the jungle, looking through binoculars, playing with a chimp, looking through binoculars, and looking through binoculars. Only reason to watch this is an attempt to induce an aneurysm.