New Jane Goodall documentary fills in some blanks left by an earlier biopic

Enlarge / Dr. Jane Goodall walking with local villagers and staff members of TACARE, one of the many programs of the Jane Goodall Institute. (credit: Michael Haertlein/National Geographic)

A few years ago, National Geographic released a beautifully filmed biopic called Jane on famed primatologist Jane Goodall. The film helped explain how someone with no scientific experience ended up in Africa studying chimpanzees in the hope it would shed light on the origins of human behavior. But, despite a compelling story and restored archival footage, Jane seemed incomplete. While it told the story of how Goodall ended up both a scientist and a public figure, the scenes of her in the present day (to the extent pre-2017 resembles the present day) show that she has left her research behind to become an advocate for conservation.

How she went from the researcher shown in Jane to the head of an international non-profit was left as an exercise to the viewer to figure out. So, I was excited to see that National Geographic had a follow-up documentary, Jane Goodall: The Hope, in the works. What follows is part review and part interview with Goodall.

For me, the hope was that The Hope would trace how Goodall managed the transition from researcher to international environmental advocate. Instead, the film simply gives a picture of what her life is like today, moving among her projects and following her hectic travel schedule. In that sense, the two documentaries act more like bookends on her career.

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