Goodall’s life studying chimps and exploring Africa chronicled gorgeously in ‘Jane’

When I was watching the documentary “Jane,” for a few minutes I thought about how the story of Jane Goodall, the English secretary who became an unlikely and patient observer of chimpanzees in the wild, would make a great movie — maybe with Felicity Jones playing Goodall.

It didn’t take long to realize that it would be difficult to top the story that director Brett Morgen tells of Goodall’s life in the documentary — and certainly no cinematographer would get images better than what the wildlife filmmaker Hugh von Lawick captured at the time.

The story starts in 1960, when Goodall worked as a secretary for Louis Leakey, the famed archaeologist and paleoanthropologist. Leakey had received a grant for a six-month study of chimps in the wild, and he needed a researcher to conduct the observations. Rather than choose someone from a university, filled with preconceived notions of animal behavior, he picked Goodall because she had “an open mind, a love for animals and monumental patience.”

All three would be necessary when Goodall arrived at Gombe Stream in Tanzania to begin her research. It took months of living in the forests and valleys of Gombe before she could see anything more than the backs of the chimps running away from her. Finally, though, one chimp — whom she dubbed David Greybeard — didn’t shy away.

Morgen’s documentary entirely relies on Goodall’s voice, in interviews and audio excerpts from her books, to tell her story. It also draws heavily on footage by von Lawick, who was then working for the National Geographic Society and was assigned to capture Goodall’s work on film. The footage from the 1960s was thought to be lost until it was rediscovered in 2014, and it looks as fresh and wild as when it was shot.

In the footage, von Lawick got not only extensive looks at the chimpanzee community, but an up-close look at Goodall herself. In her late 20s, she was quite a beauty, gracefully sitting in the forest observing the chimps. When von Lawick finished his assignment and left Tanzania, he sent a telegram back to Goodall with a marriage proposal. They were married 10 years and had a son, nicknamed Grub — and there’s footage of him, too.

Morgen (“Chicago 10,” “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck”) melds von Lawick’s footage and Goodall’s words into a moving, intelligent look at the primatologist’s pioneering work and the effusive passion that drove it. The story would make a great movie, and it turns out this is it.