Like many visitors to Chicago, filmmaker Brett Morgen is “totally obsessed with your Art Institute,” but the famous museum on Michigan Avenue was NOT where the director first headed while in town this week to promote his documentary “Jane” — featuring previously never-seen footage of primatologist Jane Goodall’s early years working with the chimpanzees in Africa.
No, Morgen — a self-described “huge pinball fanatic” — headed off to play pinball at Headquarters Beercade in River North, “just as soon as our ‘Jane’ screening here ended,” said Morgen with a big laugh.
The filmmaker, best known for his documentaries about the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the Chicago 8 trial (“Chicago 10”), Kurt Cobain (“Cobain: Montage of Heck”) and legendary Hollywood producer and studio exec Robert Evans (“The Kid Stays in the Picture”), somewhat sheepishly admitted, “I own 30 games. … I have 20 at my office and 10 at home. Fortunately, my wife is good with that.”
Morgen revealed that wherever he travels he’s very dependent on a pinball app on his phone. “I just whip out that app and discover which bars have the best games. In this case it was here in Chicago last night. I rushed right over to this place Beercade.
“Come on! This is Chicago! The home of gaming. Chicago is the game capital of the world,” said Morgen, noting such manufacturers as Chicago Coin and Stern Pinball. “All the best games are made here.”
As for “Jane,” it was a project both Morgen and the famed champion of chimpanzees were extremely reluctant to tackle. When approached by National Geographic to assemble recently discovered footage shot of Goodall many decades ago, Morgen almost said no, thinking the naturalist’s life had already been well-documented. Goodall herself remained extremely negative about the project, even after filming began.
“She made it very clear and told everyone, ‘There is nothing left to tell. Nothing more to do. Why would we do this?’ ” Goodall didn’t make life easy for Morgen. “She was totally contrarian with me. … Most of the time when you interview a famous person for a film about them, they have asked you to come to them.
“With Jane, when I sat down with her for the first time, my first question was, ‘Do you get tired of telling your story?’ She just stared back at me and said, ‘It depends on who is asking the questions.’ She didn’t break her glance, and I thought, ‘Touche!’
“But by not making it easy on me, I came to realize that was the secret sauce of this film. Audiences see that there is no pretense with Jane. She is not trying to sell us anything. She is so sincere and genuine — and that comes across directly.”
When finished, the project totally delighted Goodall. As Morgen put it, “She told me, ‘For the first time, I was back in Gombe [where she did her initial research on the chimps].’ ” And Goodall has enthusiastically been working to promote “Jane” ever since.
