AbramsĪ scene in the second episode, however, exemplifies the series’ shortcomings, Watts said. “So I watched those scenes and thought, ‘Wow, someone could do a fine-grained analysis of footage and see what they learn,’” he said. But I’m always following them and seeing their backs. How do they decide to do it? I’ve often thought it would be great if I could film the eye contact and communication going on. “When I follow them, when they go on patrol it’s always kind of mystifying. “You can see them looking back and forth at each other and checking on each other,” he said. For Watts, this footage was particularly interesting. In several sequences, the filmmakers capture males from both groups patrolling the boundaries of their territory and making forays into their rivals’ turf. I’d love to get access to some of their footage someday to analyze it for research purposes.”
I was continually awestruck by the quality of the images. “It is a standard story-telling wildlife ‘documentary’ that has some problems when it comes to the relationship of the script to the real world of chimpanzees, as is typical of the genre,” said Watts, the Alison Richard Professor of Anthropology in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. While Watts praised the filmmakers’ skill in capturing compelling and often beautiful footage, he acknowledged that the series’ narrative at times sacrifices scientific accuracy for drama. The plot also follows attempts by younger males in the central faction to unseat a chimpanzee named Jackson, the community’s alpha male. This rift forms the central narrative of the docuseries, as the filmmakers focus on the hostilities that flare between the larger central group and their western rivals. It also is one of only two communities known to have split into rival factions: a large central group, and a smaller western one. The Ngogo chimpanzee community, which inhabits Uganda’s Kibale National Park, is by far the largest ever discovered. Through the project, Watts and his students and colleagues have uncovered important insights into chimpanzee behavior and its relevance to human evolution. In 1995, Watts founded the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project with his colleague John Mitani, a primate behavioral ecologist from the University of Michigan. Yale anthropologist David Watts watched “Chimp Empire,” the recent four-part Netflix docuseries on the Ngogo chimpanzee community in Uganda, with an informed perspective: He has spent decades studying the chimps featured on the show.
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