Grizzly Man


Synopsis
This documentary chronicles the obsessive attachment and ensuing death of Timothy Treadwell, a self-proclaimed bear activist. Using his own footage, Timothy’s video diaries, and interviews with Timothy’s friends and family, Werner Herzog creates a film about big bears, folly and addiction. (R, 2005)


Observations
Is Timothy Treadwell crazy as a loon? Probably. Treadwell had a substance abuse problem that he traded in for a fanatical addition to bears. He camped with them for 13 years, touched them, followed them, and played with their poop. Treadwell prided himself on being a “gentle warrior” and keeper of the bears. This basically meant that he followed bears about for months at a time, naming them and watching them, but also turning the camera on himself; star of his own nature show. Treadwell taped himself with his video camera a lot. Take after take after take he presents himself as the Steve Irwin (Crocodile Hunter) of bears.

I saw the way that Treadwell filmed himself, talking about the danger he was under, the risk, the importance of taping the bear’s lives as his way of creating celebrity. Treadwell felt his connection with the bears made him unique; that he had transcended the space between human and animal and made a genuine psychic connection. This was folly. Although that level of dedication makes the documentary interesting in the way a train wreck is interesting, it mostly just served to show over and over again how either naïve or arrogant Treadwell was.

I hesitate to call Werner Herzog a documentarian. Throughout the film he coaches the interviewees, gives advice, and asks completely irrelevant questions. The way that Herzog trampled through the boundary between documentary maker and sensational journalist is annoying. The best thing he did for the film was to decide not to play the audio that was recorded as Treadwell and his female companion were killed by a bear, although, for drama's sake of course, he listened to it himself.
As a side note, Treadwell studied coastal brown bears, not grizzly bears, which live inland. I guess “Coastal Brown Bear Man” didn’t have the same dramatic ring as “Grizzly Man.”

Rating:
Amazon's entry for Grizzly Man