Grizzly Man

Yes, this is the 2005 documentary.

This is a documentary I should have revisited much sooner; the DVD was rented from the local library soon after it came out on disc, and never again. This is despite my enjoyment of this piece on Timothy Treadwell, a troubled individual who LOVED bears and tried to protect them the way he thought was right. Unfortunately, he and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard experienced the inevitable and died via bear attack. Director/narrator Werner Herzog was fair in presenting this tale.

Treadwell’s positive and negative traits were laid bare (no pun intended) for the viewer. At first, a general overview was presented and various viewpoints were presented on the work he did as an amateur environmentalist who not only went to school to teach children about bears, but actually lived among them in the wild for months at a time. He used a video camera to record hours of footage in the wild and obviously performed in front of the camera, which obviously captured Herzog’s attention. This and his narration was buttressed by interviews with a variety of people, at least one whom appeared to relish his time in front of a camera himself.

As the story slowly unfurls, our knowledge of Treadwell increases and your opinion may change on the journey; it takes time until we hear about his childhood then substance abuse issues as an adult. Then there’s behavior best described as “erratic”; that’s not even me including his core belief that violating all sorts of National Park rules and rules of logic by walking right up to & touching grizzly bears. Trying to protect nature and camping right by animals (including giant killers) is swell with me. However, Treadwell thinking he has a special bond with those animals and he can be their caretaker rather than National Park employees or trained environmentalists—“foolhardy” is a nice term to describe that attitude.

Yet, I will not eviscerate him or his behavior; aside from Amie also losing her life that day, otherwise he was (IMO) full of naivete who was able to beat his addictions as he found a new obsession w/ grizzly bears and was misguided in his beliefs. Grizzly Man allows the viewer to decide for themselves through deft editing and narration their personal opinion of Timothy Treadwell. No matter your opinion, there is plenty of lovely Alaskan scenery and close footage of both bears & foxes to marvel at throughout. Thus, I was delighted when the Criterion Channel added this a few days ago; this humanist view of a complicated fellow was well worth seeing. While I don’t know when or even which movie, later in February I’ll discuss a fictional film directed by Werner Herzog, as I’m sure some would be interested in my take.