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Bear with him
Werner Herzog's uncomfortable film "Grizzly Man" documents bear-watcher Timothy Treadwell's doomed obsession.
By DAVID N. BUTTERWORTH
Offoffoff.com
The death of a loved one is certainly always tragic, but it's especially tragic when it could so easily have been avoided. Environmentalist, filmmaker, and sometime schoolteacher Timothy Treadwell might have argued that in his particular case tragedy was inevitable. For 13 summers straight Treadwell studied grizzly bears on the Alaskan Peninsula until his untimely — and yes, tragic — death in 2003, savaged and killed by a rogue bear (as was his girlfriend Amie Huguenard on one of the few occasions she accompanied Treadwell to an area known as the Grizzly Maze).
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| | | GRIZZLY MAN | Written and directed by: Werner Herzog.
Featuring: Timothy Treadwell, Amie Huguenard, Franc G. Fallico.
Cinematography: Peter Zeitlinger.
Edited by: Joe Bini.
Related links: All of David N. Butterworth's reviews at Rotten Tomatoes |
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German arthouse director turned documentarian Werner Herzog has taken some 100-plus hours of video footage shot by Treadwell over the last five years and turned it into a two-hour documentary that's often intriguing but feels oddly and sadly senseless, echoing its subject matter's couched irresponsibility.
If I chose to swim with the sharks I'd most likely get eaten but I wouldn't want Herzog making a movie about it.
That said, Treadwell might well have enjoyed "Grizzly Man." As evidenced by the footage he shot, he loved being a celebrity, loved the grandiose sense of danger — but mostly loved these bears with which he's often seen interacting, often from less than a few yards away. "It's as if he wanted to become a bear," one observer notes. True indeed: Treadwell eschewed the civilized world and chose instead to live this way, forever blissfully aware that his life could end at any minute: "If I show weakness, I'm dead. They will take me out, they will decapitate me, they will chop me up into bits and pieces."
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Treadwell's words to camera often position him as a savior of these creatures, a crusader, their sole champion (although it's not altogether clear just how he protected them). There's also a strong sense of schizophrenia at play here: one minute he's all mushy and childlike in expressing his love, love, love for his friends the foxes, the next he's cursing out the National Park Service via vehement expletives for their failures. That Treadwell was also eccentric, na•ve, delusional, and reckless tends to overshadow the tragedy that was his violent death.
Through Treadwell's footage we're offered a rare opportunity to witness these majestic animals in their natural habitat... until a blond-haired goofball in a bandana and sunglasses flops into the frame, as if Steve Irwin suddenly began favoring bears over crocodiles and became an activist overnight. "Hi there Mr. Chocolate!" "Hello Rowdy!" "He's a big bear, he's a big bear, he's a very big bear!" he exclaims.
Herzog, no stranger to examining crackpots on film ("Fitzcarraldo," "Woyzeck," "Aguirre: The Wrath of God"), assembles archive footage alongside interviews with Treadwell's family, friends, and colleagues. Some of the observations are telling; others simply underline the obvious. The director also leaves in outtakes for dramatic effect (causing us to wonder what he might have left out) and narrates in a non-probing monotone that grows wearisome. Herzog also includes uncomfortable footage of a kooky coroner who's so agitated by the opportunity to graphically detail his findings on film that any attempts at sensitivity go by the wayside.
In the wilderness, there are non-physical barriers that should never be crossed. Timothy Treadwell either chose to ignore them or convinced himself they didn't — or shouldn't — exist. The real tragedy for Amie Huguenard is that Treadwell failed to convince the bears.
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AUGUST 15, 2005
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Reader comments on Grizzly Man:
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grizzly from Paulina Jick, Feb 16, 2006
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