The Sigla Blog

Grizzly Man
****
In Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, a tousled blonde eccentric (Klaus Kinski) sets off into the heart of darkness on what becomes a journey of self-exploration. His quest to build an opera house in the South American jungle marks him as an idealist who is ridiculed and misunderstood. This equally applies to the subject of Herzog’s latest work, the documentary Grizzly Man. Tim Treadwell, an unorthodox chronicler of Alaska’s Brown Bears, is another Herzog outsider, adrift in an inhospitable terrain.

For 13 summers, Treadwell visited the vast expanse of Katmai National Park to film and study bears. His technique of approaching the animals, speaking to them and even touching them drew concern from everyone from the Park’s authorities, the Inuit and a local man who claimed Treadwell approached the animals “like he was working with people wearing bear costumes.â€? Filled with childlike enthusiasm for the creatures, he awards each a moniker like Mr. Chocolate and Don Quixote. Watching these fearless interactions with the bears, Herzog has created a compelling mystery, by turns sad and hilarious. There is a portentous clip of Treadwell as a guest on David Letterman’s show where the host asks, “Are we gonna read one day that you’ve been eaten by a bear?â€? The off-the-cuff remark proves to be prophetic as Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were mauled and eaten by a bear in October 2003.

The first part of Herzog’s film is almost an extended post-mortem, as he focuses on the death, not the life, of his subject. He interviews locals and the coroner, recounting grisly nuggets of information regarding the fatal attack. What seems macabre is presented against the backdrop of Treadwell’s own cinematography. In his final summer, he amassed over 100 hours of footage and Herzog employs it extensively in his film, paying homage to Treadwell’s skills as a recorder of nature. Perhaps the most fascinating element of the documentary is the portrait of a multi-faceted man. Resembling a slightly camp surfer, his piece-to-camera excerpts show a sensitive enthusiast, who worries about his hairline and is hangs out with Timmy the fox. Conversing with the animals, he resembles a cartoonish Dr. Dolittle, occasionally scolding 10 foot bears with “DON’T you do that!â€? or “You’re the bossâ€?.

Treadwell is intriguing and touching to watch; a cross between the anti-David Attenborough and Elmo and part of his fatalistic journey stems from a troubled life. Despite his comfortable middle class upbringing, he was a fantasist from a young age, making up stories about being an Australian orphan and embellishing his achievements. A diving career was cut short and he later lost out on the part of the Woody in Cheers, which he was desperate to land. After this, his life descended into drink, drug addiction and a failed overdose. He pulled himself out of this cycle and headed for Alaska with a camera. Among these animals, he felt respected and accepted, confiding in one tearful section: “I had no life, now I have life because of these bears�.

Perhaps more tragic than Treadwell, is the figure of Amie Huguenard who in over 100 hours of footage, appears only twice. The second time, she crouches on a rock, several feet from a bear, looking visibly terrified. Her diary reveals that she considered Tim, only days before his death, “to be hell bent on destruction”. Her absence from the film makes her all the more pitiable a figure. It is Amy who turns the camera on just before Tim is killed . forgetting to remove the lens cap so his death is captured only on audio. It is to Herzog’s credit that he doesn’t share this with the audience, instead listening to it wearing headphones, his back to the camera.

Whatever Tim Treadwell was searching for, he was sure he had found it in Alaska among the Brown Bears. He was convinced they were kindred spirits and shared a oneness, when it is clear, not just from Herzog’s voiceover, that these wild animals were mostly motivated by hunger, not friendship. Treadwell’s work and its merits are highly questionable . especially as his constant proximity to the bears only served to condition them to humans and poachers. Ironically, when his remains were found, two nearby bears were shot as the guilty parties. It’s clear Herzog questions many aspects of Treadwell’s lifestyle, but as the film progresses, his incomprehension is replaced with respect. Herzog himself a zealot filmmaker represents Tim’s idealism and his resolve, with a quiet dignity. Treadwell may sounded foolish or mad to some in his excitable monologues to camera, but there’s something very philosophical about this man, in that he eventually lived . and died . the life he wanted.