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Grizzly Man
At its heart, Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man is a tale of two idealisms, which exist on opposite extremes from one another: Nature as blissful benevolence, and nature as murderous, sadistic malevolence. It is up to the viewer to decide where they fall in between these two extremes—Herzog merely allows the differing arguments to invent themselves through the course of the film. One thing remains certain: By the end of Grizzly Man, Herzog has forced us to at least begin to have an opinion about these two idealisms and the ghost of the man who fought to maintain one of them until the day that it finally killed him. This ghost is the late Timothy Treadwell, the documentary filmmaker/animal rights advocate who lived among grizzly bears for thirteen summers on Kodiak Island, Alaska. In September 2003, Treadwell was attacked and eaten, along with his girlfriend, by one of the bears that he had sworn to protect. By the end, Treadwell didn’t have many friends—we see that his memorial service was only attended by three persons (not counting Herzog and his crew) and notably no bears—but he left quite a legacy, including years of controversial bear interaction that resulted in over one hundred hours of nature footage. This footage, which Herzog was given full access to for the making of this documentary, provides a fascinating account of Treadwell’s passion, his drive, and, frequently, his madness. For Treadwell, experiencing these bears up close—closer than any expert in the field would ever dare go—cements in his mind that nature is beautiful, peaceful, and life affirming. “Before I had these bears, I was nothing,” a teary-eyed Treadwell, who strikes us as a cross between Richard Simmons and Steve Irwin, discloses in one of the most revealing scenes from his video diaries shot on Kodiak. “I was an alcoholic, a drug addict, a loser. I didn’t have a life. These bears saved my life, and now, I will protect them.” The question, of course, is whether or not the bears really needed protection from his strange, eccentric man, considering that they inhabit a national forest specifically designed to protect them and keep them away from human interaction. In his footage, the bears certainly seem more perplexed by Treadwell than enlightened. Throughout the course of the documentary, Herzog provides the second idealism, which paints nature in a colder, harsher light. The director makes good use of Treadwell’s often extraordinary footage—both of himself and of bears—and acts as a sort of commentator on Treadwell and his philosophy. Herzog, of course, has always seen the universe as chaotic, hostile, and murderous—a common thread in many of his own fascinating explorations of the relationship between man and nature, including Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, Where the Green Ants Dream, and Lessons of Darkness. During one of Treadwell’s close-ups of a bear, Herzog speaks over the naturist’s own dialogue that praises the animal and points out the expression on the bear’s face, which reveals a “half-bored hunger for food,” not the angelic creature that Treadwell makes it out to be. Not that Treadwell doesn’t understand the dangers of living so closely to grizzly bears: “Try to do what I do, and you will die,” he tells the camera at one point. “If I show weakness, I'm dead. They will take me out, they will decapitate me, and they will chop me up into bits and pieces.” This is reasoning that has at least a basic, if romanticized, comprehension of the risks involved. Treadwell, it seems, ultimately made the tragic miscalculation of believing that he had lived with the bears for so long that he had become one of them, and Herzog asserts that when we cross nature’s boundaries with such thinking, nature will always knock us back across the line. In Treadwell’s case, he had crossed the line so far that nature could only respond fatally as it restored its harassed balance. As an Alaskan, I can attest that most of us in the state did not think very highly of Treadwell when he was alive. We often have run-ins with the same brown bears that Treadwell went out of his way to pet and talk to, and they are not creatures to be trifled with. Treadwell, above all else, unquestionably trifled. I concur with one expert in the film who reveals that Treadwell did more harm than good when he spent so much time with grizzlies, because it is never smart to allow wild bears to get comfortable around human beings. When living near bears, the line between humans and animals is crucial, in order to protect the bears from getting too close to humans and thus getting shot. I have attended lectures by Robert and Johanna Fagen, a couple living here in Juneau who spent many years studying bears on Admiralty Island, another Alaskan safe haven for brown bears, and their living conditions reveal the downright insanity of what Treadwell was trying to accomplish. The Fagens had a tent that provided safe distance from the bears (they often even camped at a nearby, bear-less island), to allow the animals to live safely in their own habitat without intruding on their space. They were there to study the bears, not interact with them. This difference is crucial: In havens like Kodiak and Admiralty, where poaching is practically non-existent, one wonders what Treadwell thought he was “protecting” the bears from. Most of us believe that he was simply there to satisfy his own delusions. Certainly we were sad to hear of his death, but none of us were particularly surprised. When you play with fire, you eventually get burned—even if it takes thirteen years. Herzog agrees with this viewpoint, but Grizzly Man is not a condemnation of Treadwell so much as an exploration. The film wisely begins with the revelation that Treadwell was eaten by a bear in the Grizzly Maze, a particularly bear-infested area on Kodiak. His foolish death that came as a result of his camping directly on a grizzly’s walking path is enough to know that Treadwell went too far. But instead of condemning or condoning Treadwell’s actions, Herzog at first is content to simply let Treadwell’s remarkable footage speak for itself. It cannot be said, Herzog reveals, that Treadwell didn’t achieve some remarkable things, even as he constantly crossed the line. As an Alaskan, it is easy for me to think of Treadwell as a dingbat, but as I watched this film, an even more extraordinary thing happened: I began to see him as a human being, and to empathize with him. Certainly he was off base, certainly his sincerity was questionable, but it took a lot of nerve to do what he did, and it is remarkable that he lasted thirteen summers, shot some stupendous footage, and seemed to inhabit his surroundings adequately enough that the bears were at least comfortable around him. Grizzly Man is a notable change of pace for Werner Herzog, the great German director so famously obsessed with capturing new images and ideas for the preservation of human dreams and creativity. With Grizzly Man, a deviation happens from his usual formula—he allows someone else to capture these images for him, and he becomes less the filmmaker and more of the guide through the maze. His own ideas are presented alongside his subject matter’s, so that Herzog is not the only voice we hear, and indeed, not even the most prominent. Nearly all of the images—particularly the most remarkable ones of dueling bears and other scenes of nature—come from Treadwell’s footage. As a filmmaker, Herzog instinctually recognizes the poignancy of this new, unexplored voice, and he is humble enough to let the Treadwell’s ghost speak for himself. For much of the film’s first act, Herzog is a constructive critic, analyzing and dissecting Treadwell’s technique and offering suggestions, seemingly beyond the grave, to Treadwell. As a filmmaker, Herzog defends Treadwell’s ability to capture significant, startling images of nature, but he is also quick to point out that Treadwell was not perceptive enough to simply allow the silence and haunting reality of nature to do its own talking, through the wind, the sounds of trees blowing in a storm, the rain, etc. Treadwell always has to be in front of the camera, always has to be talking, always has to turn the images that he is shooting as a mirror for himself. Herzog waits until Treadwell wanders off the still-filming camera and points out the simple profoundness found in the silence of the natural world. Herzog also makes some interesting directorial choices in regards to the interviews he conducts, with Treadwell’s old friends and family. He seems to have received tips from his old protégée Errol Morris about allowing the interviewee’s silent expressions in between questions to go a long way. The medical examiner who conducted the autopsies on Treadwell's remains is such a queer bird that we wouldn’t believe him as a fictitious character, and Herzog exploits his weirdness by awkwardly allowing the camera to linger on his bizarre facial expressions, even after the interview is finished. In another scene, we are treated to a side view of Herzog as he listens on headphones to the sounds of Treadwell being eaten alive—captured on video, with the lens cap still on. We do not hear the sounds, but Herzog’s very reaction is enough to jolt us, even though most of his face is obscured. Unlike Treadwell, Herzog knows the value of silence. Herzog also succumbs to the inevitable temptation of questioning Treadwell’s sanity, which was seemingly lost in his struggles with self-actualization. Treadwell was certainly a man obsessed with his own legacy, as evidenced in Herzog’s investigative reporting that reveals the naturist to be a failed actor (if we are to believe Treadwell’s claims, he almost got Woody Harrelson’s part in Cheers), and a former alcoholic and drug abuser. He often faked an Australian accent when interacting with people, and clearly struggled to find his own unique identity, even if it was a false one. In some of the most revealing scenes, Treadwell does multiple takes of running through the same few yards of wilderness, each time wearing a different colored hat or bandana so that he could see which one looked the best. He also constantly emphasized that he was alone in the wilderness with the bears—not always the truth, as he often took his girlfriend with him to film on a steady-cam (her name was Amie Huguenard, and she was killed in the same attack that took Treadwell’s life. She remains one of the film’s unseen enigmas). Such moments certainly suggest that Treadwell was unstable, and essentially created this persona of bear-protector because it is was an identity that provided recognition and personality. How much of what we see on screen is acting is hard to say, but we are certainly aware of an underlining mental illness present in his character. In the film’s most disturbing scene, Treadwell begins with exposition of where in the Grizzly Maze he is, and then he suddenly explodes in a fit of rage, screaming profanities into the camera and blaming the Park Service for not taking him seriously. This rage immediately draws comparison to another one of Herzog’s fascinations, the mad actor Klaus Kinski who also managed to channel his violent fury by shouting into a camera. Even Herzog cannot allow this scene to pass without making the inevitable comparison: “I have seen this madness on a movie set before,” he narrates. He leaves it at that, and it’s enough. Yet for his delusions, Treadwell was clearly a man who seemed comfortable in nature. The film’s most touching passages are provided in footage about Treadwell’s ten-year relationship with a wild fox named Timmy. The fox always finds Treadwell every summer, and guards his tent faithfully every night. The fox allows Treadwell to pet him, feed him, even hold him. Even after Treadwell is killed, the fox continues to look for him every summer. Our last shot of “Timmy” sees him perched at Treadwell’s old camping ground, and it is a heartbreaking moment. Treadwell might not have belonged out there with the bears, but he certainly belonged to that fox. Of course, the underlining irony of Grizzly Man and its clash of views over nature is that Herzog has taken as many insane risks in the wild as Treadwell, and for a longer period of time (see Fitzcarraldo, Burden of Dreams, The White Diamond, or even Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe). For Herzog, the key to surviving wild feats of nature is not in the feats themselves, but rather in the approach we take to the universe. Herzog understands nature’s hostility and approaches it with caution and awe. Treadwell saw bliss and harmony, and it took away his need for caution. Somewhere in the middle of these perceptions is Grizzly Man, in which two men with mad, driven passions argue relentlessly over their approaches to the universe—one from beyond the grave, the other from behind the camera. The result is a film of great power and depth: Treadwell’s flawed humanity reveals a touching story of a misguided fallen, and Herzog tells this story as a way of stabilizing his own theories of the world. But Herzog does more than simply point out Treadwell’s faults: He allows Treadwell, smiling, obsessed, and demented, to speak for himself, to reveal his own obsessions, to make his own defense. His fate ultimately forces us to disagree with him, but damn it all, we like him, and we wish that he had found a more focused calling that hadn’t plummeted him into self destruction. I’d have loved to see him on Cheers. Narrated by Werner Herzog, featuring footage by Timothy Treadwell. Lions Gate Films presents a film by Discovery Docs. Written and directed by Werner Herzog. Rated R, for language. Running time: 103 minutes. Original United States theatrical release date: August 12, 2005. |
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