Grizzly Man (2005)

Directed by Werner Herzog.

In a Nutshell: An analysis on the life and death of environmentalist Timothy Treadwell.

Timothy Treadwell is such a Shakespearian portrait of fortitude on the edge of madness, that it is no wonder he caught the eye of Werner Herzog. A quick backstory; Treadwell was a drug addict and a failed actor who found a communion with nature, specifically with the grizzly bears living in an Alaskan peninsula. He resided amongst the bears for thirteen summers as a grassroots preservationist, interacting with them like an equal. For the last five years of his study, he brought along a video camera to capture authentic bear footage. However, following the summer of 2003 an altercation at the airport inflamed his contempt with humanity, and he and his then-girlfriend Amie Huguenard, went back to his home with the bears. Unfortunately, many of Treadwell’s familiar bear companions were in hibernation and the scarcity of food led to Treadwell and Huguenard being mauled by a grizzly. Herzog, no stranger the cruelty of nature, has constructed a breathtaking nature film, a portrait of a lone environmentalist resisting civilization, and a haunting story of a troubled man stalked by his own doom.

Despite the debate that Treadwell’s eccentricity has caused amongst his peers (illustrated through interviews of Treadwell’s friends and family as well as disapproving naturalists and park rangers), Herzog remains unbiased in his retelling of Treadwell’s life. Herzog also possesses audio of Treadwell and Huguenard’s final moments, but honorably refuses to play it and instructs one of Treadwell’s ex-girlfriends to destroy the tape. In fact he only interrupts Treadwell’s musings to weigh in on what he feels is “the overwhelming indifference of nature.” He holds a fascination with nature as intense as Treadwell (as evidenced in his other works) but lacking any sort of romanticism. All he sees the chaos of nature that enveloped Treadwell and is the closest Herzog gets to showing his cards on his subject.

Grizzly Man is a peculiar movie, but nothing short of engrossing. It may contain the most unrefined videos of grizzly bears in the wild (a view shared by Herzog, who praises Treadwell as a filmmaker), but never romanticizes nature. And Treadwell remains a study in himself; either an outcast who found an unexplainable unity within America’s most dangerous carnivores or an exhibitionist grasping for the attention he never received as an actor. Herzog certainly tries his best to paint an accurate portrayal with the footage Treadwell allowed to be filmed. We see Treadwell rage incoherently about civilization, baby talk to the bears, set up multiple takes for “spontaneous” observations, and so on. Whatever our interpretation we can see how such a man of oddball idealism could have found himself exiled by society and identified only within the perilous splendor of nature. Herzog dutifully does not prod us to judge, but to merely observe this tragic life of one man’s lonely embrace with death.