I found myself in an after-dark YouTube hamlet one night; I ended up on an audio of a bear mauling someone to death. I couldn’t believe what I was listening to; it seemed real yet too calculated, too staged. I looked at the video's comments, and some clarity was provided on the audio; it was a reenactment of a real-life tragedy that claimed the life of Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard. This tragedy was the subject of Werner Herzog’s documentary, Grizzly Man.
I finally got around to watching it on the Criterion Channel, and loved it. It’s not one of those documentaries that leans so heavily on right or wrong. Herzog sees that Timothy’s a person fighting with himself, someone who doesn’t belong in society, and so he seeks that “freedom” of normal life by spending 13 years living with bears. While he’s compassionate toward Treadwell, he still disagrees with his views and feelings. Herzog admires Timothy’s bravery in being so close to these wild beasts and roaming the vast wilderness with them. From a director’s point of view, Herzog becomes entangled with the spectacular shots Timothy can capture, something so pure and unpredictable that he loses focus, and so does the audience, of the danger Timothy’s putting himself into.
The more time he spent with the bears, the more he treated them as friends; he loved these animals, but he pushed boundaries that were established to keep him and the general population safe. As stated in the documentary, he was causing more harm than good. You feel sorry for Treadwell’s plight, and you feel sorry that he died tragically, but you shake your head at everything he does. The “mission” wasn’t about the bears; it was more about him, a status quo that he developed, a savior for animals that didn’t need saving. Can you imagine being a park ranger and dealing with him for 13 years? Every summer, you see him putting his life in danger, and for what? He wasn’t a scientist, he loved the animals. You see that, but those rangers are getting paid to do a job; he’s like the customer that comes into work with five minutes left to closing, but he does this consecutively for 13 years.
The documentary shows you the fantastical world of Treadwell, the savior of bears, almost like the Lorax. A mythical image he created in his head; something that encapsulates that is when a bigger predator killed a fox that followed Treadwell. Treadwell’s hurt and saddened, yet his understanding of it is seen as inhumane. In contrast, Herzog sees it as the circle of life, not cruelty. What I love is how the locals step in and keep you grounded. They speak with facts. Harsh at times, like when one helicopter pilot says the bears must’ve thought Timothy was mentally challenged; or when the pilot also mentions that Treadwell forgot he was dealing with wild animals and not people running around in bear costumes; “he got what he was asking for.” He’s right.
One thing I love about this documentary is the way it’s composed; you have the buzzing of flies when the pilot who worked for Treadwell for those 13 summers is at the scene where Timothy and Amie were tragically killed. You feel the presence of the wild, like you’re present. You can feel the heat and the smell surrounding the area, feeling sick to your stomach, and it's much worse when Herzog presents a photo of the deceased bear that killed Timothy and Amie.
What work was done in those 13 years? Was it work on himself rather than the bears? A scientist talks about the bear population there. What was Timothy doing? It’s so wild that this guy goes to a national park and thinks he’s the real person protecting these bears. I think he did it for personal gratification, a way to escape his mundane life. He couldn’t make it as an actor, so this was his way of making it big. The man we see on camera was a character. The zippy, charismatic man we’d see gracing our screen talking about these bears was a character Treadwell created for himself, for the camera. As the documentary shows, there were tiny cracks in the real Timothy: he was much more violent and aggressive; the smiley Treadwell would disappear when things didn’t go his way.
Grizzly Man is a fascinating documentary that resonates almost a year after I watched it. Unfortunately, Treadwell didn’t live to tell the tale of his summers in Alaska and how close he was to meeting his demise on a podcast; for that, we have Herzog to thank for capturing and telling the story of this larger-than-life character who went out the way he likely wanted to, to be one with the bear in bear country.