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225 of 247 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Every bear for himself and God against all., September 1, 2005
The amazing thing about Timothy Treadwell was that he survived 13 summers in the Alaska wilderness, living among gigantic, ferocious grizzly bears, until one of them finally ate him. Treadwell was a combination environmental activist, societal rebel, filmmaker, nutcase and holy fool. In other words, he was not unlike Werner Herzog, director of "Grizzly Man," the brilliant new documentary about Treadwell's life and horrible death. Herzog is much more self-aware than Treadwell ever was, and has much more of a sense of reality and irony. But as a filmmaker drawn to impossible projects ("Fitzcarraldo," "Aguirre, the Wrath of God"), he feels a definite kinship to Treadwell, even as he's appalled by Treadwell's egregious lapses of judgment. Treadwell shot more than 100 hours of film of himself and his beloved grizzlies, and Herzog culls the best of that film for "Grizzly Man." In his own film footage, Treadwell showed himself consistently to be an arrested adolescent, conflating the terrifying behemoths he lived among with his collection of teddy bears. (He speaks constantly of the mortal danger of living among grizzlies, but never quite seems to believe his own words.) Yet he also captured some of the most amazing nature scenes ever recorded, and Herzog respects him for that. (In his narration, Herzog also expresses great tenderness toward Amie Huguenard, the woman who loved Treadwell, followed him to the wilderness despite her fear of bears, and shared his horrible fate.) Whereas Treadwell sought order in nature, and believed the grizzlies loved him as much as he loved them, Herzog sees nothing in Treadwell's story except the workings of a chaotic universe sending one more dreamer to his doom. But because Treadwell's dreams were so outsized, Herzog sees him as a brother. So, thanks to Herzog, do we.
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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unearthing one man's dark heart among beasts, October 24, 2005
What a fascinating film this is about nature and man in it. German director Werner Herzog has made his share of great fiction movies about men embracing their id in the wilds of nature at the expense of their sanity, so the late Timothy Treadwell, the "Grizzly Man" that serves as the movie's title, is a perfect documentary subject. Treadwell got closer to these giant bears than anyone during the last 13 summers of his life until he and his girlfriend were killed by one.
Herzog mostly uses Treadwell's own footage to reveal the story, and the results are unlikely and extraordinary. We see the bears in their element - on a plain and on an island of trees Treadwell dubs "The Grizzly Maze." Katmai National Park, scattered on the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, is a visual wonder, and the intimacy Treadwell achieves with the bears allows him to capture a bear fight as intense and vicious as any nature film I've ever seen. Uncut and filmed at close range, it is a titanic, beautiful struggle that involves primal strategy and raw strength. It is riveting as a later shot of bears sprinting on a beach is playful.
But there is much more.
Treadwell uses his camera as a confessional. A decent man with a reasonably laudible aims morphs into a profane, disturbed meglomaniac whose emotional issues likely drove him to Alaska to live with bears who tolerate him but, as the footage shows, don't consider him a family friend. We learn he is a failed actor, a mild con artist, a loner who pretends on film he is alone when he is not, and, above all, a man who plays at being virtuous when he quite clearly thinks he is owed more acclaim and gratitude that he gets.
Herzog first shows his temper in a hilarious scene where a fox steals Treadwell's hat. Later, Treadwell vents when tourists come to photograph the bears. Later still, he launches a vulgar rant against the National Park Service that makes "Grizzly Man" unsuitable for kids but essential to the man and the film. Treadwell thinks he's out there for the bears. He's really out there for himself. So anyone of us would be, for we do not go to the zoo so the animals can see us. We go to see the animals.
Treadwell needs to declare himself, to say "I am." Bears don't. Bears act out of instinct and conditioning. Treadwell expresses, and does so out of thought. Without stating it, "Grizzly Man" is a convincing argument against the evolutionary theory that suggests man arose from the clay of beasts. It's also a compelling case against Treadwell's mission, which seems to be little more than hanging around bears and filming them. Treadwell claims, quite often, to be "protecting" them. From what?
His other mission is education. Stunning as the photography is, what I learned from "Grizzly Man" about bears is that they're bears. That in itself is divine but Treadwell wants to go further and impose human traits on them, which seem absurd the day he finds a baby grizzly's skull picked clean by other bears. Finally Treadwell gets dumb and stays in the "Maze" later in the summer than he should. The familiar bears are gone, replaced by one who eventually kills him. He probably captures the bear on tape, and we see a close-up of its beady brown eyes. Not a flicker of humanity. We shouldn't expect there to be.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mr. Chocolate is a Carnivore, February 26, 2006
I liked this movie but I have to agree with all the reviews (who rate it both good and bad) that say Timothy Treadwell is emotionally and mentally ill. It's true: the most amazing thing about his story was that he wasn't killed and eaten any sooner.
I sympathize with the family and friends for their loss, but I can't gloss over what a crazy, grandstanding and ultimately suicidal "mission" this was. He wasn't exactly Diane Fossey, who literally fought poachers off the mountain gorillas in Rwanda--these bears were in a state park.
Absolutely NOTHING in science or life tells Treadway or anyone else that it's safe to live with bears. He ventures into the wild and lives in a constant state of delusion, even as the bears kill and eat each other, his cute little foxes, the adorable little cubs. As Herzog points out, there's nothing to support Treadway's fantasy world of harmony in the bloody Alaskan wilderness.
GRIZZLY MAN is a fascinating story but I have to agree with the reviews which compare the interviews with BEST IN SHOW or A MIGHTY WIND.
(If you were fascinated by this story, check out the book INTO THE WILD, about another young man who disappeared and died in the Alaskan bush in an attempt to live off the land. GORILLAS IN THE MIST is both a book and a movie about Diane Fossey, another controversial person who fought on behalf of endangered animals).
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