Grizzly Man
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Movie Reviews of Grizzly Man
Movie Review: A fascinating and thought provoking movie
Summary: 5 Stars
Having just seen Grizzly Man I am left deeply moved and challenged as a human being. Indeed I feel compelled to share something of my impressions with others. As a philosopher and a psychologist I found this film unique and extraordinary. I cannot think of another recent film that has left me with so many valuable questions...
As the reader no doubt knows, this film documents the life of one man in the Alaskan wilderness. Although the circumstances of his death were violent and certainly tragic for those left behind, I do not believe his death was pointless. Most of us like to forget that we have to face death sometime. The one vitally important question this movie (and Timothy Treadwell) has left me with is this : Am I prepared to live and give everything for something I really believe in? Am I prepared to live for what I love?
But there are many other vital questions that this movie has asked of me. Would I find the extraordinary courage of his girlfriend to stay by someone I loved, if they were attacked (by a grizzly!)? Have I ever loved someone that much that I would give my life trying to save them, rather than abandon them in their last moments, even as they called upon me to save myself? Does that extraordinary, selfless love and courage exist within many of us otherwise ordinary human beings?
I can only hope so.
These questions lead to another deep level of fascination with this movie - the nature of Timothy himself. As the film goes on we discover that Timothy is not just playing his (consciously imagined) role as `protector of the gentle grizzlys', he is also a rich and (perfectly) flawed human being. I cannot help but admire his courage to show the camera (and the viewers) so many of his innermost hopes, dreams, feelings, conflicts and doubts. I feel especially privileged to have been part of it, because it seems that sort of intimate connection was something that he struggled to share with real people in his life.
I saw a person struggling to reconcile the different parts of his own nature, in the end giving a great gift of insight (as narrator Werner Herzog suggested) into human nature itself. I saw a deeply caring child within this man, but there was also an anger and rage within that sometimes exploded in front of the camera. It seemed that all the qualities of the conscious caring child within, Timothy projected onto the natural world around him. He struggled to accept and reconcile that nature could be cruel and unfeeling, just as he struggled to accept and explore the meaning of his own unconscious rage. It seemed to me that in trying to protect the Alaskan Grizzlys, he was also subconsciously trying to protect the innocent child within himself from all sorts of threats, some perhaps real and others quite probably his own projection.
Ultimately he paid for his intent to preserve his idea of nature with his life, yet even that price was one he was clearly prepared to pay. I found much rich food for thought in this documentary of this man's life. He left me with great insight into the human condition. And the example of his girlfriend's courage was something that will stay with me forever.
Movie Review: CONFLICT OF EMOTIONS; EXCELLENT FILM, EGOTISTICAL SUBJECT
Summary: 5 Stars
Treadwell was a lost soul in search of a cause; at one point he wanted to be an actor but lost a starring role in a hit TV series (although later got his 15 minutes on the David Letterman Show which includes an offhand remark by Letterman about Treadwell being killed by a Grizzly...) and decided to become a hermit and a Saviour of Ursus Terribilis. He is an entertaining subject by virtue of his manic on-camera antics and his apparent fascination for the Big Bad Grizzly Bears. His penchant for giving them names and imbuing them with little personalities and cartoon-like foibles is a bit too saccharine and elicits some squirms.
These are not Disney cartoon characters, nor were they happy to have this hyperactive human living among them. The bears were fine before Treadwell declared himself their rescuer and defender and are fine now...no bears were being poached nor were they in the dangers Treadwell intimates.
He has one scene which is probably closest to his true persona where he has a meltdown on camera and just goes off on an enraged, over-dramatic speech and we see how truly disturbed this guy is.
He did believe he was literally saving these beasts, and he did get some great footage of them, but his own self-indulgent drama overwhelmed any potential benefits of these efforts.
The only sympathetic figure in this story is Amie who stayed with Treadwell despite her own well-founded fears, and interestingly, she had a far more pragmatic and accurate POV of these bears than he did.
Treadwell never did well when interacting with people in general, and on their way home after their last summer in Grizzly Maze, he and Amie were at the airport when he had a run-in with "an obese" airline employee which was enough to send the uber-sensitive self-described naturalist scurrying back to the bears, much later in the season than was wise.
At the end of the film we see Treadwell's parents, his mother holding his favorite childhood toy...a stuffed bear, the two of them sitting at their Florida home, looking bewildered at their son's final outcome and how it all came about. That moment is really sad.
Herzog made in impressive film about all this self-indulgent drama and really cared about his reckless star, being moved to tears listening to the audio recording of their last few minutes. It is horrifying to realize just how terribly Treadwell and Amie suffered, physically and emotionally, and how utterly unnecessary it all was and how easily it could have been prevented. Amie, of course, had the worst role of watching her lover being literally devoured by this rogue bear and being helpless to stop it.
The Greek Chorus of women who may or may not have been intimate with Treadwell are depressing, and their girlish, coy hints at a physical relationship are grotesque. One wonders; would they have been so devoted to Treadwell if he had been less attractive?
But kittenish females aside, the documentary is gripping and holds you rapt throughout; it is Herzog who turns Treadwell's footage into gold and makes it unforgettable.
Movie Review: Required viewing by mental health experts
Summary: 5 Stars
After watching "Grizzly Man" I must say I can see why such accolades were heaped upon this piece of work. As a pediatrician taking care of children with mental illnesses including Bipolar Disorder, ADHD and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder this documentary brings multiple thoughts and emotions. This film was fascinating in that it was by no means a documentary about Grizzlies. By the first frame of video and verbage of Mr. Treadwell it was obviously a film about the face of severe Bipolar Disorder. There was not a moment of this man on the screen that was NOT a depiction of classic (nearly textbook) fast cycling Bipolar.
The true amazing nature of this film is the lack of any acknowledgement of what was happening to this man amongst family and friends. So many of the others interviewed seemed detached and blunted which makes me believe they were in need of help or were receiving innappropriate help or self-medicating. (I do believe that even the coroner who received the body parts was ill) Mr. Treadwell exhibited obviously rapid mood cycling, rages, delusional thinking and grandiose thinking.
This film was truly maddening to me on several levels. First, by no means should this man ever be called a naturalist or any sort of Grizzly expert. Mr. Treadwell was so severely mentally ill that his narcissism could not allow him to think of anyone but himself, let alone a bear in a federally protected reserve. Second, I am personally saddened that this obviously very bright man with great human potential(as it seems all with mental illness have)never seemed to receive (or possibly accept) good mental health care. I believe there was a mention of some meds including anti-depressants but it was in passing.(anti-depressants being the very worst thing he could have done-this man was in desperate need of good mood-stabilizers I understand that this film needed to be couched as a film about Grizzlies by the film makers and the media in order to,in a way, shock the audience when they see what really unfolds-I suppose this does bring about great film rewards and honors...as this film should receive. Thirdly, I must say even though I fully understand that Mr. Treadwell was severely ill I do have anger towards him for getting his girlfriend in the situation he did. Of course I have no idea of the complexity of the relationship between them(the film makers do keep this very curiously underdeveloped) but I believe Mr. Treadwell despite his issues could have and should have kept this woman safe. I believe this man committed suicide by Grizzly and was planning it for quite a time hence my disdain for this action that led to her death by mauling.
In conclusion, this very great film should be required viewing by all mental health care professionals especially if they have interest in identifying and helping children and adults with mood instabilities. Environmentalists and Naturalists beware; this film will anger and possibly disgust you, as it should.
Brad
Movie Review: Amazingly tragic but absorbing. . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
"Grizzly man," a gripping documentary made by the eccentric though well-regarded German filmmaker Werner Herzog, is the tale of one Timothy Treadwell, a self-appointed naturist, narcissist, filmmaker, educator, fantascist and savior of Alaskan Grizzly bears. Consisting largely of footage that Treadwell himself made (some of which is breathtakingly beautiful), documenting the animals in their natural habitat and his "conservationist" efforts, "Grizzly Man" reasonably asks whether Treadwell was a true ecologist, a foolish dreamer or simply a flat-out nut-case. Whatever the case, this cautionary tale bears more than a passing resemblance to the megalomania that eventually consumed Dian Fossey, that great champion of gorillas in Rwanda, who in 1985 suffered an equally gruesome death (though at the hands of humans) in the name of her cause. Unlike Treadwell, however, Fossey was a true scientist, whose work has contributed greatly to our present-day understanding of the animals she so painstakingly studied.
Over the course of 13 summers, Treadwell gave his "pet" bears ridiculous names like "Saturn," "Mr. Chocolate," "Sergeant Brown" and "Tabitha." He got frighteningly close to the bears, wading into water to touch them, venturing too close to females and their cubs (he is even seen touching and cooing over a bear's excrement!). "Grizzly Man" effectively shows Treadwill's transition--again much like Dian Fossey's--from naive enthusiast to paranoid and delusional misanthrope as he distanced himself from the world of humans and tried to descend into that of the animals. The film never really answers the question of why or how Treadwell came to leave the safe cocoon of a middle-class upbringing, gravitate West, nearly self-destruct in the process and, finally, stumble onto the cause which gave him a certain notoriety. Central to "Grizzly Man" are the interviews of close friends, associates, wildlife professionals, academics and reproachful, fatalistic voiceovers from Herzog himself--most of which bemoan Treadwell's willful ignorance, disrespect and violation of the laws of nature. In essence, most observers felt that Treadwell's habituation to the bears did much more harm than good to the cause of preservation.
Nevertheless, the Treadwell saga came to an abrupt end in late 2003, when he and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, were killed and largely devoured by a marauding bear at their remote camp. In fact, the saddest story of all in "Grizzly Man" is that of Huguenard, who had planned to break with Treadwell, due to her (healthy) fear of bears and her (rightful) sense that her boyfriend had an all-consuming death wish. Whatever one thinks of Treadwell's methods (and madness), "Grizzly Man" makes a powerful case for respecting choices that individuals make to give meaning to their lives--even if some of those choices seem horribly misguided, deeply disturbing and needlessly tragic.
Movie Review: A Grizzly Story
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading some remarkable reviews of Grizzly Man and catching much of it on Discovery Channel, I was very interested in seeing the DVD. The film first appears to be a documentary about the misguided naturalist Timothy Treadwell who befriended grizzly bears in Alaska and was eaten alive in 2003 by one. As a local native points out, what Treadwell did was irresponsible in that he crossed the line that had been drawn 7,000 years ago between humans and grizzlies - that is to avoid one another and maintain a respect for the danger one another poses. Treadwell also claimed that he was protecting the bears but his death resulted in the doom of the bear that killed him. When Herzog samples the tape of Treadwell's last moments (along with his girlfriend's), Herzog advises one of Treadwell's surviving ex-girlfriends to destroy the tape and never view the coroner's photographic evidence - just the coroner's descriptions are enough to chill one to the bone.
The director, Werner Herzog demonstrates again what a master filmmaker he truly is. Herzog also created the film that Treadwell never made by editing hundreds of hours of footage into a film that tells the story Treadwell would have himself made. But Herzog does not allow the audience to be seduced into the sentimentalism that caused Treadwell's death - Herzog indeed interrupts Treadwell's narration and explicitly disagrees with the notion that animals and humans can live in a harmonious relationship and indeed shows the fact that the worlds of humans and bears are separate and there is little room for the intersection of the two.
The extended on the DVD is even more remarkable as Herzog demonstrates his depth of understanding as the soundtrack is scored. One of the engineers asks whether he wants the music as background music and Herzog declares that he never has background music in his films. Herzog coaxes out a sound quality that Treadwell would certainly have been proud of - a haunting and poignant score. Yet again, Herzog won't allow us to be lulled into fantasy - when Treadwell is seen wading into a river with a large grizzly Herzog tells his cellist that he wants a strange sound - it is really a perverse sound that shows the perversity of a man reaching out to pet a grizzly bear. And in other scenes, such as one where two grizzlies are fighting - or one where a cub dismembered by an adult bear the music takes on an atonal quality. Indeed we see a pianist applying sheet metal screws and paperclips to his piano strings to produce a sound that reveals that nature is not 'harmonious'.
By the end of the film Treadwell can be seen as both a passionate man and one who is deeply troubled and a victim of his own imagination. Herzog allows us to feel sympathy and pathos for this tragic figure - a man who knew the fate that awaited him but couldn't resist.