Grizzly Man
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Movie Reviews of Grizzly Man
Movie Review: A fascinating story of -above all else- a man's life
Summary: 5 Stars
This documentary was breathtaking, to say the least. I originally watched it expecting a nature documentary of a man who went and studied the grizzlies. What I came to understand was that this movie is not a documentary of bears or of nature, but rather a documentary of bare humanity.
The film is not one to be watched while expecting to be convinced of any new philosophy on life or to be swayed by any opinions. To watch is as so would be to destroy what it is that makes the film beautiful. Timothy Treadwell is a man who was led into the wilderness by love and also by hatred, by peace and also by anger. The film must be watched with one expecting to observe humanity in its most truly emotional and vulnerable state.
Treadwell's claimed belief in the absolute harmony and order of nature is certainly not one that is logical, but he was also not insane. Treadwell was a man drove to the edge; he was an outcast of love and of life. As you will inevitably come to notice in the movie, he has a very "unique" personality - one that would immediately turn most people off. In every way, he exemplifies the misunderstood. With a need to feel purpose and a need to find something to live for, Timothy Treadwell threw himself at the mercy of the unforgiving wilderness and used it as a means to leave the society that he felt rejected in. The wilderness provided him with a means of escape, a means of rebellion, and a means of finding something to live for that did not possess the human ability to reject him. The film is a portrait of a man trying to change his darkness to something bright. The beauty that Treadwell found in the wilderness gave him something to love and gave him a reason to direct his inner rage towards society in a manner that felt selfless. As you will observe in the film, Treadwell expresses extreme hatred of the Alaskan government and of poachers and pretends as though this hatred solely arises because of his care for nature and its animals. However, the film also shows Treadwell becoming filled with rage whenever another person or group of persons is seen in the wilderness. Recreational visitors, campers, all of them were intruders on the land that Timothy wanted to believe was created solely for him. It didn't matter what anyone's purpose for being there was; to Timothy, that wilderness belonged to him, and his divine purpose of guarding it justified his hatred of the outside world. Timothy's enemy was not the Poachers or the Alaskan government; to Timothy, his true enemy was society and all of the people within it.
The film will not show you a man who is spiritually at ease, or a man who has reached a miraculous harmony with the world and with nature, or a man who is, by any means, an innocent one. Rather, the film will show you a broken man trying to find redemption in purpose.
Movie Review: Close Encounters of the Dangerous Kind
Summary: 5 Stars
The biggest surprise of Werner Herzog's `Grizzly Man,' is the focus on the titled subject matter. The animals are important, but wisely kept as second focus in favor of Tim Treadwell. Tim was a filmmaker himself who tried to bond with grizzly bears until his tragic death when he and his girlfriend, Amy, were mauled and eaten by a grizzly in Kodiak. Now this fact is established in the first few minutes and elaborated throughout the film. Mostly, I went in believing that the film would consist of Treadwell's films mixed with commentary. However, slightly over half of the material investigates their deaths and mostly his life. The angles make this documentary so special and complete. To establish an understanding of Tim the person, there are testimonies by Tim's former lovers, family, and friends. As an investigation of his death, Herzog interviews an ecologist couple, the Park Service, and the coroner. In addition friend and Bush pilot, Willy Fulton, has a great deal to tell us about both his death and life. Everyone has something to bring to the table--even the hunters. We first have to learn about the man; then we have to see what went wrong when he dared the ghost too long and too often.
One of the best perspectives offered is from Native Alutiiq museum curator, Sven Haakanson, PhD. who says it best: "If you look at it from my culture, Timothy Treadwell crossed a boundary that we have lived with for 7,000 years. It's an unspoken boundary, an unknown boundary. But when we know we've crossed it, we pay the price." Which is certainly a refreshing departure from the usual sentiments: "He died doing what he loved best." Or having to listen to some conservatives invoking the death penalty like it was poetic justice. (Imagine taking sides with an animal instead of a human!) Herzog himself seems to invoke nature as cold-blooded. Tim also articulates the harm's way he's put himself in several times, but he balances that--or unbalances that!--with a child-like exuberance for creatures he's seemed to project himself upon. It's not that much different with pets, except Tim has a protective nature for the grizzlies like it was an extension of himself. The other revelations are meant to unearth yourselves.
'Grizzly Man' is really about a man's passion, his vulnerability, his enthusiasm, but also his disintegration. Like tracing bear paw prints, the movie does a marvelous and responsible job at reinacting a tragedy. There was a second big surprise for me: Herzog wisely leaves out the recordings that Treadwell unintentionally provided at the time of their deaths. Having seen TV news magazines that have left nothing to the imagination, it's taken me this long to see this incredible documentary. Herzog uses prudence. And prudence is sorely needed.
Movie Review: Great Gatsby, The Grizzly Bear Version
Summary: 5 Stars
In many ways Timothy Treadwell's story of obsessing over bears is a true and tragic retelling of The Great Gatsby, a man who creates a false persona to himself and to others in order to achieve the American Dream. In Herzog's even-handed treatment of this troubled man, we learn that Treadwell grew up with aspirations to be something greater than his mediocrity allowed, a larger than life figure who would proselytize to the world about the need to preserve the ecology and to save bears and as such he would be a great Messiah figure. Treadwell is a failure, a narcissist, and a sexually confused man. We see him fail to become an actor and, failing to beat Woody Harrelson for the spot on Cheers, he goes over the edge, at least according to his father. A third-rate actor, Treadwell works as a "Prince" at one of those ghastly theme restaurants where the waiters have to wear unbearable costumes and indulge the tastes of the philistine customers. Like Gatsby in the novel, Treadwell creates a false identity to impress his new friends. Indeed, Treadwell is not even his real name but something that he thought would help spice his acting career. Additionally, he lies to everyone, claiming to be from Australia and affecting an accent so unconvincing that at best, we hear one former friend say he sounded a bit like the Kennedys. To add to his foppish ways, Treadwell grows ridiculously long blond bangs to cover his receding hair line, evincing a megalomaniacal vanity that annoys throughout the footage. But beyond the cosmetics and identity alterations, we see a profile of a deeply troubled narcissist who hates the world, civilization, and the human race more and more for rejecting him as a "great actor." As his frustration grows, he becomes more and more absorbed in a fantasy animal world in which Treadwell indulges in the child's cutesy Bambi fantasy that would have him believe he is achieving a mystical bond with the ferocious grizzly bears and is "saving" them from destruction. Listening to his high-pitched sing-song "conversations" with the bears will make you cringe. His delusions are apparent and it is inevitable that tragedy will strike.
Many people warned me not to watch this film, saying that Treadwell is too annoying in his misanthropic rages and megalomania to watch for 90 minutes. Others told me the film was a laugh-out-loud riot. But I found the film far deeper than a comedy or a mean profile of a troubled failed actor. I saw the film as a profound commentary about how we deal with failure and the fantasies we create to make ourselves acceptable and heroic and the tragic consequences of those fantasies. The director Herzog handles this material with insouciance and sensitivity. A moving, haunting documentary.
Movie Review: A work of profound cinematic depth, worthy of repeated viewings
Summary: 5 Stars
I must admit that my first reaction to this film was not immediately positive; Herzog's presence seemed overbearing and intrusive, and Treadwell himself was a figure so tragic as to be somewhat alienating. And yet I found that, days later, I found I was still thinking about it, still mesmerized by the questions it raised. How truly unsympathetic was Treadwell? Should I be somewhat jealous of him, for all the joy and depth of experience he found in his work? I have, as few have, found little in life so enriching and gratifying as what Treadwell appeared to find in the wilderness; are thirteen summers of that worth an early, terrible end?
So I saw the film again; I recommend that others do the same, if they find themselves at all intrigued after the first viewing. And then I saw the film again, and again. What I found with time -- as I let it develop into an obsession -- was an incredibly complex artwork, capable of provoking rich and sometimes startling meanings.
At its core, I now understand Grizzly Man to be a document of the desperate search for kinship in an alienating world; an insight into what happens when, failing to find an object which fulfills our desires, we resort to projecting our desires onto whatever might hold them. For as Treadwell imagines the bears to be his companions, so too does Herzog attempt to imagine Treadwell as a filmmaker of his own lineage, a comrade in the struggle to capture beauty in a wild and unforgiving universe. Intentionally or not, Herzog's intrusion into this documentary comes to parallel Treadwell's own intrusion into the bears' wild habitat; and we come to realize that the strange and austere beauty he finds in Treadwell's footage is more Herzog's invention than it is a product of the man who captured the images.
One reviewer has noted the failure of this film to acknowledge the "culture of artifice" which drove its participants to such extremes. I would argue, however, that both this phenomenon and the underlying anomie are central to the film; and that acknowledging them would only serve to undermine their tension and delegitimize them as themes, for to do so would require Herzog to depersonalize them, to suppose that he was somehow outside of or above their influence, and in doing so allow the audience to treat them as foreign objects as well. Instead, we come to recognize them empathically, and are left on our own to decide their personal meaning.
In short, this film manages to span the full spectrum between fascination with the other and deepest introspection. And that versatility is a rare quality, truly deserving of five perfect stars.
Movie Review: Herzog's latest portrait of a tormented eccentric does not disappoint
Summary: 5 Stars
Timothy Treadwell was a mopheaded blond American who spent 12 years living with grizzly bears in the wilds of Alaska. His exploits- sometimes praised, sometimes reviled -would make the Croc Hunter look like a wimp. And in the end, he was killed by his obsession. Director Werner Herzog was able to gain access to all of Treadwell's footage. The resulting documentary is a brooding, intimate portrait of an oddball semi-scientist who felt that he had the answers...but the world just would not listen.
Herzog has become a master at capturing the macabre, electrically-charged essence of the madman, and Treadwell becomes yet another in this pantheon. Under Herzog's crisp, reflective narration we see a man-child who fell in love with the most dangerous terrestrial animal on earth and tried to become one with it.
Treadwell, Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo all had the same type of vision. Each espoused a grandiose idea and became intent on realizing it. Fitzcarraldo had his opera house in the jungle, Aguirre his city of gold, and Treadwell his grizzly protection agenda. All three became so intent on achieving these ends that they destroyed themselves and others in the process.
Herzog listens to the final audiotape of Treadwell and his girlfriend being killed by a starving grizzly, a tear coming into his eye and an expression of dour, empathetic terror crossing his face. It's all real. No one's pretending this time. There's no Klaus Kinski (himself a famed madman), the actors don't go home at the end of the story. This is Herzog's first chance to use primary sources and witnesses to truly get into the mind of a man who failed to find the balance between goals, abilities and reason.
We've seen the wrecked dreams of a man who wanted to bring his passion to a new locale. We've been treated to the tableau of an abandoned, broken man floating down the Amazon on a sinking raft, surrounded by chattering, mocking monkeys. Now we see yet another fool's hero (or hero's fool?) and his animal companions as the world closes in on him. Only this time, they're not monkeys, and they're not harmless.
The film remains respectful of Treadwell's dreams and schemes throughout. This is not a mockumentary of a clownish buffoon. For better or for worse, we can clearly tell that Herzog neither disdains nor outright praises his subject; instead he respects the spirit of the man who seeks to better something in the world, even if, in the end, there doesn't appear to be any tangible result. The story is powerful, the characters are real and (usually) sincere. "Grizzly Man" should not be missed.