So last night I headed over to the Angelica theater and caught a sold out showing of
Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog’s new documentary about the bear loving young
activist Timothy Treadwell. This is a superb film. One of the best character profiles I’ve seen in a long, long time.
Having spent 13 years living among Grizzly bears in Alaska, Treadwell was a minor celebrity. He made an appearance on
David Letterman and was the subject of several articles in adventure travel magazines. People loved him and loathed
him, but no one questioned his passion, a quality that shines through in this film.
Using a DV camera, Treadwell filmed himself over the years living among the bears and assorted wildlife of the
gorgeous and yawning Alaskan plain. He completed several hundred hours of tape, some of it extremely riveting footage.
(He also shot numerous photographs). Much of the
footage in the film has Treadwell talking to the camera, explaining why he is there. He constantly professes to be
protecting the bears, but this is National Park Service land that is already heavily protected, with few real problems
from poaching, and so one wonders if there is something else about his presence there, whether the whole adventure is
more a matter of personal escape, of banishing demons and finding a purpose in life.
Treadwell is a complex and fascinating character…a mixture of compassionate, animal-loving green, fervent nihilist and
unbridled megalomaniac. He reminded me a bit of Chris McCandless, the character from
Into the Wild. On
the one hand, you can relate to his disdain for aspects of modern society, his passion for preserving wilderness…on the
other hand he unquestionably goes off the deep end, and you really question his sanity. It’s
no secret that in the end he is munched by a bear (along
with his girlfriend), something captured on the audio portion of the tape found in his camera (the lens cap was on).
You never get to actually hear this audio…but it is described in detail in the film. In once of the film’s scenes of
perhaps treacly melodrama, Herzog listens to the tape as Treadwell’s former girlfriend looks on with a horrified,
deeply pained face. I liked the scene, but it did seem a bit overwrought.
Anyway, if you can catch this film, do so. Here is the
trailer.
Also, it seems that Leo DiCaprio may actually
play Treadwell in a motion picture, although in this case it is hard to imagine the fiction film surpassing the
documentary for elegance and drama.