Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3200 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-05-01
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 104 minutes

Synopsis
Werner Herzog's persistent inquiry into the motivations of human obsession focuses this time on the self-proclaimed kind warrior Timothy Treadwell. A passionate wildlife preservationist and grizzly bear devotee, Treadwell lived unarmed among the grizzlies in a remote section of Alaska for 13 years, and eventually died in a bear attack. He filmed his experiences during his final five years, and Herzog makes use of this footage in a posthumous portrait of a complex, intriguing character. A youthful blond actor turned nature lover, Treadwell is revealed over the course of the film to have been a troubled soul who found solace in the wild, and the existential questions and difficulties he faced in the world were, fascinatingly, worked out on film. Deftly interweaving Treadwell's quiet moments of nature appreciation with meandering introspection and alarmingly hostile rants, Herzog masterfully captures the enigma of the dead man. Herzog has a genuine appreciation of Treadwell's films, as well as sympathy for Treadwell's apparent ill peace with the world. Much of GRIZZLY MAN's complexity comes in our growing awareness of Timothy's apparent naivety, his need to see himself as a saviour, and his sentimentalising of nature. However, we are left with the impression of someone unafraid to follow his heart and go to any extreme even death in search of peace.

Customer Reviews

Grizzly
Werner Herzog is noted for making films that include 'animals doing unusual things' and 'long, extended landscape shots' (IMDB). Grizzly Man fulfills both criteria, but more unusual than the behaviour of the bears that feature in this brilliant documentary, is that of film's protagonist - Timothy Treadwell - an authentic American outsider who spent 13 long summers in a remote Alaskan wilderness documenting these wild creatures. It's an examination of this obsessive, eccentric and ultimately deluded man, who is misguided into the belief that he is able to 'make friends' with some of nature's most fearsome predators.

What makes this film especially interesting is the way Werner Herzog pieces it together as a kind of poem to man's relationship with nature, intercutting Treadwell's own - often inspirational - wildlife footage, his on-camera soliluquies, and interviews with family, friends and contemporaries. What catches the eye the most is the footage of Treadwell himself, ranging from his amusing wildlife 'presentations' to egomaniacal rants against the park authorities, poachers and other visitors to his remote hideaway.

What becomes apparent, and is expertly pieced together by Herzog, is that while Treadwell is selflessly committed to what he sees as the preservation of the bears, he may well be doing them as much harm as good, and he has faslely seen in them a mutual affinity that ultimately costs him and his girlfriend their lives. Is Treadwell's obsession with the bears embelmatic of his more problematic relationship with human society? What is it that he is escaping from? As Herzog himself points out in monologue, there are moments in Treadwell's films that are 'pure cinema'. What makes this film great is that he allows these moments to breath, while building up a sensitive but unromanticised portrait of a troubled soul. Along with 'Etre et Avoir' and 'Capturing the Friedmans' - one of the greats in the current renaissance of the documentary film.

Grizzly man at odds with the world
I not really one for writing reviews but I am absolutely compelled to give some of my thoughts about this particular film. From start to finish Grizzly Man comes across as utterly bizarre and breathtaking whilst demanding your complete focus; there really is nothing to compare it to, it isn't simply a wildlife documentary or a biography, but an assault on our capacity for emotion and compassion.
It does become apparent that Treadwell is indeed quite a naive man who applies an all to simplistic and romantic outlook towards his beloved subject (and, one could say, life in general); but this is what makes this film so great. I really believe it has the ability to stir the soul of even the stoniest character. I found myself at times disappointed that Treadwell betrayed the way I wanted his character to behave and the sensibilities I believed he held, but ultimately found his outlook refreshing and intriguing and certainly valid in a world of scrutiny and scepticism. This is a film about big brutal wild creatures who don't operate in the human world, but even more so it is a film about human society and its limitations.

The obsessional/delusional as objet trouvee
The love-it or hate-it responses of the Amazon viewership to Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man illustrate quite nicely the theory that art exists not wholly formed on the page, canvas or celluloid, but somewhere between the viewer and the "text". If you come to this film expecting a beautifully shot wild-life documentary and hoping for a picturesque education about bears and the Alaskan wilderness, you'll be sorely disappointed. The wildlife footage - some quite remarkable, notwithstanding - was shot by a paranoid loner on a handycam. You'll also have no-one to blame but yourself, since nothing about the film, even down to its name, let alone its maker, is suggestive for a moment that that's what it's about.

If, on the other hand, you come armed with some background knowledge about German director Werner Herzog and what he's about - not ordinarily a documentary maker as such, although some of his feature films have an almost documentary quality to them as studies in human obsession (not least his own) - your expectations will be quite different, and I dare say your reaction to Grizzly Man will be too.

Over forty years Herzog has obsessionally directed obsessional actors (Bruno S, Klaus Kinski) depicting obsessional/delusional figures (Kinski as a psychopathic conquistador Aguirre searching for El Dorado, a barmy opera nut Fitzcarraldo with a dream of bringing high art to the deepest recesses of the Amazon rainforest, and as the good Count in Nosferatu: The Vampyre; Bruno S as Kaspar Hauser, a man trapped from birth for 20 years in a windowless dungeon in rural Germany, or in Strozsek as a man resemblent of himself vainly trying to escape his condemning past by going to America), in obsessional ways (Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo both filmed on location; in Aguirre Herzog allegedly held Kinski at gunpoint to prevent him walking out; in Fitzcarraldo when the script called for a paddle steamer being pushed by hand over the crest from one valley to the next, Herzog required his cast to actually carry out the operation).

Seen in this context, Timothy Treadwell represents a sort of found-object sculpture for Herzog: you couldn't make this up, and for much of the documentary, Herzog is arranger, art director and chief contextualiser; providing background interview material only to back up his own view of the world, which he openly concedes is quite contrary to Treadwell's (such as Treadwell's was a coherent world-view: that's a moot point). So to complain that Herzog is distorting; contorting; contriving an outcome is also (to my mind) to miss the point. Yes, he is, just as Marcel Duchamp was contorting the true purpose of a urinal by inverting it, signing it, and entering it in an art exhibition. That's what artists do.

While it may be selectively edited, it is difficult, all the same, to conceive that what Herzog left out might negative the impression that Treadwell was an ignorant, paranoid, delusional burn-out, and that his most impressive achievement was not being eaten earlier.

Herzog is by no means completely unsympathetic to Treadwell, but he sees him not as a naturalist but a natural film-maker. Some of the footage - when Treadwell can keep his sorry face out of it - is quite extraordinary, and reminiscent of some of the German director's own impressionist output, as Herzog remarks. As he was director, cameraman and star, Treadwell often had no alternative but to leave the camera running, and Herzog draws our attention to it - the random play of rushes in blustery wind reminiscent of the opening scene from The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, which reflects on a ripe stand of barley in much the same way. And the final shot of the film, wherein we see Treadwell hiking away from the camera towards the perils of nature - bears, mountains, brewing inclement weather - is not unreminiscent of Bruno Ganz's departure into the Transylvanian mountains to confront the count in Nosferatu.

There are some aspects of the film I found less persuasive, and in particular Herzog's melodramatic decision to film himself listening, on earphones, to an audio-tape of Treadwell's actual death, then commending its possessor, a former girlfriend of Treadwell, to destroy it without listening. Herzog has managed to find a consistently weird cast of hangers on, ex lovers and Treadwell fans - and the oddest coroner I've ever seen - to backfill Treadwell's story - and while this does lend proceedings the unfortunate air of a Christopher Guest mockumentary, I expect it is no more than anyone would find if one poked around in remote Alaska long enough.

I loved this film. If you did, I would heartily recommend a look at Herzog's classic seventies output in particular featuring Klaus Kinski, which is anthologised in a pretty economical single edition: Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski: A Film Legacy

Olly Buxton