Grizzly Man

GRIZZLY MAN (DOCUMENTARY)
Lionsgate Films

Original release: August 12th, 2005
Running time: 103 minutes

Writer and director: Werner Herzog

Cast: Timothy Treadwell, Amie Huguenard, Werner Herzog

In the run up to the 78th Academy Awards in 2006 I’d seen two very contrasting nature documentaries. One was Luc Jacquet’s sugary tale of avian endurance March of the Penguins, which went on to beat other nominees like Murderball and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room to the prize come the big night. The other, which was not even long-listed for an Oscar, was Werner Herzog’s astonishing Grizzly Man which was not only the best doc of that year but is, to this point, the best feature documentary I have ever seen.

Werner Herzog is a fascinating filmmaker. He began his career in the early 1960’s with the body builder short Herakles and then, after a few more shorts and his first feature, he made his first TV documentary, Flying Doctors of East Africa in 1969 which is a relatively standard documentary given his somewhat alternative narrative films of the period such as Even Dwarfs Started Small. By 1977’s La Soufriere he seems to have moved (via the odd and difficult docu-poem Fata Morgana) much further towards the kind of documentary making which has made him one of the most intriguing documentarians in cinema.

Grizzly Man is the story of Timothy Treadwell. Using a mixture of footage shot by Treadwell himself and a selection of interviews with friends and relations, Herzog paints us a portrait of a man, a failed actor and recovered drug addict and alcoholic, who spends the summer months of every year living in the Katmai National Park in Alaska. An environmentalist, eco-warrior and most significantly a self styled saviour of the bears, he spends his time camping in areas which he calls the ‘Sanctuary’ and the ‘Grizzly Maze’ learning about the bears and simultaneously getting some remarkable footage of them in the wild.

Treadwell spends the rest of the year championing the cause of the bears and touring schools teaching children about these majestic creatures asking no fee in return. Tragically, in 2003, Timothy and his girlfriend (Amie Huguenard) were killed by one of the very bears he claimed to protect.

Gizzly Man is an incredible documentary for a whole host of reasons. The first and foremost of these is the portrait of this man which is constructed from his own tapes and from other people’s recollections of him. Ultimately he is summed up most succinctly by Sam Egli, a helicopter pilot who assisted in the ‘clean up’ after the attack.

Some people feel that his behaviour in itself was actually doing more harm to the bears than protecting them as it may have led the bears to become habituated to humans and think them safe; the local people of Alaska had always steered clear of the bears and paid them the respect that they deserved. When asked about it, one local man says:

Treadwell was clearly a troubled man. Even outside of his behaviour towards the bears (poking their snouts, telling them off like small children and believing them friends and companions) there is also evidence of his wanting to actually become a bear and reports of him acting like a bear when encountering other people out in the wild. Throughout his time in the wild, the camera also acts as his confessional and we learn about some of Treadwell’s past mistakes and see him at his most lonely and vulnerable and also at his most aggressive – especially in one scene when he colourfully berates the park services and their attitude towards him.

Some of the footage in the film, taken by Treadwell over his time in Alaska, is truly stunning and the kind of thing we would expect to see on a David Attenborough show on the BBC. In particular there is an intense battle between two bears which the camera can only be a matter of yards from them as they tear at each other with fur flying and, in expending so much effort in attack, one of them loses control of his bowels. The place where Herzog does have intense respect fort Treadwell seems to be as a documentary maker and it’s the moments that come completely by chance – including a scene or two with local foxes – that he feels could not have been got any other way.

Ultimately though, this film is a look not at the bears but at this deeply troubled man and his misconceptions about his own place in the Alaskan wild. His disdain for human society may have driven him to spend more time in the wild, but it is belief that he had been accepted by the bears that led to his death and the considerably more tragic death of his girlfriend on only her second visit to the bears and who was – rightly – terrified of them. He is at times infuriating to watch but the film is always utterly compelling.

Ben Nicholson

Ben has had a keen love of moving images since his childhood but after leaving school he fell truly in love with films. His passion manifests itself in his consumption of movies (watching films from all around the globe and from any period of the medium’s history with equal gusto), the enjoyment he derives from reading, talking and writing about cinema and being behind the camera himself having completed his first co-directed short film in mid-2011.

His favourite films include things as diverse as The Third Man, In The Mood For Love, Badlands, 3 Iron, Casablanca, Ran and Grizzly Man to name but a few.

Ben has his own film site, ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE, and you can follow him on Twitter @BRNicholson.

DOCUMENTARIES

WRITE FOR STATIC MASS!

If you are passionate not only about watching movies but also about writing, we would love to hear from you!

Please get in touch and let us know whether you have a favorite genre, an interest for example in World Cinema, and how often you could write reviews and/or features for us.

You can as well send us your features and reviews right away. We look forward to receiving articles between 700 and 1,500 words, submitted as a Word document.

You can find more information here.

Please also read our Terms & Conditions.

— Founder & Editor in Chief —
Patrick Samuel

— Editor in Chief & Webmaster —
Jonahh Oestreich

— Contributing Editors —
Arpad Lukacs • Ben Nicholson
John Bleasdale • Paul Bullock
Paul Costello

— Authors & Correspondents —
Alison Devlin • Andrew Latimer
Barbara Diril • Ben Cook
Colin Williamson • Dipesh Parmar
Ian Roberts • Jack Murphy
James Arden • Jamie Suckley
Kyle Barrett • Max Lalanne
Nandini Godara • Pete Turner
Richa Rudola • Robert Bright
Rohan Mohmand • Thomas Grieve

— Guest Writers —
Danny Byrne • Joaquin Villalobos
Lauren Mannion • Lesley Coffin
Lito Velasco • Mark Patton
Norman Buckley • Toby C Prior
Tyson James Yates • V.Venkateshwaran

STAY IN TOUCH!

Static Mass Emporium is a UK-based independent film journal which looks at a broad range of work from the industry.

With research grounded in modern cinema, film theory, sociology, history and filmosophy, our approach is to explore the essence of film.

We are a nonprofit publication free of advertising — sustained entirely by its readers, fans and supporters. Read more about us here.