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Nov 20, 2008 5:16 PM CST |
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Importantly for Werner Herzog, Timothy Treadwell was a not-bad amateur videomaker, and taped himself frequently and often—expounding his philosophy of what the bears felt, thought, meant. He was obviously in awe of them, knew how dangerous they were. At the same time, he dared to think that the bears could become his friends. You will see a lot of bear footage that Treadwell shot in Herzog’s documentary, and at their friendliest, the grizzlies to whom Treadwell gave names look bored. Treadwell, for himself, looks the part he cultivated: he is blond, fit, tanned, trendy even, with a bandana around his forehead. You might have rented him for the part at Central Casting. Werner Herzog has long been fascinated by the idea of the visionary who dares to confront reality: Kaspar Hauser, the Sculptor Steiner, Little Dieter, Aguirre. Treadwell is as nuts as Aguirre when he incurred the wrath of God. Conveniently for Herzog, Treadwell also left behind lots of video footage which Herzog can interpret, lead us through, try to make sense of. He can develop a kind of etiology of the video diaries that Treadwell shot. In these, Treadwell tempts hubris no less than Aguirre. At the beginning of the film, as two grizzlies are feeding, Treadwell introduces them as Ed and Rowdy. “They’re challenging everything, including me,” he says, “If I show weakness, if I retreat, I may be hurt, I may be killed. I must hold my own if I am going to stay within this land. For once there is weakness, they will exploit it, they will take me out, they will decapitate me, they will chop me into bits and pieces. I’m dead. But so far, I persevere, persevere.” Why did he do this? He came from southern California, left school after an injury soured his athletic scholarship and then bummed around. According to his book Among Grizzlies, he almost died from a drug overdose. That scared him and by the early 90s he was in Katmai, in the midst of 2,000 grizzlies. Herzog describes all this in voiceover and in interviews with Treadwell’s family, friends, and ex-girlfriend. Grizzlies obviously answer some deep-seated emotional need, though it is hard to know what that is. As a clip with a giant grizzly comes to a close, Treadwell yells after the bear, “I love you!” That need may be some pantheistic vision of savage nature, but it is well sprinkled with massive doses of exhibitionism. Treadwell is naive, but ego-centered enough to grasp the center stage. The massive bears define our attention not only on them, but on Treadwell—we are manipulated into feeling for him or with him as he consciously poses for his camera. There is certainly some darker undercurrent, in how he draws celebrity-hood and sense of empowerment from the sheer size and ferocity of the bears. This enters the realm of the bizarre, as when Treadwell, in reaction to seeing that the bears are going hungry because of drought that’s led to a depletion of salmon, does a rain invocation on camera, which, shockingly, results in a downpour. Herzog, though he picks up on Treadwell’s foibles, remains committed to the visionary idea that doing something extraordinary, tempting fate, as it were, is a noble cause. At the root of this is Treadwell’s strange conception of nature. Was he some utopian, or was he just a little crazy? Does he identify more with the bears than with people? For Herzog, having the vision is sufficient for redemption. Recalling the 100 hours of footage that Treadwell left behind, Herzog says breathlessly, “I discovered a film of human ecstasies and darkest inner turmoil, as if there was a desire in him to leave the confinements of his humanness and bond with the bears.” Despite the raw nature of the material, Herzog does not share with us the most gruesome moments. As Treadwell and his girlfriend were attacked and partially eaten by the bear, the sound on the camera was still on, and recorded the audio. Instead, Herzog listens to it on camera and then tells Treadwell’s ex-girlfriend to destroy it. It’s an ambiguous gesture. Does he want to spare us the gruesomeness? Then why listen to it on camera? In the end, the most profound questions in Grizzly Man remain unanswered. But as Treadwell drew something from the bears by being in their presence, so now Herzog gains an egotistic edge by consuming and keeping the secret of Treadwell’s death. This is Milos Stehlik for Chicago Public Radio’s Worldview. Worldview film contributor Milos Stehlik is the director of Facets Multimedia. |
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