Chow time
“Grizzly Man” Directed by Werner Herzog (Discovery Docs/Lions Gate Films; 2005). Reviewed by Michael Wolcott
ByTimothy Treadwell was crazy.
That’s the first thing most people say after watching “Grizzly Man,” Werner Herzog’s stunning documentary on the amateur naturalist who “made friends” with Alaskan brown bears — before being killed and eaten by one in October 2003. His partner, Amie Huguenard, also perished. These theater-lobby diagnoses of Treadwell are sometimes couched in clinical language — manic-depressive, bipolar, whatever — but always they are delivered with an air of finality: The guy was nuts, what else can you say?
Certainly Treadwell could be pigeonholed in some DSM category. In “Grizzly Man,” he exhibits paranoiac tendencies, grandiosity, disproportionate and poorly-controlled emotional response, and reports a history of drug and alcohol abuse. Reminds me of most of my friends.
Treadwell also gets dismissed by the post-movie crowd as a publicity hound with a death wish, a naive meddler in the lives of the animals he claimed to love, or a fool. They’re likely to agree with the gruff helicopter pilot in “Grizzly Man,” who flew Treadwell’s remains out of the bush: “He was treating (the grizzlies) like people in bear costumes. He got what he deserved.” Treadwell is certainly an easy target for ridicule.
After all, this was a playful, middle-aged man with a singsong voice who liked to cuddle a Teddy bear in his tent and cooed “I love you” to the real (and really scary) beasts he studied. A guy who pranced around the Alaskan peninsula like Doctor Dolittle on benzedrine, walking and talking with the animals.
But Treadwell was also a soul on fire.
A hard-core wilderness nut, he may have spent more time in close proximity to wild grizzlies than anyone on the planet. For thirteen consecutive seasons, Treadwell endured Alaskan bugs, isolation and rainstorms — and the choppy weather of his own nervous system — to be near bears. He followed the grizzlies in Katmai National Park and Preserve with a boldness that seemed, well, crazy. He camped in their feeding areas. He played and swam with them. Sometimes he actually touched the bears.
“Grizzly Man” captures the incandescence of this obsession beautifully. More than half the film is drawn from the dead man’s video archive, which records extraordinarily intimate encounters with bears (and foxes), and Treadwell’s self-revealing commentary.
The rest consists of interviews with friends, family and others involved in the Treadwell tragedy, plus narration (at turns illuminating and intrusive) by Herzog. The German filmmaker’s unbridled urge to spell it all out for the audience is the movie’s only real flaw. Otherwise, this is a seamless exploration of a very complex man, whose fascination with North America’s most dangerous and charismatic wild animal brought him to a kind of salvation before it destroyed him.
Treadwell’s story is that old American one of reinvention: a Sixties childhood on Long Island, a stab at being a TV actor that included the requisite migration to Southern California, a name change and a fabricated history (as an orphan from Australia), drug troubles, fervent renewal in the wilderness and a bit of fame. He credited the bears with saving him from his chemical dependencies and from a pervading lack of purpose: Before bears, he says, “I didn’t have a life. Now I have a life.”
That life, as served up by Herzog, is a passionate but misguided affair. He shows Treadwell as a narcissistic middle-aged child, dashing through the undergrowth making a movie that could be called “Wild Timmy’s Excellent Adventure.” “I run wild with the bears,” Treadwell gushes. ”I run so wild, so free, like a child. It’s really cool.”
Herzog draws much of the tale from interviews with Treadwell’s former girlfriend, Jewel Palovak, who met him when they both worked in a Southern California restaurant. Palovak joined Treadwell in his bear work, helping to found Grizzly People, his conservation organization. Treadwell saw himself as an ambassador between the animal and human worlds. When he wasn’t in Alaska, he toured the U.S. as a sort of Mister Rogers of the bush, tirelessly meeting with school kids, for free, showing film of “Mister Chocolate,” ”Sergeant Brownie,” “The Grinch,” and dozens of other bears he came to know and advocating for their protection. (The bears in Katmai ARE protected, by the way.) He published a book, “Among Grizzlies,” in 1998 that chronicles his exploits. He appeared on Animal Planet and the David Letterman Show.
Along the way, he drew fire from Katmai’s managers, who were understandably worried that Treadwell would get himself killed. Park regulations discourage close contact with grizzlies, because bears habituated to humans simultaneously become more dangerous to people and more threatened themselves (if a bear attacks humans, it — or another — bear will eventually be killed by wildlife managers).
Treadwell ignored the park rules. He understood the danger he courted, at least intellectually, and spoke on camera about the possibility of being mauled. But, he believed (correctly, to a point, it could be argued) that he had a special way with grizzlies that protected him. He warned others not to follow: “If you come out here and do what I do, you will die.” he says. “But, I do it right. I love these animals enough, I respect them enough, that they allow me to do this.”
The question of respect needs to be addressed. Herzog interviews a Native Alaskan who points out that, by indigenous people’s standards, Treadwell’s approach to bears was grossly disrespectful. On the other hand, a willingness to die for the privilege of getting close could be seen as a fairly deep bow of obeisance.
Herzog also interviews
Treadwell’s parents, who could have been cast by David Lynch. Mom wears pancake makeup and holds Tim’s favorite childhood toy — a stuffed bear. Dad laconically describes his son’s erstwhile acting career: “I know he made it on to ‘Love Connection’ ... He came in second to Woody Harrelson for the bartender role on ‘Cheers’ ... how close a second, I don’t know.” After that disappointment, though, “He spiralled down.” The spiral meant alcohol and other drugs, which Treadwell alludes to in his confessional moments on camera. “I’m a very, very troubled man,” he says.
One scene late in the movie makes it very, very difficult to disagree. The angel-faced Treadwell is summing up his latest season in the wilds for Grizzly People. He appears charmingly self-conscious. The voice is modulated, the message reasonable enough: “Expedition 2001 coming to an end. The bears moving safely toward their winter dens, the foxes hiding in the woods, safe from the humans that would come to harm them ... ”
But Treadwell quickly segues into a vicious tirade, blasting the Parkies for harassing HIM instead of busting poachers and abusive commercial outfitters. “I’m the ONLY protection for these animals out here,” he insists. “The government does practically nothing to care for the wildlife ... “I beat your fucking asses,” he snarls. “I protected the animals. Fuck you. Animals rule. Timothy conquers! Fuck you, Park Service!” He turns away. You think he’s done, but he’s not. He strides back toward the camera, still sputtering.
More F-words, more rage.
You half-expect Treadwell to grab the camera and smash it. And there may be a deeply troubled voice down in your belly that says, Yeah Tim, do it.
Why? Because you probably share some of his anger. Not at the Park Service, which is not Treadwell’s real enemy anyway. You’re both furious at Civilization.
Sure, you like your comforts and good medical care if you can afford it. But you’re sick to death of the 21st Century. You march to a ticking clock. You spend half your waking life driving a car or talking on the phone or staring into some kind of electronic screen. You live by a bunch of rules — do this, don’t do that. Or that, either. It pisses you off. And here’s the sad, infuriating truth: You wish you were wild, but you’re not. And you’re never going to be. Because wild means outside the margins. Off the friggin‚ page. To be wild these days — really wild — you have to be crazy.
