I found the movie fascinating but let’s face it-Tim was an idiot.
Consensus? Don’t fuck with a grizzly bear! I agree, Tim was an idiot but the movie was interesting anyway.
It makes my best of the decade list
it disturbs me that people that stupid actually exist, and i don’t know if i should feel sorry for the girl that died for, y’know—dying, or if i should feel about her as i do about the Grizzly Man himself—WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!? asshole idiots…
the worst part is, i don’t think ol’ Tim was in the minority of this world. i’m not talking about the whole love-of-nature-let’s-go-get-fucking-mauled thing, but more of the idiocy. i don’t think that was Herzog’s point with this documentary (from what I understand, the man has no love-lost for Mother Nature or her cruelty towards life), but it certainly was something i picked up. people are stupid. good intentions are one thing, but use your goddamned head. bears aren’t nice. they’re not really mean, either. they’re bears. they eat things. that’s what they do. so don’t get in their way. don’t even get close. in fact, i think guys working for National Geographic need a raise! even with a telephoto lense, man you gotta get in there with them bad boys! i’m just sayin…
fucking great film, though.
Good movie, great director. I don’t think the guy was dumb…the film suggested his death wish, also that hanging out with bears hurts the bears more, well people too..Herzog puts everything in there (hyperbole), I appreciated him interjecting his thoughts on nature and what Timothy was doing, it seemed like a no-no at first, but he just did it and didn’t let/make it interfere with the other opinions given.
The part with the baby foxes <.> . . <.> so cute! I don’t think it’s fair for outsiders to label him an idiot, he was doing his thing, beats sitting in front of a computer screen.
Yeah, it’s too easy to say he was an idiot. Herzog has a fascination with obsessives, both in his fiction and non-fiction films, being an obsessive himself.
Reviving this topic (as I know some others have seen this movie recently) and I still think about Timothy Treadwell and Herzog’s movie. I’ve heard that some people who knew Timothy were upset with Herzog’s take on him, as if he were being disrespectful. I didn’t find that, it seemed to me that while he knew that Treadwell was in need of treatment (I agree that he clearly was), there was sympathy in his portrayal of him. Yes?
I think there was a realism and fairness to Herzog’s portrayal of Treadwell. He (Herzog) recognizes and doesn’t romanticize Treadwell’s obviously unhealthy obsession with bears. To present Treadwell’s condition as he did was done with the intention of honest filmmaking. Just for one, to not play Treadwell’s demise through audio was respectful at least.
Oh, I think it was definitely a sympathetic portrayal. if you retrace Herzog’s career, you can see that the Treadwell character is a recurring archetype in his body of work. Treadwell is in the same vein as characters like Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, and even Bruno S. to a degree.
@Blue — Pretty interesting then, this interest in that kind of character. I’ve seen Aguirre, shall have to check out the others…
@Deckard — yes, that was one moment I thought really respectful, that he didn’t play that audio, and also that he ceased to listen to it after a while. Horrible…
I’m not sure what the complaints about the portrayal were about, unless some of those who knew him felt that there was nothing whatsoever the matter with him… Which might explain why they let him go as far as he did? Or that people who treasured him were as unwell as he? That disturbed me about the movie too.
@Odi
FWIW, I don’t recall feeling strongly that Treadwell needed psychiatric/psychological treatment after watching the film. I just felt like he was a guy who was lonely and had trouble fitting in normal society. I know people like this, and I’m not sure they need treatment. Now, granted, Treadwell went to some extremes, but I just felt like he really found a place to fit in and also a purpose (telling others about the bears, etc.). I’m not saying he didn’t need some sort of treatment, but I don’t know if I felt certain one way or the other.
Also, I thought Herzog’s portrayal was pretty respectful as well.
And what haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food. But for Timothy Treadwell, this bear was a friend, a savior.
^ What happened to the rest of that post?
@Matt — yes, I remember the focus on the bear’s face when he spoke those words.
@Jazz — He definitely needed treatment, in fact it was stated in the film that he had treatment, and decided not to deal with it anymore.
I understand the wanting to merge with nature bit, but taking the risk that he did in the end with his girlfriend was insane. And he knew he was taking this risk. The American Indian Herzog interviewed said that while there is respect for bears in American Indian culture, they know where to draw the line. It is one thing to think of bears in the abstract in a spiritual sense, it is quite another to want to force this conception on their actual selves. For sure, the Alaskans had no merciful words for the way that Treadwell died. They too had a kind of respect for nature, and knew where to draw the line. No. He definitely was looking for something to love and to be loved in return, unconditionally, to merge with this “thing,” but his willingness to go against common sense to me states that there was something wrong. There was a desperation that spoke clearly of depression, among other things. The guy convinced himself that he did not fit, and therefore did not want to live. He could have very well continued to have this relationship with the bears without going to those extremes, and taking another’s life with him. Argh. No one could protect him from himself…
Odi said, “They too had a kind of respect for nature, and knew where to draw the line. No. He definitely was looking for something to love and to be loved in return, unconditionally, to merge with this “thing,” but his willingness to go against common sense to me states that there was something wrong.”
I definitely think he crossed the line, too. Matt’s post sort of alludes this crossing the line as well. I just wasn’t sure this misjudgment stemmed from some mental illness. Treadwell did seem desperate and even depressed, but are all lonely, desperate people suffering from clinical depression? I also think the notoriety he received from his interactions with the bears (i.e. going to schools to talk about bears, etc.) may have lead him to forget about the line. In any event, whether he was mentally ill or not, I felt sorry for the guy and I also found his story fascinating and tragic.
Yes, I had a lot of other thoughts in that post that somehow got cut of. Here’s the short version—yeah, what he was doing was in a lot of ways mad, but, at the same time, he was going up there to be among the bears for 13 years before what happened happened. That in and of itself is pretty amazing—and that’s the part of his story that some people feel the film undersells (Treadwell was much more realistic and successful than, say, Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild).
To me, Herzog’s view of nature is just a romanticized as Treadwell’s, Herzog’s is just a inversion of Treadwell’s from positive to negative.
To me, Herzog’s view of nature is just a romanticized as Treadwell’s, Herzog’s is just a inversion of Treadwell’s from positive to negative.
@Matt — I don’t think that McCandless had any aim other than a personal one, so I can’t really compare him to Treadwell very well.
@Jazz — Depression actually changes the brain and affects the functioning of your body so yes, all people who are like Timothy are in need of medical as well as therapeutic treatment, and depending on the severity of the case they may always need medication, but at least until things are restored through the combination I mentioned treatment is very beneficial. I think in the case of Timothy he was more likely what used to be known as manic-depressive (now known as bi-polar), and in order to not harm themselves or others, people who have this affliction must be on medication. I have a cousin who has this condition and I recognized it immediately in Timothy’s behavior. She has tried to suicide many times, but when she is manic she does amazing and beautiful things. She can still do the latter on medication, while avoiding the former.
@Matt he was going up there to be among the bears for 13 years before what happened happened. That in and of itself is pretty amazing—and that’s the part of his story that some people feel the film undersells.
People don’t understand randomness. That event was Nassim Taleb’s Black swan:
“our blindness with respect to randomness, particularly large deviations.”
I think Herzog is saying that a 13-year relationship with human might be more predictable based on the things he doesn’t see in the bears.
Maybe. Prolly depends on the people involved. Generally you probably significantly less likely to be eaten and hopefully somewhat less likely to be killed , other than that . . . (Herzog’s relationship with Kinski?) Animals are animals, they’re less predictable than people perhaps, but they’re not random events, either. Under certain conditions, they can be “read.” My guess would be that—due to mental illness or biological accident or whatever—are especially bad at reading people, and some of these people may be especially adept at reading animals. Herzog’s " I believe the common character of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility, and murder, " is no less anthropomorphous than Treadwell’s beliefs about the bears, by the way. And no more empirically verifiable either, though dramatically it seems so perhaps, given the end Treadwell came to—What remains is his footage. And while we watch the animals in their joys of being, in their grace and ferociousness, a thought becomes more and more clear. That it is not so much a look at wild nature, as it is an insight into ourselves, our nature. And that, for me, beyond his mission, gives meaning to his life and to his death—.
Hmmm.. I didn’t get that from the film. Did you, Matt? What insight into human nature do you think this film gave, in a broad sense (i.e. not including Timothy Treadwell’s nature)?
@Odi
You could be right about Treadwell. I’m not a psychologist/psychiatrist, so I wouldn’t know. But my point was that all sad and lonely people are not necessarily clinically depressed; and I have a hard time distinguishing the two.
@Matt and Robert
Those are good points about Treadwell’s ability to do what he did for a long time. Indeed, I recall that Herzog posits that the reason the bears attacked Treadwell and his girlfriend could have been because Treadwell stayed longer and during a time when they bears might have been hungrier.
^^
Yeah, it’s not so much about nature. It’s about human nature and our inexorable need to exert our will over the randomness of nature. Aguirre did it in name of civilization and colonialism, Fitzcarraldo in name of art and music, and Treadwell in name of communing with nature and animals. But they’re all branches of the same tree.
And this is also the same theme of what are his two finest documentaries imo—Fata Morgana and Encounters at the End of the World, which are populated with real characters who try to forge a meaningful existence in places least suitable for human beings.
could have been because Treadwell stayed longer
Also he posited that the smell from their having sex could have triggered it.
Bears love butterscotch.
-What insight into human nature do you think this film gave, in a broad sense (i.e. not including Timothy Treadwell’s nature)?-
People’s propensity for anthropomorphizing nature.
@Robert — Lol! Whaaa???
@Blue — exactly — that’s what got my goat about Timothy, he kept trying to force his idea of bears on the damn bears. Disrespectful!
@Jazz — It’s hard to make a generalized statement like that either way, but if depression/sadness/loneliness is interefering with your ability to relate to others in a damaging way, and it’s a lasting feeling no matter what — bingo! You are of the melancholic temperament.
@Matt — yes, d’accord.
-that’s what got my goat about Timothy, he kept trying to force his idea of bears on the damn bears. Disrespectful!-
But Herzog’s doing the same thing, just different ideas, and from a safe distance, right?
There’s a lot of speculation about the specifics, but really just the fact of another person being at Treadwell’s campsight could have been enough to trigger a not-usual reaction from the bears.
Chopin
I liked this film a lot. It had some problems though. One being that Timothy seemed like he had no idea what he was doing a lot of the time, speaking of the random outburst and moments of borderline self parody. Herzog obviously had some sort of fascination with the man and I think he uses the scenes very fell to depict Timothy. Most documentaries, that I have seen anyway, usually handle social issues and the thing I really liked about this was it more a study of a kind of person and avoided taking sides on the whole grizzly bear business.
So what is your consensus? =)