Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog: a documentary on the crazy nature of man

From 1990 to 2003 a man named Timothy Treadwell spent his summer life in Katmai National Park and Reserve (Alaska) to live together with grizzly bears and “protect” them. We put these quotes not by chance, because what it tells us Werner Herzog in the astonishing documentary Grizzly Man (2005) it is precisely the total detachment from reality of Treadwell who, by living illegally in a reserve together with the bears, thought he was protecting them. But, in reality, he was seriously harming them.

Like a child attracted by wild nature convinced that he was special and could become one with it, Treadwell – Herzog tells us in his narrative voice – underestimated the most important thing: that animals are different from man. They live in their own world, according to their own “laws”, where man cannot and must not intervene. Quite simply, wild animals must not be accustomed to human presence: otherwise they no longer sense danger. And this is the exact opposite of protecting them. He didn’t respect the distance, he went against the most basic federal laws for the protection and conservation of animals and their habitat. He believed that men, all of them, made mistakes. And that he, however, was right.

“He seemed to ignore the fact that predators exist. I believe that the common denominator of the universe is not harmony but chaos, hostility and murder.” (Werner Herzog)

Treadwell obviously had several skeletons in his closet. AND that’s the really tragic and fascinating part of Grizzly Man. He was a failed actor, disillusioned with human society, with serious alcoholism problems. He was looking for his place in the world and had found it among the animals. Nothing more noble, if it were not that the way with which he gave vent to his pure intentions was simply wrong.

He thought he had a special bond with them, ignoring the reality: they are predators.

He despaired at the simplest of natural laws, and even interfered with them: he moved stones in the river to let more salmon pass, he got angry during the normal drought seasons, against the natural behavior of the animals (sometimes the male adults eat the cubs of the females with whom they want to mate, or because there is a shortage of food. All part of the normal natural cycle of these living beings).

Treadwell filmed himself for hundreds of hours of his exploits, 13 summers spent in Alaska with the mission of creating a television program, of disseminating information (which, in practice, he also did: he held lessons in primary schools talking about his adventures with bears). He had become a character, a distorted television star. Yet the statistics, as an expert says in the documentary, spoke clearly: the bears in Katmai Park were doing very well. And they weren’t taking any risks.

For three years (2000-2003) Treadwell took two small cameras with him to his “summer homes” from which almost 100 hours of footage were taken. Images that document his coexistence with the bears, which he defined as his friends (to whom he had given names) and of which, in the end, he felt part of him, almost believing himself to be a bear. These images become real personal diaries, they are a testimony, much more than naturalistic, human: in addition to filming the bears at close range, Treadwell personally places himself in front of the camera (strictly with a fixed shot, as if it were a confessional) and talks about himself, his relationship with animals and with men, with the world. Herzog comments, almost dialogues with Treadwell, expressing his ideas on nature.

Grizzly Man it is the portrait of how a man tried to transform his pain into poetry. Succeeding, yes, but only for himself. All this, as the documentary says at the beginning, until in October 2003 he was eaten alive, together with his girlfriend, by a grizzly bear. It is only the beginning of the story of the documentary, which starting from the end traces the reasons for that tragic epilogue backwards.

Therefore, although Treadwell’s motive was also “noble”, his purely human selfishness led him to carry out actions that actually harmed the animals themselves. The fact that, to find him, the rescue team had to kill a bear… is highly emblematic of this story.

The images that Treadwell captured in Alaska are what fascinate Herzog more than anything. In his naivety, the Grizzly Man was able to capture wonderful moments “that Hollywood would dream of”: the paws of a fox in transparency on his tent, him walking together with the bears, a fixed shot where, once Timothy has left the camp, a thread of wind remains to move branches and plants. As if there was an absolute director of the poetry of nature. Who believed himself to be omnipotent, but whose only images really were.

Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube.