For Conservative Movie Lovers: Werner Herzog, Timothy Treadwell, and ‘Grizzly Man’ Part 1
by Leo GrinTimothy Treadwell loved bears. In the name of loving them, with a stalwart sense of the innate sanctity of his mission, he continuously abused them for thirteen years. Time and again from 1989 until 2003 he invaded their territory — startling them, scaring them, angering them. Interrupting their hunting, their mating, their sleep, their play, he would coo sweet nothings at them in a flamboyant, high-pitched whine. He gave the savage beasts silly names like Lulu, Cupcake, Daisy, Ginger, Booble, and Mr. Chocolate, robbing them of their natural dignity. He firmly believed he was their protector, and unleashed torrents of self-righteous hatred upon anyone who dared question his treating of one-thousand-pound predators as if they were cute cuddly teddy bears. Handsome and charismatic, yet narcissistic and naïve, filled with honest caring, yet a smooth liar thoroughly at home in delusion, he became a constant danger both to himself and to everything he loved, ever on the verge of instigating a sudden volcanic eruption of nightmarish unintended consequences.
In short, Timothy Treadwell was a perfect liberal. He loved bears, with all his heart.
And then one ate him.
The story of Treadwell (1957-2003) is told in Grizzly Man (2005), a film destined to be remembered long after the likes of Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Munich, Capote, and the rest of that cinematic annus horribilis are blessedly forgotten. Directed by the fearless and unflinching German filmmaker Werner Herzog, it’s also an intensely conservative film, in its conclusions if not in its subject.
YouTube -- click here to watch in full-screen
When Grizzly Man was released, film critic Monohla Dargis astutely dubbed Treadwell “a kind of Spicoli of the backwoods.” Born Timothy Dexter, he grew up a slightly wayward and troublesome middle-class boy in Long Island, and migrated to Los Angeles at twenty to search for fame and fortune. His life was soon in a struggling-actor tailspin due to a regular diet of partying, drinking, and drugs, but a motorcycle trip to Alaska to see bears changed him almost overnight into a man with a purpose and a love greater than life itself. Treadwell spent the next decade visiting the bears every summer, fancying them like little children. Eventually he created Grizzly People, a non-profit organization dedicated to bear conservation and education, with an especial focus on schoolchildren, God help them.
With the passing of years came increasing notoriety. Nature channels filmed specials about the exploits of this man who dared to live among bears without weapons, and magazines like People gave him glowing write-ups. He was featured on NBC’s Dateline and The Rosie O’Donnell Show. On Tom Snyder’s program, he told wild stories about poachers he had driven off who were, “like poster men from the NRA” stalking bears with “machine guns,” “shotguns,” and “high-powered rifles.” One time, during an appearance on The David Letterman Show, he was asked (and, in hindsight, incorrectly answered) a question that now takes on an absurdly tragic cast:
YouTube -- click here to watch in full-screen
Treadwell was aware of the dangers of bears on a superficial level, but eventually he refused to use defenses of any kind to protect himself, including such non-lethal and widely successful deterrents as pepper spray or electric fences. Always his self-absorbed Christ complex carried him past his fears and assured him that his was a special life, and that if he died by the claws of a bear it would be as a martyr to all that is good in the world. Treadwell saw himself as a protector, an educator, and a savior. “If there were a god,” he says on one of his video tapes with self-satisfaction, dwelling on the nobleness of his spirit and actions, “he’d be very, very pleased with me.” In the last year of his life, such was his self-created, family-friendly celebrity that Disney asked him to host a live-action introduction to their 2003 cartoon Brother Bear.
The trouble was, all of his vaunted expertise and benevolence was a lie. Treadwell said he was there to protect the bears — but they were already in an official sanctuary, and according to Nick Jans (author of The Grizzly Maze: Timothy Treadwell’s Fatal Obsession with Alaskan Bears) they were now so hearty and safe that there were “damn herds of them, thicker than anywhere else on earth, and their numbers seemed to be increasing.” Treadwell claimed repeatedly that the Alaskan parks were rife with poachers, when in actuality there wasn’t a single recorded instance of an illegally harvested bear in the park’s history. He cleverly sponged donations for his charity from ex-hippie housewives, idealistic students, and gullible movie stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, but Grizzly People wasn’t even registered as an official non-profit, and no real scientific research was being accomplished there. Donors thought they were giving to a reputable organization deeply involved in “saving the bears,” when in actuality they were simply financing a surfer dude’s yearly Alaskan vacations.
In addition, Treadwell frequently found himself on the wrong side of park authorities, bear experts, and even Alaskan locals who had helped him repeatedly gratis, only to have him return their kindness by biting the hands that fed him. He once shamelessly passed off a picture of an innocent man as that of a poacher in his organization’s newsletter, and his incessant loony eco-moralizing quickly made him a pest to rangers, tour guides, and vacationing sightseers. “He was a con artist,” says one of the businessmen Treadwell sold down the river with his false poaching stories. Forest Bowers, a state biologist, adds: “Frankly, he seemed like he’d done too much acid.”
As the clear and present danger of his outrageous behavior became notorious throughout the bear conservation community — approaching bears, touching them, goading them — sensible people began to react. When Sterling Miller, a state bear biologist and president of the International Bear Association, wrote to Treadwell warning him of his risky actions and the dangers they posed, Treadwell responded that if killed he would, “be honored to end up as grizzly shit.” As Nick Jans writes in his book on Treadwell, Miller read this and thought that, “Given his attitude, I believed it wouldn’t be long before he would be so honored.” At the same time he was violating basic park laws and breaking every rational rule of behavior, putting both himself and anyone foolish enough to stay near him at risk, Treadwell was spending his winters traveling to schools and sanctimoniously preaching bear safety to kids.
Women — a gender known for, among other peculiarities, lavishing marriage proposals on serial killers — fell all over Treadwell, frequently buying his bear-expert shtick hook, line, and sinker. The lucky ones got to travel up to Alaska with him to ooh and ahh at the cute little bears up close. His last girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, met him at a lecture in Colorado, and being a highly educated liberal (master’s degree in molecular biology) made her perfectly suited to fall for lies and nonsense. For the folly of believing in his expertise she would die alongside him, her final screams captured on a video camera which she turned on just as the fatal attack commenced.
The bitter truth is that if Treadwell had done a single sensible thing that didn’t smack of eco-liberalism run amok, he would still be alive today. Most bear attacks happen in enclosed woodland spaces where a human accidentally surprises them — so Treadwell decided to camp in the midst of a well-traveled thicket of ursine trails and tunnels he called the Grizzly Maze, with one oft-used path situated mere feet from his tent. (Alaska Fish and Game biologist Larry Van Daele said later, “A person could not have designed a more dangerous location to set up a camp.”) Bears become far more desperate for food as summer leads into autumn, so Treadwell stayed in the field past September and into October, during a year when the berry crop failed and the bears were far hungrier and more irate than usual. Bear attacks are often sudden and overwhelmingly brutal, prompting the invention and use of protective countermeasures such as pepper spray or electric fences, yet Treadwell went out of his way to render himself completely defenseless, by proxy rendering equally defenseless the poor lady with him.
In the end, bears are akin to sharks on land: sure, you can probably get along for awhile without getting munched, and occasionally you can feel powerful and in control when you bravely stand your ground and hit them on the nose to drive them away. But if one truly sets its sights on you as its next lunch, you’re in deep trouble. Treadwell ignored this, choosing to treat them like treasured pets, and he paid not only with his life, but with the lives of an innocent woman and two of the very animals he professed to love (the bears were shot dead during the recovery of his remains). The unintended consequences of good intentions strikes again, as they always do wherever people subscribe to a view of the world that embraces fickle feelings at the expense of reality.
His friends in the “bear conservation” cottage industry reacted to his death with pretty lies of their own. A new edition of Treadwell’s book has his partner at Grizzly People, Jewel Palovak, saying that Treadwell’s gruesome demise was “the culmination of his life’s work” and that he “died in the field with the bears he loved,” as if perhaps from a falling boulder or a bolt of lightning rather than from nature red in tooth and claw. Among the pro-Treadwell progressives goofy conspiracy theories abound: maybe Treadwell and his girl were slain by poachers, with the bears only shambling in to devour the evidence after the fact. In his book, Nick Jans tells of hearing crazy stories that Treadwell’s enemies may have “air-dropped a rogue bear into the camp area” or “baited bears in with food or alluring scents strewn around the camp, driving the animals into a killing frenzy.” Crazy, 9-11 truther-type stuff (especially given the existence of the final video tape with its horrifying soundtrack).
Bear scientists and biologists were up in arms over Treadwell, and thought he was up to much harm and no good. Jans cites in his book an anonymous bear expert, who said of Treadwell’s camerawork (much of which appears in the film Grizzly Man):
The videos are all of outrageous behavior. . .completely unethical from a scientific point of view. . .a bunch of cheap theatrics, the most absurd, cockamamie crap. . .I don’t want to disrespect dead people, but what he was doing was illegal and absolutely selfish. . .we have no right to impose our own stupid little personal mission on the universe. . . he had nothing at all to offer except his touchy-feely Beanie Baby approach. . . that might work with fifth graders, but you can’t advance a good science agenda on public relations and hyperbole.
That same anonymous biologist concludes that “These deaths were predictable and totally preventable. We can go right down the list of errors he made. It didn’t have to happen. He was warned and warned and warned and warned. Yet he negated, defied, and ignored all common sense.” Hard to argue with that: in the known history of Alaska, Treadwell and his girlfriend became the first recorded fatalities associated with a bear.
Like liberals everywhere, Timothy Treadwell created problems and then hawked himself as the solution. Along the way, he became a major pain in the ass to regular law-abiding citizens. His do-goodism likely altered the behavior of an entire population of bears, causing them to get too used to humans and too fearless about approaching them in the future. His death led directly to the demise of the woman in his charge and two of the bears he loved so dearly. And all for what? Jans spells out the grim facts:
[The Bears’] world, even in Katmai National Park, is brutal. Only one in ten cubs lives to adulthood; starvation, accidents, and cannibal predation by large male bears take the rest. Even females, worked into a rage, have killed both their own and other bears’ cubs. Fights are common enough that many bears, especially larger males that battle for dominance in mating, personal space, and feeding areas, carry horrific scars.
Brutal. . . cannibal. . . rage. . . horrific. These are the lovely, kind creatures which Treadwell fell into a dance of death with, and vowed to protect against the evil humans who had created and maintained a protected nature reserve in which they could live as peacefully as their bestial natures allow.
So when, after his death, it came time for someone, somehow, to sum up Treadwell’s legacy on film, the choice of filmmaker had a certain inevitability, just like his ultimate end in the wild. Timothy Treadwell — obsessed, possessed, mad with his sense of importance and mission — got exactly the interpreter his lunacy demanded. He got Herzog.
Next Saturday in For Conservative Movie Lovers, the life of Werner Herzog, arguably the single most interesting man ever to become a movie director.
FURTHER READING and VIEWING
The Grizzly Maze: Timothy Treadwell’s Fatal Obsession with Alaskan Bears by Nick Jans. Of the several books written about Treadwell, this one is by far the best, which is why it was so heavily referenced for this article: a poetic, well-reasoned and eminently fair analysis of the tragi-comedy of errors that was the life and death of the Grizzly Man. If you find yourself interested to learn more about these events, it’s the one to read.
Among Grizzlies: Living With Wild Bears In Alaska by Timothy Treadwell and Jewel Palovak. A typically self-serving autobiography filled with half-truths, deft evasions, and heaping piles of pure fantasy. When combined with the truth as expressed in both Herzog’s Grizzly Man and Jans’ book, it becomes a horrifying look into the mind of a hopeless liberal forever lost to reason and common sense. I love how the authors give everyone who might be even remotely conservative a profanity-laced good-ole-boy speaking voice. And shake your head in disbelief at Treadwell’s cringe-inducing “conversations” with the bears:
Booble, the world must know of your ways. I will fight for your survival. One day people will understand and stop destroying your homes and killing your kind. I’ll return next year and protect you, Booble.
Goddam.
Grizzly People: Leonardo DiCaprio has apparently given up his desire to play Treadwell in a feature film, but his name is still being used to hawk the Treadwell charity, which as far as I can tell has never done a single thing for bears other than give some feel-good lectures anthropomorphizing them to middle-school students.
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561 Comments
Wow, a very insightful article. I saw this movie a few years back and while I thought he was a fool, it didn't occur to me that Treadwell's life and death was so symbolic of liberals and liberalism in so many ways.
Their strange confidence in their follies. Their internal and external deceptions to gain trust and money. The parasitical way they live off of others while sneering at the people who make their existence possible. And finally, pulling in the naive and idealistic and then destroying them when their house of cards inevitably comes tumbling down. If ever one person was the personification of what a liberal is and consequences of a life lived that way, Treadwell is it.
Good read Mr. Grin. A truly heartwarming story.
Evidently the old adage is true: "Sometimes you eat da bear, sometimes da bear eat you."
Stupid people tend to let their emotions run away with them when it comes to cute, furry creatures, and forget what end of the food chain they are on. Perhaps Algore will commence cavorting with Polar Bears.
It really is a fascinating story. What I found particularly interesting was that Treadwell knew the bear that ultimately killed them, and was wary of it because of its aggressive personality, as oppossed to most of the other bears that he "befriended." The fact that he survived so long in such close proximity with them gives some credence to his theory that he could be accepted by most bears as almost one of them. I mean, some of the footage is just incredible, and you think he's going to get eaten several times, but he doesn't. But I think that aggressive type of bear was probably more common than he let on, and he was clearly delusional to think this wouldn't happen to him at some point. It doesn't really matter if 9 out of 10 bears weren't aggressive towards him. It only takes one to get you.
Or, more to the point, it seems like he did realize this was a serious possibility. Which makes him even more of an irresponsible dumbass for bringing an innocent woman along to get killed with him. Poor girl should have run.
As a side note, have you ever seen or read One Man's Wilderness?
Only one third of you here will find the humor in this: During tourista season in Montana, we always encourage "dudes" to approach grizzly bears, buffalo and other big game type animals. it is great entertainment, and the EMT's need the practice………….
I clapped when he finally got eaten in the film. He reminded me of the tourists at Yellowstone who got in-between a Moose sow and her baby for a good photo op. Only this guy is worseworse. When you think animals are people you get hurt. Even the sweet, cuddly ones will eat you. Thought Herzog did a good job. You're picking good films Leo Grin, keep up the outstanding work.
Well I would bet he wished he had a 375 H+H in that last 10 min of his hand that woman's life. Made nothing but a mess for others to clean up. Sam " Salad Sam" Egli in a very few words told you all you needed to know. Sam was tasked with flying out there and bringing the remains back. As for running, I got news for you, you just die faster. Those Bears can keep up with a quarter horse for a short while. I spent a good many years flying in Alaska, and I never had a problem with Bears, then again I never when looking for trouble either. Of course I never left the road with out a 338 Winchester or 375 H+H. But that was just me. Sam is really a good guy, hard to know but he is a Alaskan Bush Pilot, they do what they say and say what they will or will not do.
Great article!!! It shows that nature is not the Disneyesques (?) utopia it appears to be. Yes children, Bambi does not know wtf you feel. I do not advocate the killing off of wildlife, but I advocate a realistic knowledge of the natural world.
I couldent agree more. I saw the movie a while back and saw Treadwell as a self indulgent delusional who needs to "save" the bears. A typical liberal he ignored evidence and lived in his own fantasy world.
Also, I have to wonder about those school teachers who allowed this nitwit to tell the students how wonderful the bears were.
This is a fantastic and expansive look at Timothy Treadwell's stupidity and selfishness. I saw Grizzly Man a few years ago and spent the whole time wondering what a really good shrink would make of him. I saw a man with a desperate need to feel special, for whom a normal life would have been torture, and who by the end had completely lost any grip on reality, living completely in a fantasy world of his own design.
There's a scene late in Herzog's film, Treadwell's own footage, where he goes on a bizarre rant that makes you realize that he isn't just a goofy eco-nut, but a truly disturbed individual. He said he would be honored to end up as grizzly shit, but I don't think for one second he believed his beloved friends would ever turn on him.
Q: What do you call slow running enviro-libs in bear country?
A: Bait.
This would go under the heading "poetic justice" for me if he hadn't gotten another person killed too.
Thank you for an outstanding piece about this Moron. These type of selfish people should be exposed. Unfortunately, the type of exposure they get encourages them even more. Couldn't help help but compare this type of behavior to those who have cutely renamed terrorism as a "man-made disaster".
Fools.
The point was – she should have run while the bear was busy eating him.
I got had an opportunity to spend a month in Yellowstone park for a college course. We referred to the tourists as "tourons" (tourist + moron). It's amazing that more people haven't been killed there. There's a general failure among too many in the general public to understand that wild animals are just that, wild. I'm talking people who want to go up and put their toddlers on a Bison's back to take a photo. I blame Disney.
Then you for sure know what I am talking about. I wasn't being facetious, or humorous either.
Nothing runs faster than a dude tourist, with a bull buffalo hot on their trail, blowing snot in their shorts. They are hard to catch on film……….
I'll never forget reading a story in the early '70s about a family visiting Yellowstone Park. The mother wanted to get a good picture of the bears close to her children, so she smeared honey on the kids' hands for the bears to lick, then snapped a photo of one of the bears eating one of her little girls' hands.
A ranger was quoted as saying something about "these people only know about animals from what they see in cartoons." I think that was probably Treadwell's problem — he thought he was hanging out with Yogi and Boo-Boo.
You are correct.
People of the west, know enough to give wild game a wide berth. The key word is "wild". It is not food until it is dead. I have a different perspective, I have worked with livestock most of my life. The closest thing one will find comparable to a buffalo bull, is a wild herd bull of the "domestic" kind. I use the word domestic lightly, for one misstep afoot, and you will wind up dead.
Dudes cannot comprehend, that when 2,000 lbs. is tap dancing across your chest, your ribs, your head, something is going to give, to break, and it will be you. Twenty years ago, I had a good friend in Texas, who was a Ranger. He got gored by a bull. He died before the helicopter landed to pick him up.
Stupid people shouldn't come to the wild for holiday. They should go to see Disneyland and wrestle gators in the Everglades. Their chances are better at survival.
Anyone who thinks nature is your friend, hasn't spent enough time outdoors.
"a 338 Winchester or 375 H+H"
Dang, you're not screwing around. The oldtimers were happy to take big bears with a Winchester 71 levergun in .348. But more grizzlies have probably fallen to the "too small" .30-06 than any other round.
It's a shame DiCaprio has abandoned the Treadwell movie. Just imagine watching that fool play an even bigger fool. What a great unintentionally black comedy it would make.
Amie Huguenard was a fool to stay with Treadwell. Having said that, as I recall indications are she died trying to save him.
LOL! I so enjoy the wit and wisdom of your posts that I have to say I think I have a cyber crush on you!
Exactly! My thoughts exactly when I saw this picture!
Except, at first I thought it was Andy Dick. . .
I was in Skagway, Alaska once. At the entrance to a hiking trail stood a very prominent sign informing the public that bears had been seen in the area in recent days and to be on alert. I watched dozens of young parents, with their toddlers in back carriers, walk right past the sign and onto the trails without so much as a glance at the sign. Like any reasonable, middle-aged conservative, I went resolutely and quickly in the OPPOSITE direction! Silly young liberals!
Grizzly Man is a masterpiece, one of the best documentaries ever made. Herzog loves making movies about dreamers, megalomaniacs, and larger than life mad visionaries. Timothy Treadwell is perfect material for him. I don't think a more troubled, haunbted, insane, and yes brilliant man has ever been captured on film.
For all the lunacy on display, Treadwell had his moments of brilliance. He did survive 13 years living with wild Grizzly's with no weapon. But his real accomplishment is filming some truly amazing bear footage, as Herzog points out, the guy was a great filmmaker. So RIP Timothy Treadwell thanks for the amazing footage, and I hope your troubled soul finds rest.
This was a powerful film, both hilarious for the behavior of smug progressives (I howled when one of his ex-girlfriends referred to Treadwell as her "confidanTAY") and tragic for its inevitable carnage. Clearly the man had mental problems; there's a scene where he abandons his on-camera monologue for an obscenity-laden tirade about poachers, the environment– things no one could be so angry about for so long.
It's an absolute shame this wasn't even nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar on a technicality about the particulars of its release. It's one of the most entertaining and moving entries in the genre I've ever seen.
Hey, you don't have to outrun the bear, just the person you're with! ;<))
I was actually relieved when the bear put me out of my misery by eating the SOB. His epithet should read: I was a damn fool and was responsible for the killing of a woman in my charge.
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What…Republicans don't like bearhugs? So let me get this straight…if Treadwell had a conservative mindset, he wouldn't of performed the acts he did? Are one's passions simply an emanation of one's political ideology? I think that is ludicrous. In fact, I would go so far as to say that you are damning the character and spirit of Republicans. You are saying that they do not have the drive or the audacity to do what Treadwell did for many years. All you can cull from his tapes is that he was a "madman", completely irresponsible and unheeding of numerous warnings from numerous, more rational folk.
But if you listen to Treadwell, you may well concede that he was a pretty intelligent guy. Conceding that, do you really think he did not know the dangers of being in such close proximity to the bears? Of course he knew, but I believe that he felt a strong connection to these animals. Ostensibly, the love and affection was not reciprocal, it never could be. But it didn't matter to him. To you or me, it does seem completely nonsensical to travel to distant climes in order to cohabitate with an incohabitable species. But does that mean that I should label him a madman, simply because his beliefs do not align with my own.
Apparenty, you do and that's the quintessence of conservatism- "What we think is right and any who oppose are maligned." I admire Treadwell. He had a vision, an "ecstatic" one, of man and beast living together harmoniously, one not superior to the other. He died living out his dream and who wouldn't desire that? How many of us live mundane lives with nary a shred of excitement or elation? How many of our dreams fall by the wayside due to lack of conviction or courage? Take the celebrated writer Yukio Mishima, a brilliant author and playwright. He chose to die for his beliefs, because he longed for a return to a bygone era of honor, servitude, and death in the line of duty. Yes, he was a romantic, but he did have a crystalline vision of how the world should be and when it fell short, he simply could not go on living a semblance of a life.
Treadwell is exactly the same way, a romantic. He even cut his hair to look like a Medieval knight on a quest to earn the respect of a fair beauty (in his case, the fair beast). It was all the same to Treadwell. And it is this kind of fanaticism, this single-minded purpose, this adamantine resolve in the face of overwhelming logic, that attracted the visionary filmmaker Werner Herzog. This great German director would kill himself, and nearly has, to complete a film (take Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo). They are kindred spirits. They are also poets in the Wordsworthian sense. They feel more acutely the vagaries of man and the emotions they feel as well as the chaotic elements in Nature. The latter entices them, interests them. Herzog is on a mission to commit these ecstatic truths to celluloid beacuse as he puts it, "the modern world is starving for images"- transcendent images that lift us to a higher plane of emotion, of consciousness. Treadwell was "foolish" enough in this cynical day and age to try to live constantly in that plane. Don't beat a man down beacuse had the balls, the chutzpah, to try!
Aw, shucks, I'm blushing. I sure hope you're a gal.
On a serious note, a little bit of cowboy logic, a little bit of horse sense, and a whole lot of common sense have gotten me further in life than a Harvard education. If I can see through this, and you can see through it, and the average American can, then why can't our elected officials?
The answer is, they have sold US out.
What you call moments of brilliance, many people would deem as tempting fate. He was lucky for a period of time, and then his luck ran out. His behavior was selfish.
I could go out and get great big surf film footage, but without proper training and respect for nature, it's just a matter of time before a disaster.
Treadewell said he'd be happy to be bear shit someday, well if he continued that forecast to a responsible conclusion, he should have know that the bear who killed him would also be killed…but it was all about him.
Treadwell was a fool, to call him brilliant is simply encouraging other sad fools to endanger their lives seeking adulation…it perpetuates a vicouse cycle.
I thought this film was hilarious, but then again, I also laughed at the protagonist of "Into the Wild"'s starvation and swimming exploits . . .
Treadwell thought he loved these animals. If he truly loved them, he would have respected them. He did not. He was delusional. Great documentary. It's a testament to the super-human patience of brown bears that they didn't eat him far earlier.
Prior to that, there were a whole lot killed with the lowly 30-30, or 30-40.
You had me right up until the end, with the totally unnecessary profanity. It's also ironic that you complain about Timothy's antics ('profanity-laced') yet that doesn't stop you from tossing around GDs like they were candy. C'mon man, you can do better.
Wow…talk about going in a whole different direction film wise…nice one Leo. I'm a huge fan of documentaries and this film was a dandy. The scene where WH is listenIng to the audio of Treadwell being attacked is very powerful. The look on his face and tone of his voice when he tells the woman, "You must never listen to this tape" is a great moment. The horror is multiplied for us, the audience, by *not* hearing it as well.
Herzog is quite the character, that's for sure. Les Blank's "Burden of Dreams" is another favorite of mine. I'll look forward to next weeks article on this most amazing director.
Good pick Leo. Thanks.
I don't see how anything you said contradicts my point (and Herzogs observation) that the man was a good filmmaker. Nuttier than Chinese chicken salad, but still made some amazing footage which Herzog uses extensively.
This was a very insightful article, and enjoyed it right until I got to this line:
"Women — a gender known for, among other peculiarities, lavishing marriage proposals on serial killers — fell all over Treadwell, frequently buying his bear-expert shtick hook, line, and sinker."
Wait. What? I thought you said he was a guest of Dateline and People magazine and David Letterman, and Leonardo DiCaprio was a supporter of his so-called "charity." I am assuming audiences are not all women. I am also assuming that male executives were interested in the bear story themselves, by allowing it to be part of the programming for Dateline and David Letterman's show. How then can you possibly write that the woman gender is largely responsible for his bear-expert shtick? There are many peculiar things that I've known some men to do, but I would never attribute the entire gender to be "known for" some of these peculiarities.
It is sad that I could not continue reading this article because it became tainted, from that moment forward, about your narrow, offensive views about an entire gender.
There is nothing liberal or postmodern about the basic observation that life in the natural world is chaos and death.
The fact that this wasn't even nominated for best documentary shows just how little common sense the Academy has.
Incredible article. Thank you.
I loved this movie though I spent most of it with my jaw stuck open in horrified amazement. Treadwell was clearly VERY disturbed. Someone above says he was brilliant. Yeah, right, that's what he was.
It also struck me that he seemed gay. In denial?
not that there's anything wrong with that!
As people's reaction to "Avatar" demonstrates, being "one with nature" is a deep, powerful fantasy – for people who don't have to actually live as "one with nature." Everybody dreams about running with the wolves, swimming with the dolphins, etc. But if people paid attention to how wolves and dolphins actually live and die in nature, they wouldn't be so anxious to participate in their mode of existence.
Grizzly Man was an amazing film. Herzog did an excellent job with it. Loved the soundtrack by Richard Thompson too.
Treadwell is the quintessential do-gooder liberal. Because of his ego and sanctimony, he did far more harm than good to the things he claimed to care about. Being a self-appointed bear messiah was more important to him than doing what was best for the bears – leaving them alone. Nope, no way, had to meddle in things. That said, he did manage to capture some superb video footage of the bears. Hard to believe he left the lens cap on for the last scene, getting eaten alive.
Would you mind going to Alaska and "befriend" some bears yourself, please…?
GOD, Liberals are SO STUPID…!!!!!
How many men go to women's prisons to hit upon female serial killers…?
The defense rests, Your Honor….
Apparently she hit the bear with a frying pan. It sounds almost comical but it must have been sheer hell the last few minutes of their lives.
Bear Advisory
The Forest Service has issued a BEAR WARNING in the national forests for this summer.
They're urging everyone to protect themselves by wearing bells and carrying pepper spray.
Campers should be alert for signs of fresh bear activity, and they should be able to tell the difference between Black Bear dung and Grizzy Bear dung.
Black Bear dung is rather small and round. Sometimes you can see fruit seeds and/or squirrel fur in it.
Grizzly Bear dung has bells in it, and smells like pepper spray.
I wouldn't even step into NM brown bear country without a .357 Magnum or higher…mine's stainless steel…
No matter how "peaceful" the rest may be…there's always one that bears considerable watching, and in extremely rare cases, a probable nuzzling with a 158 gr. Federal Premium Hydra-Shok…
Welcome to "nature"…
Thanks again Leo. Very Inspiring work. I always look for your writing.
I'm going to watch Herzog's film this week.
As for Treadwell, he was a fool indeed. His overwhelming pride (in a biblical sense) killed him. The bears were just being bears. Anyone with experience in the woods knows that wild beasts should be treated with appreciation, awe and respect. In the PA mountains, we have only black bear. Smaller and a bit more timid, they still pose a grave threat under certain rare circumstances. If you have a large bear in the area and it's been raiding camps with no fear of people, it's probably a good idea to take your .30-.30 with you on the trail. Just in case. But if you're mostly not an idiot like Treadwell, the bears would sooner leave you alone. For example, I once fell asleep at the base of a large Maple during bear season. When I woke, I discovered a large set of bear tracks in the fresh snow that ended right at my feet. I counted myself lucky. I had packed a couple of PB sandwiches for lunch, but forgot to put them in my pocket before I left camp. I'm sure he would have woke me for them.
An' Teddy Roosevelt potted them with a blackpowder .45-75 WCF.
Not that I would exactly recommend hunting Kodiak with that cartridge today, of course.
".if Treadwell had a conservative mindset, he wouldn't of performed the acts he did?"
Yup. You mean you can't figure that out? It is an inherently liberal pathology to imagine reality must conform to what one wants it to be rather than what it is.
"Ostensibly, the love and affection was not reciprocal, it never could be. But it didn't matter to him"
No, he thought it was reciprocal. Big mistake.
"He had a vision, an "ecstatic" one, of man and beast living together harmoniously, one not superior to the other."
Yup. Too bad his vision was delusional.
Reminds me of the Parson of Oakley, trying to convince the dragon Chrysophylax to amend his evil ways (in the dragon's opinion, the parson proved rather stringy and not very filling). Don Quixote is not a figure to be admired or emulated: he was a danger to himself and others.
Thing is, conservatives have the sense to realize that no matter how much we might want them, Sparkly Pink Unicorns don't exist. And no matter how much you love bears and want them to love you, they're still aggressive carnivores.
The "romanticism" you so admire in Treadmill is *not* admirable, but a self-destructive variant on the other-destructive drive to reshape reality that produces Reigns of Terror. "Yes, he was a romantic, but he did have a crystalline vision of how the world should be and when it fell short, he simply could not go on living a semblance of a life" could serve as an epitaph for Robespierre as well.
As King Arthur said to the Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail, "You're a loony".
Sounds like just the leverage needed to get higher in the food chain than the bears.
My first thought when watching the movie was that liberalism always has the same endgame, it's just rare to get the sort of graphic and sudden depiction of it that GRIZZLY MAN offers. Usually people's lives are ruined by liberalism via subtle degrees of water-torture, as one unintended consequence after another is levied against them in the name of progress and enlightenment. It's only later, upon reflection, that most realize that almost everything in their workaday lives that makes them miserable can be traced back to the efforts of bureaucratic do-gooders to force them to live lives devoid of individual thought and common sense.
[...] For Conservative Movie Lovers: Werner Herzog, Timothy Treadwell, and ‘Grizzly Man’ Part 1 [...]
Yes! Think of FDR and LBJ and all the pain and suffering that have come out of their social programs that "help" people. Again, wonderful piece, Mr. Grin.
I have to disagree with this, JohnW:
"The fact that he survived so long in such close proximity with them gives some credence to his theory that he could be accepted by most bears as almost one of them."
When I see the footage of him hanging out with the bears, slapping them on the nose when they get too close, or trying to pet them on the back and causing them to dart around and glare at him, I see bears perfectly willing to eat him but who aren't yet sure that they can get away with it. They tolerate him in their space like the foxes we see running around, simply because for a combination of reasons they've determined that they couldn't catch him, or that his bluffs might mean that he's more trouble than he's worth, or that his weirdness means he might not taste very good. I see no affection AT ALL from any of the bears, even the ones who come close to him seem merely curious in a dumb sort of way. Treadwell seems to be playing Russian Roulette with a gun of many chambers, and the only reason he wasn't eaten far earlier stems from the fact that he wasn't worth taste-testing in a world with bountiful fish and berries for the taking.
Haven't seen or read ONE MAN'S WILDERNESS, care to give us a capsule review?
Usually your chutzpah is quick to file for divorce when your balls (and liver) are being chewed on by the object of you affections. But not hearing the annoying screams of your delusion sharing girlfriend has to count for something. This was a win/win in my book.
When are the authorities going to find the black man actually responsible for this attack?
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/dna_evidenc...
ChicagoJedi says:
"When you think animals are people you get hurt."
Exactly. And the animals often get hurt, too. Look at shows like THE DOG WHISPERER, where animal after animal is found to be suffering deeply from the neuroses of their human companions (I won't insult the language by calling them "masters"), all because people insist on anthropomorphizing dogs.
Where I live there are plenty of young lithe college students walking their dogs at all hours, talking to them and arguing with them to do this-or-that as they get dragged around by the end of the dog's leash, shovel and plastic bag at the ready to clean up after the little bastard like a slave. I grew up with dogs and think they're great, but I never got why people in the city go through the trouble of keeping a dog sequestered twenty-three hours a day in a one-bedroom apartment and then spend the other hour walking around cleaning up its crap from the street.
The things people go through to fill the gaping hole in their souls left by the absence of human babies. . . .
Tom Arico says:
"I saw the movie a while back and saw Treadwell as a self indulgent delusional who needs to "save" the bears. A typical liberal he ignored evidence and lived in his own fantasy world."
Yep, Nick Jans' book makes a great case for the supposition that the only thing the bears needed saving from was Treadwell himself. He could of done a lot of good and had a wonderful career if he had kept his distance and become a nature photographer. As others have said on this thread, he had a knack for composition and lighting. But of course, the problem was that it was never about the bears, but about what the bears did for him. Simply being a nature photographer wouldn't have worked because Treadwell himself wouldn't have been front and center in the shot, he wouldn't be a courageous hero for getting so close to them, he wouldn't be seen as a "bear whisperer" with special powers of communication.
The woman slam is unnecessary…the vast majority of women seem smart enough to avoid serial killers. What if I wrote an article with the causal line, "men, who are known to enthusiastically enjoy the company of prostitutes…" Don't paint the whole sex with representations of the stupid ones, please.
In any case, speaking as someone who grew up worshipping Jacques Cousteau and with more than a few World Wildlife Fund tote bags (and one really good umbrella that stays in the car for emergencies) please don't assume every who wants to protect wild life is an idiot. Grizzly Man is an amazing documentary, but what seemed obvious to me immediately (from his tv appearances) was that Treadwell was clearly mentally ill, and it becomes more apparent as the film goes on. It's fascinating, stuff, and and along with "Into Thin Air" and "Into The Wild" an excellent cautionary tale for anyone who thinks nature is a kind and gentle place. I'm smart enough to stick to the easy day hikes, thank you.
Also–seriously? Only conservatives have smarts in the woods? All conservatives are Daniel "Kilt A Bar" Boone?Every single person who's died in nature is a liberal? That's as broad as the women comment. I'm going to hazard that stupidity in nature doesn't follow political lines so much as…stupidity lines.
Trust me, even my most liberal eco-freak friends thought Treadwell was a whackjob. It really doesn't take a particular political mindset to acknowledge that frolicking with bears is a suicide wish. Watching Grizzly Man proved that to me without a doubt.
Not to go all feminist, but I thought the slam against women was thoughtless as well.
cak says:
"Anyone who thinks nature is your friend, hasn't spent enough time outdoors."
Love it. That's an apothegm capable of saving lives. Man, Jack London has never gone away, but he's long overdue for a renaissance of some sort. I sent readers to his "A Piece of Steak" in my last series, and should have sent them to "To Build a Fire" in this one.
Well, at least her INTENTIONS were good — that's what counts! All that stuff about being mauled to death and having their heads found in a bear cache is just so much white noise. They MEANT WELL. That's like a get-out-of-jail-free card for most of modern society, it's like a liberal Cloak of Invulnerability, so what could possibly go wrong with such raw moral power protecting you?
They should have defended themselves by bending over and blinding the bear with the brilliant sunshine emanating from their backsides. . . .
zazu123:
I think a lot of the brilliance (and yeah, I agree that a lot of it is brilliant) comes from the way Herzog presents it, offering outtakes, re-takes, moments where Treadwell leaves the screen and the quiet beauty of REAL nature takes over from Treadwell's theatrics. Herzog isn't just stringing together a bunch of Treadwell's shots, he is making deft choices of what we should see and when. A lot of the beauty is Treadwell's, but much of the brilliance is owed to Herzog.
Great article
that remark about 'women' is true: this silly man attracted women like Ted Bundy, and one of them died for her sins. What sin? The sin of Pride, that they could be godlings in Paradise.
This silly man didn't live in the bush all year round, hunting for food and shelter like his beloved bears. He was a creature of the city, pretending to be at Pandora, one of the Na'vi.
Yep, I too laughed when I heard the news of his long and terrible death, and her's, too.
There are many people who are as crazy as Treadwell, but few possess his physical courage. He reminds me of Father Greg Boyle of Mission Dolores Parish in the East L.A. housing projects. Father Boyle literally will stand between groups of guys shooting at each other, in order to get them to stop. He and Treadwell grew up middle class, but something in their DNA makes them fearless, often in a foolish way. I think they are adrenelin junkies that enjoy the rush. It feeds something in them. Unlike Treadwell, Father Boyle is actually a nice guy. He does however perscribe to liberation theology. Liberation Theology is basicly religious/ cultural marxism that thinks rich white people oppress gangsters because they are poor and Mexican. He does not consider the allure of evil. Nor does he consider that young boys become gangsters because gangsters get all the girls. With the left, the lunatics just keep on comin'.
At least there wasn't a lifeguard at treadwell's Gene Pool.
LOL!
i reckoned what the world needs is a children's book telling the story of "grizzly man" form the bear's point of view.
http://www.attackanimation.com/books/Fwuffybuns/1...
i call it "mr. fwuffybuns".
Just because we fancy ourselves to be at the top of the food chain, doen't mean that sharks, bears, tigers, lions, jaguars etc are paying any attention to what we're saying.
I worked in remote Alaska a few years ago, right after Treadwell was killed. It was all over the news, and every Alaskan I spoke to who mentioned him in conversation considered him a complete idiot. His death was not a tragedy, it was inevitable. His girlfriend's death, on the other hand, was pathetically tragic. He lured her in with his lies, brainwashed her, and fed her to Mother Nature. Amazing.
Jane asks:
"I do think the article could have done without the gratuitous aside. Given only one of two choices, is it better to be the gender that proposes marriage to a serial killer, or the gender to which most serial killers belong?"
You might as well ask, "Is it better to be the guy who got killed by the grizzly, or the woman dumb enough to follow the Pied Piper into the grizzly's den?" They're both equally dead.
But it's telling that after spending 90% of the article focusing on the man's stupidity and only 10% on the woman's, you consider even that 10% to be "gratuitous." There's no doubt in my mind that most women, upon reading that paragraph of mine, thought the exact same thing.
I think that the .50 BMG is a perfect rifle for Kodiaks.
Timmy wanted to become one with the bears and he got his wish.
I'll take a wild guess here and say that their backsides were indeed in full expulsion mode those last few moments.
i think the problem is that treadwell applied human emotions and values and even reasoning to bears. i know nothing of herzog's politics. but he correctly recognized the vast indifference of nature.
i think that even asking the question of meaning in a bears life sort of misses the point. that issue only has relevance when talking about humans.
I found this movie really interesting. Kept thinking that someone needed to tell Timothy about Jesus Christ. He was a lost soul in search of forgiveness and a purpose. The back story tells of drug use and drinking. He was a habitual liar…and he also seemed confused about his sexuality. His mannerisms were very gay, but on film he kept insisting (a little too much) that he wasn't gay. He finally found his "purpose" in watching over the bears. What a lost soul.
[...] of my favorite movies of all [...]
there are pockets of hippies even in alaska. around homer and talkeetna in the summers.
but they are not afflicted with the disney/harmony/can't we all get along view of nature. strapping on a .454 ruger just to take out the trash sort of kills the illusion.
maatkare (and anyone else of the distaff persuasion):
I'm more than happy to entertain your enlightened theory, untainted by my "thoughtless" misogyny, about how the late, lamented Amie Huguenard (who, for the record, professed to be scared of bears) rationalized her decision to accompany Timothy Treadwell — a guy you yourself admit "even my most liberal eco-freak friends thought Treadwell was a whackjob" — into a "Grizzly Maze." Go for it.
And then the rest of us can judge how close that rationalization comes to the equally bizarre ones used by women who fall in love with whackjob serial killers.
I'm not sure that .357 is enough gun, although the real estate analog (placement, placement, placement) can make up for a smaller caliber. I think that .44 Magnum is probably enough- despite the wicked recoil. Or you take a .50 BMG rifle.
InRussetShadows says:
"You had me right up until the end, with the totally unnecessary profanity. It's also ironic that you complain about Timothy's antics ('profanity-laced') yet that doesn't stop you from tossing around GDs like they were candy. C'mon man, you can do better."
So one GD at the very end of a 2000-word piece is akin to "tossing arround GDs like they were candy?" Nah — more like a mercy killer's bullet.
Plus 100 attack!
When he got killed I was very happy.
This is one of my favorite movies. Beyond the utter deconstruction of the leftist view on wildlife, it's just so fascinating to see an actual mentally disturbed man on camera; not an actor mind you, the real deal.
imagine being werner herzog for a minute. he spent his life perfecting the descent into madness movie with fitzcarraldo and aguirre the wrath of god.
then THIS falls into your lap. he evenlooks like a dorky liberal klaus kinsky.
the only problem is that it comes from a completely unexpected direction. unexpected at least if you're a liberal. treadwell wasn't a business man or a conquistador warrior. he was a do gooder. many still can't wrap their heads around that.
i saw a documentary once about bear attacks. most attacks are due to unaware hikers startling bears or stumbliing upon a mother bear and her cubs. but one part of the documentary talked about a different class of attacks: the times when a bear has decided that human is on the menu. when hunting for food, a bear behaves very differently and methodically. they discussed a fellow who was stalked by a hungry black bear. the bear followed him, relentlessly. he eventually jumped in a lake to get away from it. the bear did not give up. it simply followed his swimming movements while staying on the bank of the lake. eventually… the bear was going to get its meal. the bear knew it. and the fellow knew it. his only chance, and he was successful, was to lure the bear to a side of the lake far enough away that he could try a fast swim and mad dash on land to his truck. he made it, but the story about the relentless hunting behavior of the bear is worth remembering. anybody who goes into the back country without a weapon for self-defense is asking for trouble.
Alaska is the place where the road ends. Those running from themselves can run no further. For this reason stories like this, and 'Into the Wild', will continue, to the chagrin of Alaskans who don't see the romance of yet another nut job at the end of their road.
Good grief…you're as much of a madman as he was.
i'm saving up for a freedom arms model 83 in .454 casull.
i have no intention of hunting bear. but got way closer than i'd like to grizzlys last time up there. and don't want to be dependent on their goodwill.
unless someone here can suggest something better.
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