Film: Grizzly Man
Director: Werner Herzog
Country: Germany / USA
Released: August 2005
Runtime: 104 minutes
Genre: Documentary
Studio: Discovery Docs
Influenced: Errol Morris, Liz Garbus, Harmony Korine, Gaspar Noé, Alejandro González Iñárritu
As well as around 30 fiction films, Herzog has also directed approximately 40 documentaries, including the incredible Grizzly Man, which deserves to be viewed on a par with some of his finest works, such as Aguirre (1972), Stroszek (1977) and Fitzcarraldo (1982). This was my entry point into Herzog back in the late 2000s and for a few months I fell down the rabbit hole of his filmography, buying the Herzog / Kinski boxset, as well as the Werner Herzog Collection and Encounters In The Natural World boxset (the latter including Grizzly Man). My plan was to work through his films in chronological order and attain some kind of Herzog-inspired level of zen or ecstatic truth, but even now I've only seen about half of the movies he's made, including his various short films. Across Herzog's many fiction films and documentaries, a recurring theme is an obsessive character or dreamer whose single-mindedness leads them to the outer limits of human experience. As much could be said about the director himself. Grizzly Man's tagline is: "In nature, there are boundaries. One man spent the last 13 years of his life crossing them."
The film revolves around Timothy Treadwell, an environmentalist and ursinologist who spent 13 summers living among wild grizzly bears in the Katmai National Park & Preserve in Alaska. Treadwell documented his experiences through video recordings, capturing intimate moments with the bears. Herzog, intrigued by an article about the tragic circumstances of Treadwell's death, decided to make a documentary about him. Herzog gained access to the video recordings through Treadwell's ex-girlfriend, Jewel Palovak, who co-founded Grizzly People, the organisation Treadwell established to protect bears. Palovak agreed to share Treadwell's videos with Herzog, and the director incorporated this footage into the documentary. Though Herzog relied on the support of Treadwell's family & friends, he still gives us a variety of perspectives in the movie, including that of Sam Egli, a helicopter pilot who assisted with the clean-up operation after the gruesome death of Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard. Egli says that Treadwell got what he deserved and that the bears probably thought he was mentally retarded.
Herzog and other talking heads in the movie are more sympathetic to Treadwell, though the director does at times interject to make his own thoughts about nature known. He challenges Treadwell's idealised belief that humans could live harmoniously with bears, asserting that nature is indifferent to human intentions or emotions. Herzog's existential musings delivered in his singular style are one of the highlights of his documentary work, and it's fair to say that in this case, his more somber and philosophical perspective on the inherent risks and harsh realities of the wild has been hard won over a long career battling with the natural world. Other voices in the film like his friends Marc and Marnie Gaede talk about Treadwell's bravery, his passion for bears and his work in conservation. There's no doubt that Treadwell had his personal struggles but his intentions were pure, albeit misguided. He even believed he could communicate with and protect the bears, going as far as naming them and attributing human-like qualities to them.
Grizzly Man was showered with critical acclaim and won several awards, including the Alfred P Sloan Prize at Sundance Film Festival in 2005. By weaving together Treadwell's footage with interviews and his own reflections, Herzog created a complex and multi-layered narrative with Grizzly Man, challenging traditional documentary conventions in the process. Soundtracked by Richard Thompson's wonderful score, the documentary also addresses broader themes such as the unpredictable nature of wildlife, the blurred line between humans and animals, and the consequences of human interference in the natural world. This accessible approach to philosophy has become one of the hallmarks of Herzog's documentaries, as well as the sense of him being a thoughtful and ethical guide. His decision not to include the audio of Treadwell's death, which was captured accidentally on his own camera (with the lens cap on) during the bear attack, was absolutely the right one, out of respect for Treadwell, his family and the sensitivity of the material.
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