Herzog's doc chronicles the foibles of bear worship.
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If you've seen
Fitzcarraldo
, then you already know: Werner Herzog's one of those directors who manages to appear in every frame, even though he's never on camera. He's done no differently with the documentary
Grizzly Man
, for which he primarily uses footage previously taped by Timothy Treadwell, self-proclaimed grizzly expert who spent 13 summers living among the bears in a remote part of Alaska until, in 2003, he and girlfriend Amie Hugeunard met their violent deaths there when they were mauled to death. Treadwell left behind hundreds of hours of film, so it's almost as though Herzog completes his subject's intended documentary-and in the process makes the riveting, gruesome story very much his own.
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Treadwell had no formal training as an animal researcher, but simply threw himself into the world of the grizzlies. And they tolerated his presence for many years-long enough for him to photograph some amazing behaviors, write a book (
Among Grizzlies)
, found the non-profit Grizzly People with his friend Jewel Palovak and campaign tirelessly on behalf of the grizzlies' plight (though the Park Service claims there isn't any plight). It would be as shocking as if Jane Goodall had been devoured by chimpanzees, were it not for what Herzog reveals almost reluctantly: Treadwell's obvious mental disintegration. The ursine-rights activist's cocksure, unscripted raps are entertainingly convincing at first; but his environmental convictions begin to sound more like delusion as he talks himself into and out of highly emotional states. "I'm so in love with them," he says at one point, openly weeping. Soon he's raving at the Park Service, cursing vehemently and paranoiac-and then just as suddenly giggling and admitting, "I sound like a fucking nut." Throughout the film Treadwell does hold one belief consistently: "I'm different, I know how to do it right." But as far as Herzog is concerned, Treadwell romanticizes the bears' social organization, and his ability to maneuver within it, far beyond what is prudent.
These posthumous revelations avoid the air of maliciousness because Herzog so obviously identifies with his subject. When he points out the accidents contained in Treadwell's footage which reveal an unintended beauty "beyond all his posings," his voice becomes wistful as the naturalist's camera, left running, dwells on a tall stand of grass, waving gently as seaweed. In the end
Grizzly Man
isn't a movie about bears at all; it adumbrates Herzog's theory of film aesthetics, containing his cinematic manifesto and his own wish for communion with something other, something wilder, something which lies just slightly outside of and beyond our human control.
