Grizzly Man
Timothy Treadwell lived his life with and for Grizzly bears in Alaska, and then they ate him. A strange mix of tragedy and irony, no?
It's an amazing documentary. You watch the hours and hours of footage he shot up there with the bears cut down to an hour and you don't know whether to laugh at him or cry for him when he tells the bears that he loves them over and over again. They don't even look his way unless he gets close enough to make them uncomfortable. They then start to move toward him and he steps back, apologizing profusely for getting in their way. He's definitely not celebrated in the documentary, as several people interviewed remark that he "got what he deserved" and maybe only survived as long as he did because the bears thought he was retarded or something.
He was searching for something to worship, something to devote his life to, and he found dangerous wild bears. The illusion he painted of being a protector of the bears elevated his ego to god status. He yells and rants to the camera of how he beat the government at their own game when they tried to tell him to be careful around the bears. He beat the park services, and he beat the other bear protectors, he says. His girlfriend, who died by his side after not leaving him when he was attacked, told him days before their death that he was "hell bent on destruction." She wasn't comfortable with how close he wanted to get to the bears and how he spent three to four months of the year camping out in the most dangerous part of the alaskan wilderness just to be with them. Werner Herzog, the german director who directed the documentary rebukes Treadwell in his narration, remarking of how when Treadwell looked into the eyes of the bears, he saw peace, misunderstanding, and the perfect balance of nature, but all Herzog sees is "half bored hunger." These are animals. While they're beautiful, and worth preserving in our call to be good stewards, their only motivation is to eat and to procreate.
When Treadwell gushes over the bears and calls them by name, he gets nothing in return. The bears don't return his love. He's torn apart and eaten by a starving old grizzly, and his girlfriend dies, too.
So go watch it. It was an absolute farce that it wasn't even nominated for best documentary at the oscars.
It's an amazing documentary. You watch the hours and hours of footage he shot up there with the bears cut down to an hour and you don't know whether to laugh at him or cry for him when he tells the bears that he loves them over and over again. They don't even look his way unless he gets close enough to make them uncomfortable. They then start to move toward him and he steps back, apologizing profusely for getting in their way. He's definitely not celebrated in the documentary, as several people interviewed remark that he "got what he deserved" and maybe only survived as long as he did because the bears thought he was retarded or something.
He was searching for something to worship, something to devote his life to, and he found dangerous wild bears. The illusion he painted of being a protector of the bears elevated his ego to god status. He yells and rants to the camera of how he beat the government at their own game when they tried to tell him to be careful around the bears. He beat the park services, and he beat the other bear protectors, he says. His girlfriend, who died by his side after not leaving him when he was attacked, told him days before their death that he was "hell bent on destruction." She wasn't comfortable with how close he wanted to get to the bears and how he spent three to four months of the year camping out in the most dangerous part of the alaskan wilderness just to be with them. Werner Herzog, the german director who directed the documentary rebukes Treadwell in his narration, remarking of how when Treadwell looked into the eyes of the bears, he saw peace, misunderstanding, and the perfect balance of nature, but all Herzog sees is "half bored hunger." These are animals. While they're beautiful, and worth preserving in our call to be good stewards, their only motivation is to eat and to procreate.
When Treadwell gushes over the bears and calls them by name, he gets nothing in return. The bears don't return his love. He's torn apart and eaten by a starving old grizzly, and his girlfriend dies, too.
So go watch it. It was an absolute farce that it wasn't even nominated for best documentary at the oscars.
posted by Ethan at 9:12 PM
1 Comments:
I read about that guy. Didn't know there was a documentary on the subject. Thanks for the insight.
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