Cynics Unlimited

Title: Grizzly Man
Release: 2005
Genre: Documentary
Run Time: 103 Minutes
Studio/Publisher: Lions Gate
Rating: 85%

A couple of years ago my brother told me of a man who had lived among grizzly bears in Alaska and was later killed by one. This man had apparently thought that grizzlies could be tamed and taught not to attack humans. Evidently he was wrong. I then vaguely remembered seeing a magazine article with a photograph of a man standing face to face with a large bear. Though I didn’t connect the picture with my brother’s story at first, they came together for me with the recent release of the documentary Grizzly Man.

The title character of the film refers to Timothy Treadwell, a self-described bear expert and freelance environmentalist who spent time with the grizzlies of Alaska’s Katmai National Park for thirteen summers in a row. In October 2003, he, along with his latest girlfriend Amie Huguenard, was fatally mauled by a hungry bear.

Directed and narrated by veteran German filmmaker Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man includes footage Treadwell took of himself, the park, and the animals there – mostly bears, but foxes too – as well as interviews with people who knew him, such as his parents, an ex-girlfriend, and friends of both sexes. There is even a clip of Treadwell being interviewed by David Letterman.

The scenes from Katmai Park are so breathtakingly beautiful that it is almost worth seeing the movie just for them. The bears are another story. When the first shot of Treadwell standing unarmed (he never took bear spray, let alone weapons, on his visits) in the middle of the park with the bears came on, I felt scared, as if it were me there. I then relaxed, though, on watching him get up close to the bears, talk to them, and touch their noses. He treats the foxes almost like dogs: he pets them, has them lie at his feet and so on. The fox cubs pictured are adorable. Grizzly Man is obviously a fascinating film for people interested in wildlife.

We also learn about Tim Treadwell’s life. He was born in New Jersey to a middle-class American family. His parents describe his childhood as normal. They note he always loved animals. Though he received a swimming scholarship to a college, he eventually dropped out of school and moved to Malibu, California.

A darker side of Treadwell later emerges, however. After trying out but failing to get the role of the bartender in the TV series Cheers [note: some sources say Treadwell’s claim to have auditioned for Cheers was not true; see my note on his habit of stretching the truth], he went on a downward spiral. He began drinking excessively, taking drugs, and became very depressed. A former girlfriend of his mentions that he fell in with dangerous people. He also refused the medication his doctor prescribed for depression.
Nevertheless, Treadwell managed to overcome his alcoholism and drug addiction. He made a promise to the bears that he would give up drinking and devote his life to them, and so began his journey to Alaska every summer for the next thirteen years.

Werner Herzog is careful to present a balanced picture of Treadwell by interviewing both people who thought well of him and those who did not. Treadwell’s ex-girlfriend speaks of him fondly. Together they founded a group called Grizzly People to help the bears. Two environmentalists praise his efforts to raise awareness about the grizzlies’ plight. Other interviewees, though, are less complimentary. The pilot who took Treadwell to Katmai Park every summer describes him as an arrogant attention seeker and blames him for Amie Huguenard’s death. An Alaskan Native man, the curator of a museum, is sceptical of Treadwell’s tendency to approach the bears as if they were domestic animals. Alaskan Natives, he says, have shown their respect for the grizzlies for thousands of years by keeping their distance from them. (The curator’s words reminded me of those of an Irish woman who was baffled by British animal rights activists barricading themselves in front of cattle trucks to stop the cows from being slaughtered. In Ireland people regarded the killing of cows for food as part of the life cycle.)

So was Timothy Treadwell a glory seeker or a friend and defender of the grizzly bears? I would say a bit of both. It is true that much of the footage he shot was of him rather than the bears. On the other hand, he genuinely loved the bears. His weeping over a dead bee seems to show a concern for all creatures, even if that concern appears somewhat misplaced.

One reason for Treadwell’s seemingly eccentric behaviour which is touched upon but never explored in detail is the fact that he was probably mentally ill. Some sources suggest he had bipolar disorder, or manic depression. This disease causes patients to have manic “highs” and alternate periods of depression (“lows”). We hear of Treadwell’s depression from his ex-girlfriend. In the footage of himself in Alaska, we see his manic side. One example is his illusion of grandeur: he views himself as the bears’ only protector against poachers and the indifference of the US parks authorities. When he rails against the park rangers and their superiors, shouting obscene language and giving the finger to the camera, he looks positively insane. The signs of bipolar disorder seem to have been present before his pilgrimage to Alaska. One symptom is a penchant for spinning extravagant and unlikely stories. For instance, in Malibu Treadwell told people he was an Australian orphan (how he expected them to believe this boggles the mind; after all, it’s hard to pretend to be Australian without the right accent).

I therefore came to the uneasy conclusion that Treadwell’s work with the grizzlies may very well have stemmed from a chemical imbalance in the brain rather than the noble desire to defend the bears or the not so noble one to attract attention. He thus perhaps deserves to be pitied instead of glorified, ridiculed, or condemned, as some people have done. Yet even a “normal” person might recognize aspects of him- or herself in Treadwell. For example, he credits his recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction to the bears in the same way that others attribute theirs to God or Jesus. While he states at one point, “I have no idea whether there’s a God,” the need to believe in something greater than oneself – in Treadwell’s case, the bears – is a universal human characteristic.

I suppose I identified to a certain extent with Treadwell’s fondness for animals. I happen to love bears. I once told a woman who sold carvings of bears that I wasn’t boy-crazy; I was bear-crazy. I also see how some people’s attachment to animals can at times become unreasonable. For instance, the late Canadian Prime Minister William Mackenzie King claimed to communicate with the spirit of his dead dog. But like the Alaskan Native curator, I believe in keeping a respectful distance from the bears. Maybe Treadwell’s foray into the Alaskan wilderness symbolized modern man’s longing for a more “natural” environment away from the artificiality of urban life.

So as an animal lover and movie watcher, I recommend seeing Grizzly Man.