Grizzly Man

The first time I heard about this movie was in my political ecology course, where my teacher made a reference to Timothy Treadwell. I'd never heard the name before, but I've found that when talking about him, the first thing that people usually mention is that he was killed by a grizzly bear. This is true. What is also true is that he lived among the grizzly bears for 13 preceding summers before he was killed. And he knew the risk he was taking. Films recorded by him show grizzly bears up close and personal--at times, he even reaches out to touch them, seemingly without fear. The reason is that, in the moment, he knows better than to show any sign of weakness. On camera, he explains repeatedly that in order to survive among bears, you must act as if you're as strong as them. Any sign of weakness can be fatal.

What of the event that led to his death? Did he drop his guard, as he was always careful not to? Did he, as many have suggested, simply get what was coming to him? I think not. I think that to suggest that his death was an obvious outcome is an insult to the life he led before it. He knew of the risk of death, but he also managed to deter it for thirteen years--which is a considerable amount of time. I think it more likely that his death was a freak accident on all sides--a particularly aggressive bear, any number of unknown factors. But speculating over it denies some of its dignity. Treadwell died, yes, but he died well, in the service of the animals that he loved.

This documentary, while gripping, is an incomplete portrait at best. Its portrayal of Treadwell is perceivably affected by the beliefs of Werner Herzog, who serves as both director and narrator. Herzog is fascinated by Treadwell as a character, but he does not agree with Treadwell's perception of nature, which he considers simplistic and naive. Treadwell routinely speaks of the bears and other wildlife as his friends, and regards them as his salvation and reason to live. Herzog admires Treadwell for his courage and unconventional lifestyle, but he joins the rest of the world in regarding him as foolhardy. Furthermore, this documentary does little to advance Treadwell's conservationist agenda, since it shows footage of him cursing out the park service, and other clips that bring into doubt his mental stability. Although I admire Herzog for giving Treadwell's hard-earned footage a lease on life, I object to his biased portrayal. He has his own agenda in telling Treadwell's story and his occasional appearance on camera seems to detract from what should be the main focus--the Grizzly Man himself, in his life and legacy.

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Timothy Treadwell's story is one that raises difficult questions about humanity and our relationship to nature. He was not a trained scientist, and, as far as I can tell, all of his knowledge about the habits of animals and their ecosystem came from experience, rather than research. I do not think that a more conventional scientific knowledge would have saved his life, but it might have gained him more respect among the scientific and political community ultimately responsible for the bears' survival. Instead, Treadwell was viewed during his lifetime as little more than a raging hippie, and something of a nuisance, rather than the serious conservationist he tried to be. In death, he is remembered as a reckless man who succumbed to the very forces he was trying to protect. I prefer to view Treadwell as a man who did his personal best to transcend the gap between man and nature, knew the risks he was taking, and didn't give a damn about how the rest of the world viewed him. He had no wish to become a part of the established scientific community, and in fact, no wish to become a part of any human society. He rejected society altogether, and would have chosen to remain among the bears for the rest of his life, had it been possible.

Repeatedly in the clips he himself filmed, we see Treadwell anthropomorphizing the bears, speaking to them as he would to humans, calling them by name, and approaching them with a smile on his face and love on his lips. Perhaps he believed that, in doing so, he was creating something more human in them, and minimizing their brutal animal aspects. He views humans as the enemy, as if having a common enemy joins him to the animals. He is right in regarding humans as predators, the oddball at the top of the food chain. But what he disregards is the fact that the bears do regard them as such, and his own humanity is a strike against him.

Treadwell engaged in something that many of us are guilty of, myself included: romanticizing nature and overestimating our ability to live with it in harmony. Humans are part of nature, and we would be wrong to deny it. But we tend to pick and choose the aspects of nature we would choose to be a part of. We grow flowers but yank out weeds. We let trees grow in parks but don't allow them in our backyards. And we bring animals into our homes, but only after they have been declawed and every hunting instinct taken out of them. In order to truly become a part of nature, man must live as animal himself, and accept every consequence. Treadwell could not live as an animal, so he attempted to force the animals to live like him. It was the failure of this scheme that worked his sad end, although we must not devalue the fact that it succeeded for a long, long time--far longer than anyone would have expected. May he rest in peace.