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Werner Herzog has made movies in the past about obsessive people doing crazy things. So it is understandable that he took an interest in Tim Treadwell, who took the crazy risk of living close to grizzly bears in their Alaska wilderness for 13 summers. And finally ended up being eaten by a bear. The man had 100 hours of video he'd taken and it is a truly amazing portrait of a person with obviously deep problems along with a portrait of this northern wilderness and these enormous animals. He found fame in civilization for living with the bears, but that's not why he did it. In some sense, he felt like he was living in an unspoiled paradise when he was alone and close to these dangerous predators. Was he suicidal? He talked a lot about dying for the bears. There are no real answers. Fascinating and compelling.
Follow Ups:
Must be seen on the big screen to appreciate. Herzog seems to be continuing his dialogue/argument with Klaus Kinski and found his ultimate protagonist in Treadwell.
I saw this movie today (Saturday). I too enjoyed it.I found it puzzling that there was not more of Treadwell's footage featured in the movie. The movie lasted 1 hour 43 minutes, and Treadwell was reported to have shot over 100 hours of video, from his last five summers. I thought the movie would include more footage--what little I did see was fascinating.
Secondly, if the footage shown is representative of the whole, it's a shame that Treadwell didn't do more footage of just the bears. So many of the shots had him in the foreground, with the bears featured in the background. But then of course, Treadwell wasn't your typical nature photographer. He had an agenda in mind.
I thought some of the best footage wasn't of bears--it was of the foxes.
townsend
There is probably a huge amount of bear footage in that hundred hours, almost certainly the kind of footage that nobody else has ever gotten, who else would have had this kind of access? This would make a good movie topic on its own. In this case, it is pretty obvious that Herzog is interested in the human story and in the guy's mental state when he's out in the wilderness. I thought the foxes were really cute and it was nice to see the close bond that he had achieved with these animals. This was apparently the same bond that he thought he could establish with the bears, but as you saw, when he made that crazy attempt to pet a bear, it was not a realistic goal.I actually was glad that Herzog had included some professional footage, long shots of the environment and the glacier, this established the sense of place and the isolation and it was beautiful landscape photography in its own right.
I just read Ebert's review of this today, I'm very interested in seeing it but it will never come around to a theatre in my neck of the woods. I found it tragic that he not only cost himself his life, but the life of his girlfriend as well, and that the fatal attack was captured on his video camera with the lens cap still on, with a complete audio account of the ordeal.I don't understand Treadwell's claim that he was trying to save the lives of these bears that were living in Alaska's Katmai National Park, when the publicity he obviously craved and brought to himself, would bring the bears in close proximity to humans. It does however, focus on Herzog's continuing fascination with common character of the universe, that in his mind, is 'not harmony, but hostility, chaos and murder'.
"I will protect these bears with my last breath," Treadwell says. After he and Amie become the first and only people to be killed by bears in the park, the bear that is guilty is shot dead.
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