Grizzly Man

I was intrigued by Herzog's comments about Treadwell the filmmaker.

Frankly, I'm not sure that Treadwell was such a talented filmmaker. Yes he captured some compelling nature moments, but I'd wager that anyone on this forum could do as good or better if we rolled 100+ hours in Alaska.

What was most compelling was Treadwell's erratic, mentally unstable behavior that was captured on video. His delusional rants....his life-threatening actions vis-a-vis some massive bears...his ongoing dance upon the precipice of disaster.

Of course the entire film is colored by the fact he gets munched. If he were still alive, the Treadwell story would be sideshow entertainment. Arguably it was his horrific death that gave his tale meaning.
 
Matt, I agree with you on some points here, but going so far to say that Herzog F'ed up the doc would be a little much. The "obvious" route of building the story around Treadwell's end is, in my opinion, the way any decent filmmaker would have decided to take the story. His death is the dramatic outcome of his dangerous life with the grizzlies. Although we are told about his death throuhout the film, the drama of his increasing disdain for the human world and addiction to the grizzlies builds like a dramatic piece. Unlike Hollywood, this time, there was no happy ending.

I also wonder where you are getting at about Herzog using the raw footage. Did you want him to edit the piece like a Wild Kingdom episode, cutting out all Treadwells rants? If the doc was more about TT than the bears, showing the raw footage gives us the best unbiased view. Of course, Herzog could have made TT look like Marlin Perkins through the magic of editing. That would have been "produced," and a slap in the face to any documentary filmmaker.

If you are interested in Herzog, check out some of my favs by him:

Aguire The Wrath Of God
Fitzcaraldo
My Best Fiend (Klaus Kinski doc)
 
Maybe I just felt annoyed after the doc ended. I think I felt annoyed with the circumstance and I can understand part of what TT was thinking (the same parts we ALL understand... editing process, etc). It's pretty clear that much of that was meant for TT and not a public audience... He was talking to what would be the future him in the editing bay. When people write a diary I don't think they secretly want it to be read to the entire country.

I didn't mean to imply that Herzog "F-ed up" the doc... He did a good job with it and it is haunting... but I felt that the friend was rediculous, and the coroner felt really controlled/contrived. The planned moves... and cam pulling out as the coroner stops mid-sentence. That stuff isn't a coincidence of the moment. Didn't you think the friend (with the palm trees in the background... probably on a beach of LA... actor anyone?) was totally playing to the cam like a B or C actor? That guy's words about TT were spoken as an excercise in personal vanity.

And I agree with everything Sean just said... that was my point... TT made the flick out of his own insanity. The parts that I found to be a little cheesy were the interviews that felt coached/staged/performed... that was the only way I felt disappointed. The rest of the approach, with the serious narration and the two pilots... was decent, but again... it was KNOWING the horrible end that made the whole thing work... and reminding the viewer of that in graphic (verbal) detail is what unified the story around that end. It's a documentary about an insane guy hanging out with grizzly bears. If the parents are any kind of normal (which they appear NOT to be)... then they'd have to watch this and think, "thanks Herzog... you showed the world that our son was a nut who got himself and his girlfriend killed."

Which of course is TRUE... but again... I couldn't help feeling like I was reading somebody's diary. Is that brilliance? Is it also brilliance to describe a bear eating a rib-cage or picking up somebody by the back of the head (by biting him)? I was just saying that given a couple hundred hours of compelling footage (an insane person living with bears who meets that end)... there weren't many holes left for Herzog to spackle over... those two people I mentioned really irked me... plus some other randomly forced drama that only works when you know the outcome.

Still... what can I say? I can't stop thinking about it...
 
Man, we really feel similar about it. I too thought that the interviews, besides Herzog listening to the tape, were a somewhat of distraction, but what wouldn't be compared to Treadwell's footage? Although I liked the pilot interviews, he came across as wierdly unattatched and matter of fact when talking about TT. I totally agree about the diary comment. Maybe what makes it powerful is that it is so personal, and not really fully intended for our eyes.

So, I think we are on the same page. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a brilliant doc. Just a haunting look at another's struggle to leave a legacy in this world. Poetic and tragic.
 
I'll agree about the interviews they were odd at times I thought. Sparing people with all the psycho babble I hardly think the dude was crazy, obviously out of touch, but whose life wouldn’t look perhaps a lil weird when it’s under a microscope. Especially when it’s basically a video diary about himself and bears I mean I doubt if I could produce a 100 hours of footage of me and anything and still look somewhat normal. I guess what I mean is that when people initially see the film/doc they automatically think he is crazy and that there is something wrong w/ him, b/c its more comfortable for us to label him crazy or weird b/c he isn't “normal.” Which certainly does not make him deviant or wrong regardless of his mental health b/c he was well aware of the danger and perhaps misunderstood by some.
 
I think Treadwell definately showed some symptoms of some type of bipolarism or schizophrenia. Everytime he would repeat lines to himself I was reminded of Leo Dicaprio's portrayal of Howard Hughes in Aviator.


PS Sorry if someone else mentioned this I only read the last few posts.
 
bdt09 said:
I'll agree about the interviews they were odd at times I thought. Sparing people with all the psycho babble I hardly think the dude was crazy, obviously out of touch, but whose life wouldn’t look perhaps a lil weird when it’s under a microscope. Especially when it’s basically a video diary about himself and bears I mean I doubt if I could produce a 100 hours of footage of me and anything and still look somewhat normal. I guess what I mean is that when people initially see the film/doc they automatically think he is crazy and that there is something wrong w/ him, b/c its more comfortable for us to label him crazy or weird b/c he isn't “normal.” Which certainly does not make him deviant or wrong regardless of his mental health b/c he was well aware of the danger and perhaps misunderstood by some.
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Treadwell couldn't produce 5 minutes of footage and look "somewhat normal". He wasn't normal. Watch any of his footage and then try to convince me that he did not have issues...serious issues. The man was ill. And like I said before that to me is the biggest tragedy of the movie. Here was a man who desperately needed help and didn't get it. He was convinced he was "working" to protect bears that were already protected on a presereve, convinced everyone in the "real world" was bad, and worse yet convinced himself that he wasn't gay (sorry couldn't resist).

Herzog did an admirable job in my opinion. The interview sections, some anyway, felt like community theatre and out of place, but for the most part I thought the doc was pretty solid. Again, I don't know how anyone can watch the first 5 minutes and not see that this was a disturbed individual. Its a crying shame that his madness resulted in the deaths of 2 bears and his "girlfriend" as well.
 
Ought2bCommitted said:
Watch any of his footage and then try to convince me that he did not have issues...serious issues. The man was ill.
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Yeah, what's really missing is an interview with a psychoanalyst who could help explain Treadwell's mental condition.

It's one thing to be deviant; quite another to prance amongst wild grizzly bears with no safety measures. The word 'delusional' comes to mind. :shocked:
 
Sean. that's exactly what my wife and I said! Like I've said before about this doc, it doesn't take a genius to realize TT was ill...but what exactly was wrong with him? Who knows? It would have been extremely interesting to hear a professional's opinion(s) on the subject.

However, that would have ruined the TT mystique of him actually doing some good out there so I wonder if the idea was ever presented... I mean Herzog had to realize something was more than a little "off" with TT and he even mentions that in over 100 hours of footage never is a poacher seen or any other people for that matter save for the fishing group TT labels as "poachers".

I mean anyone who gets excited about a pile of poop is a little off. I love my wife, but man, the day I stick my hands in a pile of her poop and get all excited about it having been inside of her is the day I go to the looney bin.
 
I'll agree he is off and didn't mean to come off as completely defending the guy that he isn't crazy, thats a good point though they should of made a psychologist sit and watch all 100 hrs so he or she could of gave thier opinion. hmmm Now that I think about it, I wonder why he chose that location to "protect" the bears if such a low number of poaching exsisted.
 
I just saw this over the weekend. Like Sean, the DVD I watched didn't have the clips from David Letterman, so that kind of confused me when I heard about other people talking about the Letterman clips they'd seen in the theater. That aside, I thought it was a great doc. Yeah, the camera was staged for much of Herzog's footage, but that's to be expected from him. Werner has said that he doesn't practice the verite form of documentary; probably because he also makes fictional films. Although I enjoy cinema verite as well, I also like Herzog's approach to staging some footage. If reality TV has taught us anything, it's that there's no such thing as reality when cameras are rolling. Well, not unless the cameras are hidden and all those on tape or film are unaware of the cameras. Otherwise, people always behave differently with a camera around. You may capture real moments when the subjects forget about the camera, but even those moments have been influenced by the camera. Just my opinion on this style of doc making.

As for Sean's comments that any of us could've gotten Treadwell's shots if we'd been in the grizzly maze that long, I sort of agree. However, none of us ar that off balance, so any photography skills we may have are irrelevant. Vilmos Zsigmond can't get Treadwell's footage because he's not nuts enough to go in that grizzly maze.

All in all, I really dug this doc. And staged or not, the scene of Werner listening to the tape and telling Tim's girlfriend to destroy the tape was fascinating and haunting.

Cheers,

Josh
 
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