Grizzly Man: Today's Allegory

I had occasion, this weekend, to rent the DVD of the movie Grizzly Man.

This was a documentary produced by German director Werner Herzog in 2005, a movie that won the 2006 Chicago Film Critics Association award for best documentary, along with best documentary awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics Circle, Online Film Critics Society, San Francisco Film Critics Circle, 2005 Sundance Film Festival awards for best director, and Toronto Film Critics Association for best documentary.

I'm a bit behind the times. I just now rented the DVD from my local store. And at the conclusion I was astounded, dumbfounded, impressed and yet, satisfied. It was as it should have been. It's simply the way the world works.

It was unfortunate that he was killed; it was sadder still that he brought another human (37-year-old girlfriend Amie Huguenard) into the mix and she was killed as well -- evidence indicating that, though she was afraid of the bears, she stayed behind during the attack to do what she could -- despite Treadwell shouting that she should run -- and was torn apart for her efforts.

At the DVD's conclusion I thought: this is a most appropriate political allegory for our times. I wonder how many people can see it or even interpret this meaning? Allow me to define the situation and I'm certain the clouds will part for you, if they haven't already.

Timothy Treadwell was the consummate actor, showman, liar, provocateur, alcoholic, drug addict, and an excellent representative of my generation -- the Baby Boomers. Life was All About Him. Just ask him. As his parents said in the film: when he failed to get the bartender's part on Cheers that Woody Harrelson acquired, Timothy's life went downhill. And oh: Treadwell wasn't his real name either.

Somehow, somewhere he made the transition to self-styled naturalist, videographer and protector of an environment that many said, essentially, needed no protection because -- are you sitting down? -- it was already protected.

"Treadwell" saw himself as a modern day eco-warrior. This is evident in his numerous setup monologues at tripod's end. Essentially he brought two digital videocams and a tripod into the environment of Alaska's Katmai National Park -- an area that has the world's highest concentration of brown bears and Grizzlies in the world. He managed to do so for 13 years until he met the right -- or the wrong -- bear at the wrong time, on October 5th, 2003.

As Roger Ebert said in his review of the film:

"My life is on the precipice of death," Treadwell tells the camera. Yet he sentimentalizes the bears, and is moved to ecstasy by a large steaming pile of "Wendy's poop," which is still warm, he exults, and was "inside of her" just minutes earlier. He names all the bears, and provides a play-by-play commentary as two of the big males fight for the right to court "Satin."

A bear analyst, John Rogers, observed on the Katmai National Park website:

It is well known that Timothy Treadwell was an aspiring actor who worked as a waiter and bartender with problems of drug addiction and alcoholism in California. However, during the summer of 1989, he underwent a transformation so sudden and remarkable that it allowed him to survive thirteen summers of camping with brown bears before being killed and consumed by them. During this time, the world got to know Treadwell as the bear-man, the educator of children about bears, the author and film-maker, the actor and con-artist . . .

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This is not to say that Treadwell did not find or engrave some very anthropomorphized images of Alaska into video. Hell, I have a Sony VX-2000 myself -- a very nice camera -- but I never thought to push the envelope as he did.

Clearly my own personal favorite scenes were not with the bears; they were with the foxes that shadowed many of his movements in the Katmai wilderness. And yet these animals were cognizant of their place in the Great Scheme of it all. They were playful, yes; but they inherently knew just where they could go and where and when.

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As Treadwell did not.

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An Inuit native proffered an insightful comment when he said, in essence: we respect the bears and they respect us, at a distance. Treadwell did not respect the bears and paid the ultimate price.

Treadwell and Huguenard died in this fashion: the attack came with little warning. Somehow, someone managed to activate the digital video camera but the lens cap was still present; the camera recorded a black screen but all the audio. The attack ran for some six minutes. Werner Herzog listened to the audio and recommended to the final holder of the video, former girlfriend

Wikipedia notes:

In the end, it was a single surly bear that did him in at a point later in the year than Treadwell was traditionally still living in the park. The bear that killed Treadwell and his girlfriend was not one of the bears Treadwell usually encountered. This too seems to have been confirmed by the manner of his demise. Rangers had warned Treadwell before his death that they did not want to have to harm bears to come to his rescue. In the end, two bears were killed in the effort to retrieve his remains and those of his companion. A video camera, with the lens cap in place, was recovered at the site. The video camera had been turned on at some point during the attack, presumably by Huguenard, but the camera only recorded six minutes of audio before running out of tape. Troopers who were at the scene describe the audio as chilling. There are no plans to ever make the recording public.

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I really, really hope I don't have to do what I've nominally called the "logical extension" in terms of understanding how this situation plays out now.

But if explain it I must. . .

A finer allegory couldn't exist.