Eat the Document (Page 4)

By Stuart Klawans

This article appeared in the August 29, 2005 edition of The Nation.

August 11, 2005

And now, to conclude, a documentary that is a fully realized work of art: Grizzly Man, by Werner Herzog.

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The film's subject, not surprisingly, is Herzog himself, as mirrored in the life and death of a self-invented environmentalist named Timothy Treadwell (1957-2003). For thirteen summers, Treadwell went into the Alaskan wilderness to live among grizzly bears: learning their habits, following their life cycles and (as far as possible) blending in with them. During the off-seasons, he gave free talks about the bears to schoolchildren, managed his own preservation foundation, co-wrote a book about grizzlies and appeared on television talk shows. During his last five summers in Alaska, until the day a bear killed him and a companion, Amie Huguenard, he also videotaped his experiences. The footage he left behind--a hundred hours' worth, much of it extraordinary--provides the core material for Grizzly Man and permits Herzog to speak of Treadwell as a fellow filmmaker.

He was an actor, too. For the most part, he appears in his videotapes as a lean and bubbly fellow with a blond Prince Valiant haircut and a Mr. Rogers manner of speech. He gives cute names to animals and tells them "I love you." But as Herzog pieces together Treadwell's biography, mostly through newly shot interviews, a more driven side of the man emerges. We learn of a history of professional failure, drinking, drug abuse, mythomania and (so far as I can see) deeply conflicted sexuality. By discovering a passion for grizzly bears, Treadwell saved his life--he said so himself. Ultimately, though, he also gave up his life, and Huguenard's, to a fantasy of nature's benevolence.

In Treadwell's tapes, we see an attempt to make a film about wilderness and wildlife. In Herzog's hands, that same footage becomes a dark, complex film about human nature--or, at least, about the nature of two particular humans.

About Stuart Klawans

The Nation's film critic Stuart Klawans is author of the books Film Follies: The Cinema Out of Order (a finalist for the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Awards) and Left in the Dark: Film Reviews and Essays, 1988-2001. His film criticism and reviews for The Nation won the 2007 National Magazine Award. When not on deadline for The Nation, he contributes articles to the New York Times and other publications. more...
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