I have watched this film with my Psychology major girlfriend four times. She claims Treadwell was a man with a deeply repressed sense of his own self, that he could not accept the reality of what he was, so that knocked the freight train of reality off its tracks. "If he isn't really who he is, then bears aren't really what they are." she says. "Think about it, a really effeminate man looking desperately to be loved by 'bears'"
I don't really know about psychology, but in the film Treadwell often rambles on and on in the middle of the wilderness, surrounded by Grizzlies, about how he's "so not gay" and how much he loves "human women." A little too much protest?
I Knew early on in the film Treadwell was a man who was going to die by Nature. It seemed as if he was completely out of touch with reality at times. His "Nature" video recordings included his constant efforts to cover up his receding hairline.
He named ferocious 1000 pound wild animals "Mr. Chocolate" and "Freckles" and "Tabitha" and "Downy" and actually tried to act like them.
He chased grizzlies around yelling "I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!...""I'm not mad!" (Like a grizzly could give a dang.)
He claimed poachers were rampant, and though I don't doubt they are, he never provided any evidence of it on hundreds of hours of film. Though he did take the time and trouble to capture film of himself asking "How's the hair look?"
He claimed (as he squatted in a National Park) that he was "the ONLY protection" the bears had without ever describing exactly the protection he was (exclusively) providing.
He railed violently with unrestrained vitriol against the very park service that gave him maps, warnings, water, weather reports, checked on his safety and allowed him to squat when and where he did.
It was all about the bears he claimed, even as he yelled "Timothy Conquered!" as he stared directly into the camera and almost continually wiped the hair away from his eyes in an effeminate way. "But alas! Timothy is not gay!"
So concerned about Nature was he that he chased a fox that stole his hat for hundreds of yards yelling "That hat is so important for this trip!" and "If I don't get that hat I'm dead!" He conditioned foxes to the presence of humans to such an extent that they lost their natural fear of Man and began stealing his fashion accessories... This serves nature how?
He was someone who cried about the natural death of a bear cub subsequently eaten by other bears. Yet he made no mention of the tons of Salmon eaten by the bears every year, or the deaths of any of the other animals that occur in the wild
He was not a naturist, not an ecologist, not a scientist. He slept in a tent surrounded by grizzlies as a grown man, an adult with a teddy bear. Let that sink in.
He was someone who never understood that nature is neither for nor against anything, no matter how valiant or well meaning that 'thing' is. Nature just IS. Treadwell couldn't contemplate that life feeds on life. Every living thing is a potential food source for another living thing.
If you watch this film and ignore him, it's a beautifully shot film about nature. If you watch it and look at him, it's a film about a deeply troubled man completely out of touch with reality who thought he could bend nature to his own naive, immature, ignorant ideal who eventually gets eaten by bears, the sound of which is recorded by a camera with its lens cap still on Sad really, here's a man so vain he recorded every tiny mediocre thing he did in the wilderness, who claimed not to care if he gets eaten by bears ("Its how I want to go") and after years of tempting fate, when it happens the lens cap is still on Ouch.
Werner Herzog's film is so unassuming, so apolitical, and so un-judgmental, that we are left to draw our own conclusions.
Werner Herzog handles the film in an even-handed professional way, and to his credit does not include any of the sounds of Treadwell's (or his Girlfriend's) death. If we find Treadwell a psychotic victim of his own deluded behavior, we don't want to hear it. If we think him a hero, we don't need to hear it
I don't really know about psychology, but in the film Treadwell often rambles on and on in the middle of the wilderness, surrounded by Grizzlies, about how he's "so not gay" and how much he loves "human women." A little too much protest?
I Knew early on in the film Treadwell was a man who was going to die by Nature. It seemed as if he was completely out of touch with reality at times. His "Nature" video recordings included his constant efforts to cover up his receding hairline.
He named ferocious 1000 pound wild animals "Mr. Chocolate" and "Freckles" and "Tabitha" and "Downy" and actually tried to act like them.
He chased grizzlies around yelling "I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!...""I'm not mad!" (Like a grizzly could give a dang.)
He claimed poachers were rampant, and though I don't doubt they are, he never provided any evidence of it on hundreds of hours of film. Though he did take the time and trouble to capture film of himself asking "How's the hair look?"
He claimed (as he squatted in a National Park) that he was "the ONLY protection" the bears had without ever describing exactly the protection he was (exclusively) providing.
He railed violently with unrestrained vitriol against the very park service that gave him maps, warnings, water, weather reports, checked on his safety and allowed him to squat when and where he did.
It was all about the bears he claimed, even as he yelled "Timothy Conquered!" as he stared directly into the camera and almost continually wiped the hair away from his eyes in an effeminate way. "But alas! Timothy is not gay!"
So concerned about Nature was he that he chased a fox that stole his hat for hundreds of yards yelling "That hat is so important for this trip!" and "If I don't get that hat I'm dead!" He conditioned foxes to the presence of humans to such an extent that they lost their natural fear of Man and began stealing his fashion accessories... This serves nature how?
He was someone who cried about the natural death of a bear cub subsequently eaten by other bears. Yet he made no mention of the tons of Salmon eaten by the bears every year, or the deaths of any of the other animals that occur in the wild
He was not a naturist, not an ecologist, not a scientist. He slept in a tent surrounded by grizzlies as a grown man, an adult with a teddy bear. Let that sink in.
He was someone who never understood that nature is neither for nor against anything, no matter how valiant or well meaning that 'thing' is. Nature just IS. Treadwell couldn't contemplate that life feeds on life. Every living thing is a potential food source for another living thing.
If you watch this film and ignore him, it's a beautifully shot film about nature. If you watch it and look at him, it's a film about a deeply troubled man completely out of touch with reality who thought he could bend nature to his own naive, immature, ignorant ideal who eventually gets eaten by bears, the sound of which is recorded by a camera with its lens cap still on Sad really, here's a man so vain he recorded every tiny mediocre thing he did in the wilderness, who claimed not to care if he gets eaten by bears ("Its how I want to go") and after years of tempting fate, when it happens the lens cap is still on Ouch.
Werner Herzog's film is so unassuming, so apolitical, and so un-judgmental, that we are left to draw our own conclusions.
Werner Herzog handles the film in an even-handed professional way, and to his credit does not include any of the sounds of Treadwell's (or his Girlfriend's) death. If we find Treadwell a psychotic victim of his own deluded behavior, we don't want to hear it. If we think him a hero, we don't need to hear it