It became apparent from the first scene of "Grizzly Man" that I was watching raw film footage of a mentally ill man. Given that the bulk of the film consists of Timothy Treadwell talking into a camera, for the bulk of the film you, the audience member, seek entertainment or enlightenment from a raw encounter with a madman. Tourists used to visit asylums like Bedlam. As I watched this disturbing film, I asked myself, am I no better than those creepy tourists at Bedlam? "Grizzly Man" also rapidly became amazingly boring. I say "amazingly" because you wouldn't think that a film depicting such a naked encounter - man against nature, or, properly, nature against man - would bore. But mentally ill people often are quite boring, and Treadwell, so lost inside his own sad, limited, dead-end mind, bored me.
I had to do a forced march through the boredom. And, I came to appreciate this movie as something it isn't marketed as at all, but definitely is. More on that, below.
Timothy Treadwell was a boyish, blond actor who spent thirteen summers doing primitive camping among what is sometimes labeled earth's largest land carnivore: Kodiak Island grizzly bears. (Polar bears are also sometimes labeled earth's largest land carnivore; let's let the bears duke it out for the title among themselves.) Treadwell and his willowy blonde companion, Amie Huguenard (you couldn't make these names up), were killed and devoured by a grizzly bear; the sounds of that attack were recorded by Treadwell's camera (the lens cap was left on . . . one can't help but think of the sad, sick jokes this might inspire.) I knew all that going in, from a lengthy "Vanity Fair" expose; I thought, what can I get from this movie? Werner Herzog adds minimal commentary. For the most part, you are watching film footage shot by Treadwell himself, of Treadwell himself. There are a few short scenes of the bush pilot who flew Treadwell in and out of his last campsite, the coroner who examined "four garbage bags full of human remains" pulled from the intestines of the killer grizzly, a Native American grizzly museum curator, Treadwell's suburban and normal parents, his flakey girlfriend Jewel Palovak, a male friend from California. No one advances any grand, overarching theory. Treadwell pere does indicate that losing the role of the bartender on "Cheers," that went to Woody Harrelson, drove his son into a downward spiral.
Given the minimal commentary, viewers will inevitably interpret Treadwell according to their own agendas. Rush-Limbaugh, exploit-the-earth types will denounce Treadwell as an "environmentalist wacko." This is wrong, of course; Treadwell has as much to do with true environmentalism as Mohammed Atta has to do with safe aircraft piloting.
Treadwell was not an environmentalist. He was not a symbol of the frontier. He was not a man obsessed by love. What Treadwell was, was a narcissist. Did Herzog miss this? I don't know if Herzog uses the word "narcissist" once. But what made this movie ultimately worth watching, for me, was its - perhaps inadvertent - presentation of a classic case study of narcissism.
The word "narcissism" gets tossed around a lot, often in ways that obscure its true meaning. Narcissists are not people who love themselves too much; in fact, true narcissists don't love themselves at all.
Narcissists detest themselves, and avoid, at all costs, any encounter with their true selves. Narcissists seek artificial, choreographed encounters, which they script and control, in which they can be seen as the superior beings that they want to be understood to be.
Unlike Treadwell, most narcissists don't create their dramas by interacting with wild animals; most narcissists create their dramas by interacting with people whom they can fool, manipulate, and control. For this reason, narcissists often associate with people they perceive as being less intelligent than they are, or weaker in some sense. Narcissists often seek out children, the ill, or the poor, whom they cast as characters in their productions.
In any encounter, though, the narcissist is not running toward intimacy, either with the self or the other; the narcissist is running away from contact with the self and the other at top speed.
I can't think of any more perfect encapsulation for narcissism than the image most common in "Grizzly Man." Treadwell sets up his camera on a tripod, and then stands in front of the camera, filming himself, with grizzlies in the background.
Treadwell goes on and on, repetitively, about what a great man he is, saying so explicitly. "I am a great man. I am doing great work. No one loves these grizzlies but I. No one is protecting these grizzlies but I. God is very happy with me" - he really says things like this. And the truly telling part of this triangle charade is this - there is nobody there. There is no audience. Treadwell filmed himself without any other people around. There is no grizzly. Treadwell did not understand these animals at all. He attributed feelings to them that they do not feel. And there is no Treadwell. This is a man who spent his last breath resisting any real encounter with himself.
There is a scene in which the real Tim Treadwell appears. He releases a torrent of violent verbal abuse against the real protectors of the grizzlies, the parks department. If you want to see the true scabrous soul of a narcissist, catch that scene.
I had to do a forced march through the boredom. And, I came to appreciate this movie as something it isn't marketed as at all, but definitely is. More on that, below.
Timothy Treadwell was a boyish, blond actor who spent thirteen summers doing primitive camping among what is sometimes labeled earth's largest land carnivore: Kodiak Island grizzly bears. (Polar bears are also sometimes labeled earth's largest land carnivore; let's let the bears duke it out for the title among themselves.) Treadwell and his willowy blonde companion, Amie Huguenard (you couldn't make these names up), were killed and devoured by a grizzly bear; the sounds of that attack were recorded by Treadwell's camera (the lens cap was left on . . . one can't help but think of the sad, sick jokes this might inspire.) I knew all that going in, from a lengthy "Vanity Fair" expose; I thought, what can I get from this movie? Werner Herzog adds minimal commentary. For the most part, you are watching film footage shot by Treadwell himself, of Treadwell himself. There are a few short scenes of the bush pilot who flew Treadwell in and out of his last campsite, the coroner who examined "four garbage bags full of human remains" pulled from the intestines of the killer grizzly, a Native American grizzly museum curator, Treadwell's suburban and normal parents, his flakey girlfriend Jewel Palovak, a male friend from California. No one advances any grand, overarching theory. Treadwell pere does indicate that losing the role of the bartender on "Cheers," that went to Woody Harrelson, drove his son into a downward spiral.
Given the minimal commentary, viewers will inevitably interpret Treadwell according to their own agendas. Rush-Limbaugh, exploit-the-earth types will denounce Treadwell as an "environmentalist wacko." This is wrong, of course; Treadwell has as much to do with true environmentalism as Mohammed Atta has to do with safe aircraft piloting.
Treadwell was not an environmentalist. He was not a symbol of the frontier. He was not a man obsessed by love. What Treadwell was, was a narcissist. Did Herzog miss this? I don't know if Herzog uses the word "narcissist" once. But what made this movie ultimately worth watching, for me, was its - perhaps inadvertent - presentation of a classic case study of narcissism.
The word "narcissism" gets tossed around a lot, often in ways that obscure its true meaning. Narcissists are not people who love themselves too much; in fact, true narcissists don't love themselves at all.
Narcissists detest themselves, and avoid, at all costs, any encounter with their true selves. Narcissists seek artificial, choreographed encounters, which they script and control, in which they can be seen as the superior beings that they want to be understood to be.
Unlike Treadwell, most narcissists don't create their dramas by interacting with wild animals; most narcissists create their dramas by interacting with people whom they can fool, manipulate, and control. For this reason, narcissists often associate with people they perceive as being less intelligent than they are, or weaker in some sense. Narcissists often seek out children, the ill, or the poor, whom they cast as characters in their productions.
In any encounter, though, the narcissist is not running toward intimacy, either with the self or the other; the narcissist is running away from contact with the self and the other at top speed.
I can't think of any more perfect encapsulation for narcissism than the image most common in "Grizzly Man." Treadwell sets up his camera on a tripod, and then stands in front of the camera, filming himself, with grizzlies in the background.
Treadwell goes on and on, repetitively, about what a great man he is, saying so explicitly. "I am a great man. I am doing great work. No one loves these grizzlies but I. No one is protecting these grizzlies but I. God is very happy with me" - he really says things like this. And the truly telling part of this triangle charade is this - there is nobody there. There is no audience. Treadwell filmed himself without any other people around. There is no grizzly. Treadwell did not understand these animals at all. He attributed feelings to them that they do not feel. And there is no Treadwell. This is a man who spent his last breath resisting any real encounter with himself.
There is a scene in which the real Tim Treadwell appears. He releases a torrent of violent verbal abuse against the real protectors of the grizzlies, the parks department. If you want to see the true scabrous soul of a narcissist, catch that scene.