- Write a brief response to Grizzly Man focusing on how Herzog represents the human/animal boundary by pointing to 1 specific example/scene in the film.
15 thoughts on “Grizzly Man Response”
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Fahmid Rashid
March 17, 2019
“But to me, he was acting like – like he was working with people wearing bear costumes out there, instead of wild animals. Those bears are big and ferocious and they come equipped to kill ya and eat ya.” – Sam Egli
Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man is the tale of a man who attempts to find himself by abandoning everything throughout Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, Timothy Treadwell lightly ‘treads’ on the border between the animalistic and the humane, made evident through his interactions with the bears as well as through how he describes them to the camera (and the viewers). Right from the opening scene of the film, he is seen escribing a sloth of bears as a ‘subadult gang’. At another instance, Treadwell is in front of ‘The Grinch’; he timidly describes the bear to the viewers, and when he is right in front of it he repeatedly says to her ‘I love you’ and then acts aggressive and slightly hostile towards it (because he has to – he cannot engage with the bear diplomatically, and instead has to rely on pure animalistic interactions such as hitting her back).
About 20 minutes in, we see him calmly kneeling down towards a sloth of bears. He is described as “connecting so deeply [to the bears] that [he’s] no longer human”.
Grizzly Man is the story of a man who never received what he wanted from the group he was born into, and decided to look for it elsewhere. Treadwell claimed his actions were motivated purely by empathy for bears, but his footage clearly shows another motivation. He didn’t just want to be a bear, he wants to be the bears’ savior. His connection to bears goes far beyond the level of empathy one would experience for their equals. Equally telling is his contempt for humans. He is disgusted by them, as evidenced by the way he describes their actions. Even when he comes across a cub’s limb, a sign that a mother has murdered her offspring, Treadwell doesn’t loathe the bears as he loathes humans. To me, this scene showed that Treadwell made a choice – he stopped empathizing with his species and chose another. He chose to amend his species’ ways from the outside in, not as a dissenter but as an outsider. Treadwell’s radical rejection of society exemplifies escapism. His form of it was clearly wacky, but this process takes place constantly. People reject their peers, their families, or their home because they saw no steps to ascend to the person they want to be. In their minds, their new group will give them the chance to be something better than what their old life would allow them to be. In human society, Treadwell was a reject. But in his new world, he could be anything his ego desired.
Professor Cassarino
Joe Levitan
Lit Borders
3/17/19
Timothy Treadwell was a pioneer who took an approach to studying wild grizzly bears that costed him his life.
Werner Herzog took the remarkable story of “Grizzly Man” and incorporated it into a heart wrenching documentary. Throughout the film Herzog uses camera footage taken by Treadwell in order to show how the border between human and animals can be challenged. Treadwell believed himself to be a savior and protector of grizzlies in the remote Alaskan wilderness. He had a love for the grizzlies and animals in general that resembled a love between parent and child.
One scene that stood out to me was when Treadwell waded into the water with a bear. He gets extremely close to the beast and was somehow able to stay calm which defied the normal human-animal interaction. Treadwell then reaches out and tried to touch the grizzly, but the bear snapped its head back in an aggressive way and then left the lake. This image showed how although Treadwell took massive steps in integrating himself with these wild animals, he will never be able to be fully cross the border into the realm of wild animals.
This thirty second clip that Herzog decided to include in his documentary clearly solidifies the truth that Timothy Treadwell was trying to defy. The relationship between humans and animals can be challenged but at its roots will never change.
Augie Schultz
Prof. Cassarino
3/17/19
“Expedition 2001 has taken a sad turn, but it is a real turn. And I mourn the death of this gorgeous baby fox.”
Timothy Treadwell rests awkwardly above a mutilated baby fox, consoling himself by documenting his moment of grief. He acknowledges the tragedy that is the baby fox’s death and appears to be disappointed in himself for not having been able to prevent it. He sees himself as the animals’ protector, as this scene in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man accurately portrays the convoluted role Treadwell places himself in. While he does develop a bond with the animals in the Alaskan National Park to a certain capacity, he does not accomplish or fulfill many of the roles he speaks of in his monologues.
He neither protects nor substantially impacts the animals’ lives—he merely feels deeply sympathetic for them when unfortunate circumstances inherent to wildlife occur. The image of Treadwell sitting above the baby fox perfectly represents his attempted role as the animals’ voice and, simultaneously, how the boundary between human and wildlife is so impenetrable that he actually accomplished little to nothing in his time there. He doesn’t save bears’ or foxes’ lives, nor does he come to their rescue when “intruders” throw rocks at a bear to provoke it for a photograph. The scene of Treadwell sitting above an already deceased fox, preaching about how devastating it is to him, perfectly exemplifies how he feels so deeply for the animals while simultaneously isn’t able to make a substantial impact on their lives or welfare.
In Grizzly Man the star of the documentary Timothy Treadwell tries to embrace the lifestyle of a grizzly bear and erase the divide between human and wilderness. In attempting to do so, Treadwell spends 13 summers habituating himself with the bears. Herzog portrays this relationship as one full of compassion, mutuality, and love. In contrast, Herzog all demonstrates the perspective of individuals skeptical of Treadwell’s work, emphasizing how he did not respect the wildness of bears and that his death was a result of his inability to accept this divide. Timothy is portrayed as passionate but also addicted to filming and connecting with these bears.
In a close up of Timothy, he describes how the bears allowed him to stay sober because he new that he needed to be in order to save the bears. Treadwell, a long time addict who had a near fatal overdose, uses the bears as an escape from his desires and constant battle with addiction, but the way in which his life is consumed by the bears, like his new drug. There is a different but equally dangerous element to Treadwell’s work and he often describes how he thrives off the danger, boasting about his ability to survive in such a hostile environment. Ultimately, this thirst for recognition drove Treadwell to his demise. By spending so much time with these animals, they became accustomed to him. We see shots of foxes eating his food, bears nosing up to him. This type of interaction is exactly what National Parks, forests, and reserves around the world detest. It is only a matter of time before the unpredictable nature of a 700 lb grizzly bear and its increased interaction with people lead to catastrophe. The scene interviewing the indigenous Alaskan portrayed how the actions of Treadwell were a disrespect of the relationship between people and bears his people have followed for over 7000 years. Herzog does a great job in demonstrating how Timothy’s relationship with the bears was well intentioned and live-saving for him, but it equally was an infringement on these bears’ world and that his death was a matter of time not fate.
Herzog represents the boundary between humans and animals through the interview with the Alutiiq Museum curator. The curator speaks of the Native’s relations with the land and with animals, touching on bears in particular. He stresses the respectful boundary that Natives hold between themselves and bears. There is a clear separation between humans and animals, whereas for Treadwell did not cultivate this same respect. By conducting an interview with a Native, Herzog juxtaposes the Native connection to the land and animals with Treadwell’s. Herzog breaks down the human and animal boundary further: a boundary between a Native of the lands and a bear, and between one who is a visitor of the lands.
Herzog further questions the protection that Treadwell was intending, ”but he tried to protect the bears, didn’t he?” and focuses on the response of the curator, “I think he did more damage to the bears… when you habituate bears to humans, they think all humans are safe… If I look at it from my culture, Timothy Treadwell crossed a boundary that we have lived with for 4,000 years.” The human animal boundary between Natives and animals is one of respect and of intentionality. The boundary represented between Treadwell and the bears is one of blatant disregard and ignorance for the animals, only favoring and benefiting Treadwell.
The scene opens with an image where claw of a taxidermy bear has been ripped off; the curator informs Herzog that it was by a tourist. The placement of this image in the film shows tourists as animalistic when engaging with a creature that was once wild itself. There is an evident irony in the way that the bear is now removed from its’ habitat viewed in a museum, but torn apart by humans. This continues with Herzog’s representation of Native preservation and care for the animals which illuminates the ongoing disrespect from non-Natives.
“Grizzly Man” Response
William Blastos
3 / 17/ 19
“I have to mutually mutate into a wild animal to handle the life I live out here,” says Timothy Treadwell in a letter from his time spent in Alaska with the grizzly bears. This statement illustrates the deep connection Treadwell shared with these wild animals, and how his journeys for thirteen years allowed him to walk along the border between humanity and wildness. Treadwell in essence embodied the closest a human could come to understanding what it was like to be a wild animal. This understanding is something that only Treadwell can truly know, but through the footage he captured on his trips, a small part of this experience can be seen by the viewer.
Werner Herzog captures the intimate nature of Treadwell’s connection to the grizzlies in every part of the film, but through the inclusion of this quote, Herzog shows that Treadwell’s connection with the bears ran deeper than love. Treadwell so admired and loved these animals that at the expense of his own safety he did almost anything to gain a deeper understanding of these creatures. Treadwell both consciously and unconsciously wanted to become a grizzly bear. He simultaneously saw himself as the protector of the grizzlies and as a member of their community.
For thirteen summers, thirteen years, Treadwell ventured into the Alaskan wilderness for months on end to protect and study the lives of grizzly bears. And through this exploration of such a fierce wild animal he grew to see himself as a bear. This is not to say he shunned humanity, his return to civilization every year is evidence of this, rather through such statements as the quote above, it is clear that he sought to walk the line between being human and being bear. In, Grizzly Man, Herzog explores how Treadwell lived and died in the border between man and bear.
During the scene where Treadwell observes the human group that arrives in what he considers his land (1:18:50), he watches from afar and laments their treatment of his bear friend. His grief is evident in his crying and broken voice as he narrates the scene. Treadwell considers himself a bear, but also as the bear protector. Even more than a mother bear might protect her young, Treadwell thinks of himself as their savior and friend, and maybe even the alpha. In a way, however, the bears are protecting him from the human intruders. The way the scene is shot has Treadwell cowering behind the bear; the bear is taking the hits while Treadwell does nothing, camouflaged and angry in the trees. Furthermore, the way he describes the humans makes it clear that he thinks he is above them, a spiritual or moral better. There is so much contempt in his voice, hate for the animal group he was born into. In an earlier scene, one of the interviewees is asked about Treadwell’s role as the savior of bears and his response shows that Treadwell did more harm than good by habituating bears to the human presence.
Dan Frazo
3/17/2019
Grizzly Man Response
In the film, we see the depiction of Timothy Treadwell as an environmental advocate in his efforts to protect the bears. To himself, he is both a part of the bear community and their messiah, their hope for protection from the outside world. Treadwell’s depiction in the movie, isolating himself from his own humanity to become part of the bear world is put into focus intentionally to outline the role of understanding and community in environmental conservation.
This depiction is highlighted cinematically in many ways within the film. Whenever Treadwell is the focus of the film, for example, he is nearly always within nature. Despite the publicity and celebrity he received, he is only ever shown in the film within the setting of the Alaskan wilderness, his habitat. In addition to this, Herzog only uses Treadwell’s nature films which place him alongside the bears in study. Atypically, Treadwell’s filming almost always appears from a fixed point, with Treadwell himself in the shot as a part of the natural habitat, showing how he bends the border between humans and animals. On the other hand, those who we see interviewed throughout the film are almost always seen within the realm of human creation, such as in buildings or airplanes, their habitats. This cinematic decision draws the border between humans and animals as more rigid and reflects their later expressed views on how to approach conservation. Treadwell, in his natural fluidity, believes that in order to protect our environment, we need to understand the creatures which inhabit it and live alongside them. Then the rest of humanity, as depicted in the movie, believes that environmental harmony is achieved through safe separation and distance between human beings and animals. This disparity between Treadwell and the rest of humanity can be seen when he breaks the federal law which would require him to relocate his camp weekly and also maintain one hundred yards between himself and the bears. It becomes clear to the viewer that Treadwell understands conservation as proximity, and conversely the rest of humanity outlined in the film views it as separation.
While it is obvious to the viewer that the view taken toward Treadwell and his unusual methods is not one of admiration, his evident passion and commitment to the environment could be viewed as desirable. Herzog defines this passion as a result of Treadwell’s transcendence of the human-animal border which appears much more rigid to the rest of humanity. And this border transcendence, although obviously flawed with Treadwell dying, could be seen as an important in environmental advocacy as depicted in the movie.
About midway through the film, Herzog shows a video clip of Treadwell about 10 days before his death. He is sitting on a rock in the middle of a stream, avoiding water while looking into the camera with his back to a grizzly. The grizzly bear looks gaunt, tired, and hungry. Throughout his monologue of sorts, Treadwell turns to the bear to gauge distance and aggression. Treadwell’s attempt at an authoritative tone seems to slide over the bear as it considers him, giving Treadwell space due to lack of familiarity and a sizing up of potential food source.
In this clip, Treadwell’s lack of understanding of animal behavior shines through. While doing his work of documenting grizzlies, he seems to neglect the hunger of the bear as well as its overarching desire for survival. There is a barrier of understanding of Treadwell’s behavior there, as well as a lack of acceptance that Treadwell cannot communicate with the bear in the conversational ways in which he wants to. There is even a literal boundary between Treadwell and the bear, the stream and rocks creating space between the two. Treadwell looks out of place in the stream, especially with the bear in the background, really showcasing the natural boundaries between man and animal.
“Everything about them is perfect,” Timothy Treadwell says.
Herzog narrates: “Perfection belonged to the bears. But once in a while, Treadwell came face to face with the harsh reality of wild nature. This did not fit into his sentimentalized view that everything out there was good, and the universe in balance and in harmony.”
The camera zooms in on a baby bear’s torn off limb, while Herzog explains that “males bears sometimes kill cubs in order to stop the females from lactating and thus have them ready again for fornication.”
Treadwell then sadly touches the baby bear’s hand. The next shot is him with a carcass of a dead fox cub, in near tears.
“Oh, god. I love you,” he says. “I love you, and I…don’t understand. It’s a painful world.”
Returning to the narration, Herzog injects his own opinion. Herzog states he himself believes, that “the common denominator of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility, and murder.”
Treadwell believed that the human world was evil, while the “secret world” of the bears was beautiful, and perfect. He was trying to escape his demons in this bear world, whose bears would somehow cleanse him and make him better as he in turn became their caretaker. But Herzog shows that those demons that Treadwell was trying to escape live in nature as well. In some ways they obviously differ, but the world can be chaotic and senselessly violent wherever one goes. The boundary between human world and animal world is thin. Treadwell couldn’t understand that. He couldn’t understand how such brutality could be in a world that seemed so perfect to him.
One of the only parts left of Treadwell’s body was also an arm, with his watch on it. In the end, Treadwell and the baby bear ended in a similar way, though one was a bear and one was a human. They both lived in a chaotic universe, one killed by his own father and one killed by what he considered to be his “friend,” somebody he loved. Both were killed by an animal following an instinctual need for survival. Both were killed in a world where brutality and unjustness abounds. Nature, unfortunately, can be just as unforgiving as the human world Treadwell was escaping from.
Cecilia Needham
March 17, 2019
Grizzly Man Response
Timmy Treadwell crosses the border between human and animal so that during his expeditions into Grizzly country like The Maze, he is able to survive. He is recounted as writing, “I have to mutate into a wild animal to handle the life out here.” Yet in Grizzly Man, Warner Herzog shows through Treadwell’s friendly relationship with the animals whose home he lives in causes them to draw closer to the human-animal boundary by no choice of their own. Herzog narrates that the two worlds are very separate and distinct, yet when individual beings from said worlds interact in kinship, they become like one another.
In the scene where Treadwell is stroking his pet fox Timmy, he remarks about the incredible bond between “the wild animal and this fairly wild human.” Timmy the fox follows Treadwell around to patrol the land and interacts with him for snacks and in his tent, all obviously unusual behaviors of a truly wild fox. What stood out to me more than the bond was the unnatural tameness of the fox. For the most part, animals in the wild are not comfortable being intimate with other beings not of their species as it is dangerous or not advantageous. Humans, on the other hand, are able to have such interactions as well as live outside the confines of a predator-prey dynamic. So not only has Treadwell crossed the border into a more animal-like state of being, living in the mountains among bears and foxes, but his animal co-inhabitants have done the same, acting more tame and human-like. By existing together, creatures like human Timmy and fox Timmy, as well as human Timmy and his Grizzly bears, have learned each other’s behaviors. Thus, Herzog shows that by crossing the boundary between human to animal, Treadwell inadvertently causes the animals to cross, or at least near, the boundary to being human.
Zachary Maluccio
17 March 2019
Grizzly Man Response
Around ⅓ of the way through the film, two ecologists recount their memory of Treadwell, and the woman refers to the late bear enthusiast’s expeditions as a “religious experience,” as though, by giving up his human side, Treadwell was reaching a pinnacle point of the human condition that civilization lost. It is almost a transcendentalist point of view; the greatest version of ourselves is found within the nature that we swore off thousands of years ago.
Although I certainly understand her point, I feel as though Treadwell did not view himself as one with the bears, but their savior, a group by which he was Christ figure. At 37 minutes into the movie, Treadwell pets a fox, notably named Timmy, and states, “only Timmy is the master of all foxes and all bears.” In one manner, Treadwell sees himself as one with the fox, a creature that wrote off its natural habitat. Together, Timothy and Timmy guard this holy ground like Father and Son. In addition, Treadwell states a only a few minutes later, “If there is a God, he would be very very pleased with me.” It is like he has this need to be praised by these wild animals in order to make up for the lack of esteem he was receiving in the “real” world. In everyday society, Treadwell was a quasi-deranged, impoverished bear lover without much purpose. In the wilderness, Treadwell was himself God, looking down upon the creatures that he loves. In the same scene, Treadwell says, practically in a whisper, “I will die for these animals, I will die for these animals, I will die for these animals.” In the end, of course, Treadwell did die, but I would certainly question whether it was for the betterment of the grizzly bear, who would be shot after growing used to humans and coming too close to a base camp only a few weeks after Treadwell’s demise.
In one sense, I admire Treadwell; his devotion to grizzly bears, which he believed to be a misunderstood creature, is beautiful. And I am certain that through his charitable work outside of the sanctuary, Treadwell did plenty to help the bears he loved. However, I do not believe that his direct involvement with the bears was for the betterment, even if it gave him a purpose outside of his otherwise floundering life.
I know the assignment was to focus on a specific scene, but I got myself sort of wrapped up in this religious narrative, which was more of a recurring theme than a specific instance.
Madison Middleton
March 17, 2019
Grizzly Man Response
Werner Herzog zoomed in on the coroner’s face. It is an uncomfortable shot; The coroner’s eyes widen as he recounts the audio tape of the killing. Before the bear descended on him, Timothy Treadwell managed to turn his video camera on but not to unhinge the cap of its lens. The coroner tells Herzog about Amie Huguenard’s screams and Timothy’s pained moans. Under the mercy of bear jaws and claws, Treadwell managed to plead with Amie: “Get out of here. Run away!”
Treadwell spent fifteen summers becoming a bear. In his mind, he prevailed as their protector, prophet, and friend. In his self-made videos, his physicality turns bestial over time. He wears camouflage (a birthright for the bears), swims with them, even his emotional ramblings become tinged with the impulsivity and passion of an animal. He converses with his subjects in a familial, friendly matter. He never sacrifices a moment to thank them, to tell them that he loves them, as if he talks to his pet dog or children. He admits that the “Bear Maze” of Katmai National Park and Preserve is his only true home, condemning the “human world.” When people visit the park, he shifts into paranoia as if they mean to poach him. In his mind, his humanhood starts to disappear.
In the jaws of his killer, Treadwell’s last human desire was for Amie Huguenard to run away and save herself from the attack. Although Huguenard feared bears — a fact documented in Treadwell’s diary — she did not move. The coroner describes her screams growing louder and louder. Despite her utter desperation, the coroner says that she “stayed with the bear.” She stayed with the creature that both consumed her friend literally and metaphorically. She stayed with Treadwell, a bear in his own right. But whereas Huguenard fought against it, Treadwell surrendered, as he had always done, to the beast. In many of his self interviews, he declares that he would die for the creatures who had inspired his mission. He honors every part of them, even their fecal matter, which he relishes as a representation of their life force and nourishment. He revels that it had once been inside of their body. In his final act of transcendence, the bear literally encompassed him, Treadwell becoming its life force, and the two now one.
In Grizzly Man (2005) Werner Herzog incorporates original footage taped by Timothy Treadwell in order to construct a humanizing portrait of his wilderness lifestyle. However, the juxtaposition of these idyllic images with Herzog’s ominous and judgmental voice-over create a dynamic that necessarily captures Treadwell as animalistic. This occurs in two steps. First, as seen in (1:07:19 – 1:09:54), Herzog incorporates original footage taped by Treadwell to capture the subject’s emotional interaction with his environment, often highlighting eccentricity. In this sequence, Treadwell reacts strongly at the death of animals around him and gives a passionate report on an animal’s feces. In themselves, these images inspire a sentiment of grossness in the audience, because those responses are not commonly seen in normal society. Having established the mood, Herzog narrates over other scenes of Treadwell’s, not only reporting what is being shown in the frame, but awarding value judgements and speaking for Treadwell (as in 1:10:15). This highlights the limitation of creating a document that relies considerably on previously existing footage. Due to editing choices, as well as his narrative interventions, the audience must necessarily understand Treadwell through Herzog’s interpretations. The image that is constructed over the movie is not of a profile, but an exploration of an exotic creature. Indeed, the exploration of Treadwell’s life relies on his portrayal as different and not pertaining to the human realm.