Treadwell referred to himself as a "kind warrior." In one scene he scolded a grizzly bear for coming too close, and even showed physical agression. He then followed the rebuke with praise by saying, "I love you. I love you."
He was meticulous and yet brash. He repeated takes excessively and constantly fixed his hair, yet succumbed to passionate fits of anger, and even had mismatched buttons at one point. In one shot there is a wild fox sleeping by his side, in another he's screaming profanity about the Park Service.
After I shut my laptop, I sat there and was forced to rethink my attitude towards nature and the environment. Are humans and animals really that different now? Timothy Treadwell spent a large portion of his life immersed in the natural world and he still didn't overcome his anger and his arrogance. Are those negative qualities therefore now inherent in us as humans? Do those qualities fill the void where "wildness" once was? Do other qualities, perhaps beneficial ones, fill that void as well?
Grizzly Man definitely gave me more questions than answers.
That's a really interesting view on how Herzog portrayed Treadwell. I also really like the questions you posed at the end too, they really make you think.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you characterize Treadwell as an individual. "Meticulous" was exactly how I thought of him. Your concluding questions make me think about the values he held on a much larger scale. I think often we, as humans, can often focus on the negative rather than the positive. It's certainly much easier. I would, however, like to argue that Treadwell was genuinely happy despite his demeanor sometimes. I believe he suffered from psychological sickness of sorts and it certainly did not positively contribute to how he felt about the world he was raised in. Great post.
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