Grizzly Man

I recorded Grizzly Man off the Discovery Channel last time it was on (have I waxed rhapsodic over my love of the DVR recently?), and finally got around to watching it last night.

For the first half hour, I was really on edge every time he got too close to the bears. I felt myself tensing up and nervous about how close he was, and really couldn't believe it when he would go so far as to reach out and touch a bear.

One winter while I was in college, I went snowmobiling with my parents in Yellowstone. At one point, I stopped to take a picture of a bison. It just stood in the snow off the side of the road, while I fiddled with my camera. After I got the picture and drove off again, my stepmother stopped me and practically took my head off (which I deserved). In my eagerness to get a really good, close picture, I was too close, and was blocking its path back to the road. I could easily have been trampled if it had been so inclinded. It's nothing like a bear, but it was still dangerous.

I understand that Treadwell felt a spiritual connection with the bears. When Jeff asked me about it after the first half hour or so, I said, "He thinks he's Dian Fossey." Back in the 70's, there was a TV show called Grizzly Adams. Man, I loved that show. It absolutely captured my city-kid desire to be out of the city. Of course, fueling that fire were our summers spent in Idaho. I loved being in the mountains, where it was so quiet and clean and open. Yep, the classic pastoral fantasy. So I do understand Tim Treadwell's love of that place, and his passion for it.

But he crossed the line. I understand that he talked to schools about the bears, and did a lot to help protect them. But when he mentions studying them, I wondered what exactly he studied. All I saw was his emotional attachment to them. Maybe he did scientific studies, and those clips weren't shown. I'm sure they wouldn't have been very exciting, but I think it would have given more depth to the film.

A curator at a local museum mentioned how Treadwell did more harm than good, in that he "habituated the bears" to humans. There's a reason that the local native culture has a tradition of giving the bears their own space--it's respectful to the bears, as well as safer for the humans. Treadwell didn't seem to anthropomorphize the bears much, but I did get the sense that he looked on them as spiritual kin, in spite of his apparent realization that they could kill him.

I have to admit, I found it a little distracting that Werner Herzog's voice reminded me of Connor MacLeod. "There can be only one!"

In the end, Treadwell was a guy who lived on the edge. Like the people who climb Everest, he knew death was a real possibility. He took the risk, and for a long time, he survived. But he knew there were no guarantees, and in the end he paid that price.