Grizzly Man

The film Grizzly Man tells the story of Timothy Treadwell's thirteen years living among the grizzly bears.  From the clips I saw of Timothy, I could tell that he loved the bears and felt at home with them. He lasked to the grizzlies as if they were other humans and he acted like they could do him no harm. Werner Herzog, the writer and director of the film, seemed to have a different image of Timothy. The clips that Werner chose to show portrayed Timothy as a crazy man. One clip showed Timothy in his tent yelling at the Gods to bring rain. Timothy even yells at what he calls the "Hindu floaty thing." Werner also shared his opinion that the bears should be left alone because they are wild animals and have no connection with humans. The link below leads to a clip of the documentary that shows the intensity of Timothy's crazy side.

Timothy calling for rain

The book Documentary Film a Very Short Introduction said that most documentaries, even though based on fact, are somewhat altered to give the audience the perspective the narrator wanted them to have. In the case of Grizzly Man, Werner had years of film, yet he was very selective in what was shown. He shared clips of Timothy that portrayed him as childish and more specifically that he was bad with women.

On the journey on which Timothy was killed, his girlfriend had come along at his side. At one point in the film I got the impression that Werner thought Timothy had been killed because he was stupid enough to bring another human with him. This may have meant that Werner believed that Timothy was becoming to confident and careless. Timothy was very confident with the bears and other animals, but in one of his film clips he said that he was not at all confident with women. This may have been what brought him down in the end. Having a woman with him lowered his confidence and shifted the balance that he had with the bears just enough that it was too much.