[pct-l] "Grizzly Man" on TV tonight

[stewjohns at comcast.net (stewjohns@comcast.net)]

Not really! I watched this last night, and was quite dissapointed. I expected to see a documentary about grizzly bears, and instead was assaulted by a documentary of a self aggrandizing, mis-guided, self absorbing, naive young man who pushed the boundaries of human interaction with a very wild and dangerous animal. This was not science from an educational point of view, but a distorted view of what Mr. Tredwell thinks bears are like.  He tries to humanize the bears with cute names and shows repeated footage with him as the main characture interacting with the bears.  This is not so much about the bears as it is about Mr. Tredwell. His footage screams out, "Look at me"  "See what I can do".  Mr Tredwell was obviously a disturbed young man fighting his own demons, but he does so while exploiting the bears.  He repeatedly says he respects the animals, and loves the bears, but his actions say other wise.  When you respect someone or something, you find out what they want, and then give it to them.  The bears want one thing from us humans, and thats to leave them alone.  We are nothing more than a food source.  They don't want to be filmed, they don't want our love, and they especially don't want to be exploited by an amateur the likes of Timothy Treadwell. Mr Tredwell was on a collision course with death the first day he walked into the Grizzles territory assuming he could "Get to know them and understand them"  His death was no surprise... the only surprise is that it took 13 years.  

Mr Treadwell by his own admission was an alcoholic.  He gave up the booze when he took up grizzles.  In my opinion, he was just substituting the bottle for something else.  He was still acting compulsory and demonstrating addictive behavior. His convoluted ideas of love and respect were twisted into the self centered, idealistic, naieve behavior I witnessed while watching this last night. He had a destiny with self destruction.  The only sad part here is that he took two other lives with him, his girlfriends, and the bear that ate him.  Also his many talks over the years has probably influenced many kids into thinking that his way is the way to do good science.  It is not.  I love a good animal documentary as much as any nature lover, but I prefer it to have a high degree of professionalism and good common sense;  Jauque Coustoue and Anthony Perkins style, Not with the reckless style of Timothy Treadwell.

My opinion and commentary.
Doc Holiday
-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Scott Herriott <yetifan@yahoo.com> 

> A most excellent film. Highly recommended. 
> 
> I'm Leonard Maltin. 
> 
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> Squatch 
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> 
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> http://mailman.hack.net/mailman/listinfo/pct-l From yetifan at yahoo.com  Sat Feb  4 12:41:20 2006
From: yetifan at yahoo.com (Scott Herriott)
Date: Sat Feb  4 12:49:40 2006
Subject: [pct-l] "Grizzly Man" on TV tonight
In-Reply-To: <020420061825.9850.43E4F17D0003FF470000267A22058863609C02080106990A9B9C@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <20060204184120.81312.qmail@web54506.mail.yahoo.com>

Doc Holiday wrote:

<Not really! I watched this last night, and was quite
dissapointed. I 
expected to see a documentary about grizzly bears, and
instead was 
assaulted by a documentary of a self aggrandizing,
mis-guided, self 
absorbing, naive young man who pushed the boundaries
of human interaction with a 
very wild and dangerous animal.>


Well, if I guess it was supposed to be exclusively
about grizzly bears they may have called it "Grizzly
Bear" instead of "Grizzly Man".  The film's focus WAS
Treadwell and, as you correctly point out, his "self
aggrandizing, mis-guided" attempt at what he was doing
up in Alaska.  But I also felt it had, as the director
Werner Herzog points out in the film, some
extraordinary footage of grizzlies, probably only
attainable by what Treadwell was doing, however
misguided and ultimately tragic it turned out to be.


Squatch
www.walkpct.com