Madness Of A Man

Madness of a Man

Grizzly Man is a documentary film featuring a self-proclaimed naturalist, Timothy Treadwell, who went into Alaska to live with grizzly bears. From the documentary we understand that Timothy had earlier in his life, got involved with a problem of substance abuse. After proper help, he comes out clean with a new found interest in Alaskan grizzly bears.

After rehab, Timothy had developed this insanely romantic idea that bears and humans can coexist peacefully in the same space. His sole purpose in life had become for him to prove his theory. So, he took off into the Alaskan wilderness with rations and video cameras. He would document himself living among the bears, happily with them rather, a make it into a film for the world to see. He stayed there for months at once and would go back to civilization for stocking up rations and camera batteries for his next stay in the deadly forests of Alaska.

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Timothy’s recorded footages are astonishing and even mesmerizing at times. He had taken amazing shots of bears living their lives in their natural habitat – hunting, mating, fighting. He also recorded himself talking about his experiences, philosophy on bears and ranting about ‘authorities’ who considered bears to be dangerous and fatal during their encounters with humans. He is seen ranting at sign boards placed by the forest rangers about maintaining a safe 100 yards distance from any bear. In his recordings, he is seen deliberately going against these safety precautions. But the most mind-blowing aspect about these videos are that how physically close he got to these bears. He had given cute names to the bears, like Sgt. Brown and Mr. Chocolate. He manages to get very near that he can actually pet the bears and is even seen swimming with one. There are amazing footages of two male bears fighting over a female and the proximity of the camera to the bear fight is quite evident from the video. He even befriends a fox. Timothy had recorded more than 100 hours of footage of him living alongside bears and showing how lovely grizzly bears are.

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One summer, he decides to bring along his girlfriend to Alaska. Maybe to introduce the bears to her. He shows to her how the bears are friendly creatures and that no human should be afraid of these creatures. The two go on living together as happy couple living among bears, maddened with love. But what his girlfriend would have thought would be the best trip of her life, soon turned out to be not so happy as she would have wanted. This woman is a person with absolute bad luck. Timothy and his girlfriend get mauled and eaten by a bear in Alaska. It is safe to say that Timothy failed to prove his theory. Hence, bears are dangerous. In the documentary, we do not see the visuals of the bear attack. The screen goes blank, but the audio continues. The terrifying sounds of the event manage to convey the brutality. The sound of bear growling and the people screaming in agony as the beast’s sharp claws rip through their flesh, is terrifying enough to compensate the black screen. The filmmaker had the tapes destroyed, out of respect for the dead and also, they happened to be extremely disturbing.

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Now you may wonder, if Timothy died who made the film. The documentary was made by German filmmaker, Werner Herzog, who managed to get his hands on the story and videotapes. He interviewed many people including Timothy’s friends and parents, but none of his girlfriend’s family. They had refused to speak about their daughter’s death. But this maybe the most fascinating aspect of the documentary - the man who made the film didn't shoot it (apart from the interviews).

^{(Still from the film)}

Nature is beautiful of course, but beauty can't be tamed.
And is Timothy’s story one of love and glory, or is it just a tragic comedy?