Grizzly Man (2005)

8/30/06

I first became aware of the story of Timothy Treadwell from a magazine artical published shortly after his death. Treadwell was a one-time aspiring actor/hippie- type and recovering drug and alcohol addict, who found a sort of salvation among the gizzly bears of southern Alaska. For thirteen summers Treadwell traveld from his home in California to Alaska to live with, and in his mind protect, the gizzly bears living on a federal reserve there. Most of these ventures he did on behalf of an orginization he helped create called Grizzly People, Treadwell would take his video camra with him and document his 'expeditions', then tour public schools back in California educating children about the bears. In 2003 Treadwell and his girlfriend were killed by a grizzly, and in 2005 German filmmaker Werner Herzog assembled selections from Timothy's 100+ hours of video, interspersed them with interviews of those who know him, and created the award winning documentary Grizzly Man. I just can't do justice to Treadwells story, he's a strange character worth spending the films hour and fourty-five minute running time with. Though Bears are the main animal attraction of the film, I preferd the time spent with the foxes.