Single hen

[Guest]

did anyone watch that bizarre documentary last night about Tim Treadwell who used to spend 2-3 months with wild brown bears in Alaska every summer to "protect" them from poachers, tourists etc?

 

I've been thinking about it all day. It was a really well made and powerful piece by Werner Herzog and it's affected me deeply.

 

Tim was a very strange individual to say the least but I think he was doing the wrong thing in trying to live with the bears, allbeit for the right reasons. You could see how conditioned to humans he'd made some of the bears which put the bears and other people in danger. That bear that approached that boat load of photographers for instance!

 

I'm glad the footage of his death, even if it was just audio, wasn't played. Herzog was visibly shaking as he listened to it thru the headphones, I can only imagine how horrifying it must have been.

[Old Speckled Hen]

I didn't see it but I did see the film made in 2005.

"Grizzly"

 

Werner Herzog's persistent inquiry into the motivations of human obsession focuses this time on the self-proclaimed kind warrior Timothy Treadwell. A passionate wildlife preservationist and grizzly bear devotee, Treadwell lived unarmed among the grizzlies in a remote section of Alaska for 13 years, and eventually died in a bear attack. He filmed his experiences during his final five years, and Herzog makes use of this footage in a posthumous portrait of a complex, intriguing character. A youthful blond actor turned nature lover, Treadwell is revealed over the course of the film to have been a troubled soul who found solace in the wild, and the existential questions and difficulties he faced in the world were, fascinatingly, worked out on film. Deftly interweaving Treadwell's quiet moments of nature appreciation with meandering introspection and alarmingly hostile rants, Herzog masterfully captures the enigma of the dead man. Herzog has a genuine appreciation of Treadwell's films, as well as sympathy for Treadwell's apparent ill peace with the world. Much of GRIZZLY MAN's complexity comes in our growing awareness of Timothy's apparent naivety, his need to see himself as a saviour, and his sentimentalising of nature. However, we are left with the impression of someone unafraid to follow his heart and go to any extreme even death in search of peace.

 

That's the blurb anyway.

I felt sorry for the guy ... not that he was eaten you understand but because he was such a lonely friendless soul.

[Guest]

I think that's what I saw last night. I felt sorry for him too but I don't think he felt sorry for himself, not when he was with the bears anyway. The phrase 'magnificent obsession' spring to mind when I think of him.

[feemcg]

I thought it was a 'spoof', especially when they spoke to the pathologist chap with the body bag on the table beside him.....and the ex-girlfriend and old friend at the beach just seemed like bad actors......was it just me??

[Guest]

I thought it was a 'spoof', especially when they spoke to the pathologist chap with the body bag on the table beside him.....and the ex-girlfriend and old friend at the beach just seemed like bad actors......was it just me??

 

that pathologist guy was very odd!

[feemcg]

I've just googled it and it seems I'm not the only one that think it's a spoof. Here's one review.......he says exactly what I thought about the watch too........

 

I can't rate this film as long as it's purporting to be a documentary. Now I may be being very mean, but that's got to be a spoof. It's all far too overly sincere about ridiculous stuff for it not to be. I think that' they're relying on no one questionioning it because they allegedly died and so don't want to be mean but I'm prepared to run that risk. The watch that gets given; if is was meant to be being kept in evidence then what they were doing would have been illegal and wouldn't be openly flaunted on film. And the ridiculousness of placing so much emphasis and sentimentality on the fact that it was still running. The coroner merely confirmed my suspicions; this was not a professional man giving his opinions! And to top it all, his soliliquy about how nice it would be to be gay, when sorry, but there's no way that man was not gay or at least there's no way that actor was trying to portray a straight guy. I looked for information on Timothy Treadwell and the best I could (be bothered) getting was wikipedia and that just spouted what we were told in the film. As a spoof it's fantastic; everyone appears to be fooled but as a documentory, it says nothing. There's not even that much footage on bears!

[Guest]

no way!!!!!!!!!!!!! It had me totally fooled! It's nearly April isn't it, maybe they're planning a big reveal on the 1st April!? Blimey Fee, you might be right, it had me TOTALLY taken in

[feemcg]

.......and when they went to the museum and the stuffed bear's paw had been chopped off, and they had taped on some sort of fake claws...

[Guest]

now I feel a proper pillock!

[bluekarin]

http://www.yellowstone-bearman.com/Tim_Treadwell.html

 

I didn't watch the programme myself as I didn't want to listen to a tape of someone dying. Too grim. I've had a quick read of the above article and that was enough for me.

[feemcg]

It's got me 'googling'......

 

Werner Herzog's 'Incident at Loch Ness' which is obviously a spoof and reveals a part of Herzogs sense of humour .........

[Guest]

if this is a hoax, it's a darn clever one!

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Among-Grizzlies-Timothy-Treadwell/dp/0345426053/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238017934&sr=8-1

[Guest]

this is interesting...

 

http://wweek.com/editorial/3140/6609/

[feemcg]

The whole thing is so bizarre.....was he just a failing actor that hatched a plan that went very wrong? Is it just Herzog's warped 'take' on things.....the actors playing the ex-girlfriend etc. (I didn't even believe that was his parents, it was all so staged).

[Guest]

well, the first thing i said in this thread was "did anyone watch that bizarre documentary..." and at least i know that bit is true

[chelsea]

I taped it.

[Guest]

when are you going to watch it?

[Falkor]

I taped it too, not sure i will be watching it now after reading all this.

[Guest]

you should! It was intriguing!

[Charlottechicken]

I read about this chap when he died a few years ago, it was in the papers and he appeared to be a solitary soul, so that part is true. I thought he had been killed with his girlfriend though so I must have misunderstood that bit

 

I haven't seen the documentary so can't comment on that, but it sounds intriguing now.

[chelsea]

when are you going to watch it?

 

probably at the weekend when OH has finished working nights