Grizzly Man

i learned about Grizzly Man from my brother who, in his characteristically trenchant wit, described it as being "about some jackass who thinks he can be at one with the bears and then gets eaten by one."

this statement, although accurate, does go far enough.

Timothy Treadwell was a failed actor, a former alcoholic, a college dropout, and an excellent swimmer. he and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were devoured in 2003 by a bear in Alaska, but the film only approaches these things as a pretext, as a means to interrogating the nature of boundaries between man and nature, person and persona, and – most fundamentally – between man and technology.

there is an especially poignant scene when filmmaker Werner Herzog listens to the recording that captured the death of Treadwell and Huguenard. the lens cap of Treadwell's camera was on, and so all that exists is this strange, non-pictorial representation of his final moments. Herzog listens to the tape and narrates what he hears, while the woman in possession of the tape (an ex-girlfriend of Treadwell) watches on. an unknown third person operates Herzog's camera, initially focusing on Herzog but then shifting to the ex-girlfriend. it was here that the film truly grabbed my attention:

1) the camera captured the sounds of two people dying, but not the image. what is the gap between what the camera hears and what it didn't see?

2) Herzog relates these sounds to the spectator, saying that Treadwell cries out "run away! run away!" but this does not answer the question of whom he was speaking to – Huguenard or the bear. what is the gap between what Herzog hears and says?

3) the woman watching Herzog has never listened to the tape but keeps it in her possession, a morbid hybrid of totem and relic. what is the gap between the object and her thoughts regarding the object?

4) the audience watching all this unfold is locked into the perspective of the camera, adding yet another layer of mediation and distortion. what is the gap between the spectator and the cameraman?

giving rise to:

where does the meaning lie?
who is meant to see these images?
who is meant to hear these sounds?
how many boundaries are beingcrossed?
how aware are we of these transgressions?