Grizzly Man (2005)
The DVD we saw started with the notice that "this film has been altered from the original version," but unhelpfully declines to elaborate on what the changes actually entail.
The film sounds interesting: bear-loving guy spends all of his summers in the Alaskan wilderness living with and studying the wildlife there, specifically the bears, and eventually is killed and eaten by one.
Werner Herzog, the filmmaker, tells us that he's got about 100 hours of Treadwell's own personal footage (filmed in the last 5 of his 13 summers with the bears). It's unfortunate that so much of what Herzog chose to show us was unremarkable. I wanted more bears -- less attention whores trying to capitalize on the fact that they knew the dead guy. I wanted more wildlife -- less of Herzog alternately romanticizing and scolding Treadwell. I also wanted truthfulness -- which is something I'm not sure I got from Herzog. I can cite one very obvious lie: he says that there are only two instances of Herzog's girlfriend on film and that both make it difficult to see her face. He goes on to show us both scenes and punctuates his point that they're the only ones by showing a third in which she must have been controlling the obviously handheld camera. Near the end of the movie, however, we see a close up of her face as she crouches behind some earth as a bear sniffs about right above her. Um, that's three times she's on film, not two. That's a close-up, not an obscured shot. Is this what was changed from the theatrical release? I don't care what caused the discrepancy -- but it certainly proves that he's not to be trusted.
Treadwell is, obviously, a very insecure man who craved attention in heavy doses. I do admire his dedication to living in the wilderness -- and was very interested to learn that he did so for eight years without filming his exploits. Once you get the backstory, though -- that he changed his name and moved to California to be an actor/surfer boy, told even friends there that he was an Australian orphan (when, actually, his parents were alive and well on the east coast), and only moved north after failing as an actor (coming in "second" for the role of Woody on Cheers, according to his father), it just feels as though he simply found another way to get his 15 minutes.
I'm just shocked that Ebert thinks this is the documentary of the year. Not only is the "star" less a hero than a ham, his story's poorly told.
C-
The film sounds interesting: bear-loving guy spends all of his summers in the Alaskan wilderness living with and studying the wildlife there, specifically the bears, and eventually is killed and eaten by one.
Werner Herzog, the filmmaker, tells us that he's got about 100 hours of Treadwell's own personal footage (filmed in the last 5 of his 13 summers with the bears). It's unfortunate that so much of what Herzog chose to show us was unremarkable. I wanted more bears -- less attention whores trying to capitalize on the fact that they knew the dead guy. I wanted more wildlife -- less of Herzog alternately romanticizing and scolding Treadwell. I also wanted truthfulness -- which is something I'm not sure I got from Herzog. I can cite one very obvious lie: he says that there are only two instances of Herzog's girlfriend on film and that both make it difficult to see her face. He goes on to show us both scenes and punctuates his point that they're the only ones by showing a third in which she must have been controlling the obviously handheld camera. Near the end of the movie, however, we see a close up of her face as she crouches behind some earth as a bear sniffs about right above her. Um, that's three times she's on film, not two. That's a close-up, not an obscured shot. Is this what was changed from the theatrical release? I don't care what caused the discrepancy -- but it certainly proves that he's not to be trusted.
Treadwell is, obviously, a very insecure man who craved attention in heavy doses. I do admire his dedication to living in the wilderness -- and was very interested to learn that he did so for eight years without filming his exploits. Once you get the backstory, though -- that he changed his name and moved to California to be an actor/surfer boy, told even friends there that he was an Australian orphan (when, actually, his parents were alive and well on the east coast), and only moved north after failing as an actor (coming in "second" for the role of Woody on Cheers, according to his father), it just feels as though he simply found another way to get his 15 minutes.
I'm just shocked that Ebert thinks this is the documentary of the year. Not only is the "star" less a hero than a ham, his story's poorly told.
C-
Labels: 2005, Cminus, Documentary, Drama
posted by MeMe | 1:58 PM
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