David Edelstein’s review of Werner Herzog’s documentary, Grizzly Man, describes Timothy Treadwell as

…a manic but lovable whack-job who doggedly filmed and obsessively idealized the bears that would ultimately eat him…

The film is made up largely of the bits of the hundreds of hours of video that Treadwell himself shot during his 14 years with the bears. Later, however, Edelstein — probably restraining laughter — calls Treadwell “histrionic” and a “drama-queen” (isn’t that sort of redundant?).

If my tone is insufficiently respectful, it’s only because Grizzly Man itself often plays like a Christopher Guest “mockumentary.”

Not all is to be mocked, however. It seems that all who’ve seen the movie ask the same question: “was Treadwell suicidal?” Edelstein does, then adds “was he bipolar?”

My quoting is probably unfair to Edelstein, who’s six graphs on the movie are a whole lot more balanced and documented than what is represented here. Still, he describes the film as:

an emotional roller-coaster ride. You don’t know whether to celebrate or mock, to laugh or weep.

Finally, Edelstein addresses the audio recording Treadwell mad of his own death:

Herzog shoots himself listening on headphones to the six minutes of screaming… He doesn’t share the tape with us and tells Treadwell’s ex-girlfriend to destroy it. You can respect the way Herzog handles that material and still roll your eyes at his theatrics. That’s very much true of the whole film—and its larger-than-life subject. Too bad he wasn’t larger than bears.

Related: Alaskan Bear Attacks and Grizzly Man on IMDB.

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Within the last wild lands of North America dwells an animal that inspires respect and fear around the world. It is the grizzly bear, a living legend of the wilderness. Grizzlies can sprint thirty five plus miles an hour, smell carrion at nine or more miles, and drag a thousand-pund animal up steep mountains. The grizzly bear is one of a very few animals remaining on earth that can kill a human in physical combat. It can decapitate with a single swipe, or grotesquely disfigure a person in rapid order. Within the last wilderness areas where they dwell, they are the undisputed king of all beasts. I know this all very well. My name is Timothy Treadwell, and I live with the wild grizzly.

So begins Treadwell’s Among Grizzlies, released in 1997 after eight years of living with bears in western Alaska. Six years later, on October 5, 2003, Treadwell was killed in Katmai National Park’s Kaflia Bay — called “The Maze” because of the network of trails made by one of the densest populations of grizzlies in the world. An AP report from October 8th was the first nationwide news of Treadwell’s death, but it doesn’t benefit from the wealth of photos, video, and audio records he left behind. Lynn Rogers’ personal telling of the story includes details from the audio recording made during the bear attack in which he and his friend, Amie Huguenard perished.

Filmmaker Werner Herzog’s, Grizzly Man, a documentary of Treadwell’s work with the grizzlies, including rich use of Treadwell’s own video, opens in LA and NYC on August 12. Herzog appeared in interviews on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday and Fresh Air.

A previous story about Alaskan bear attacks remains among the most popular here. Though Herzog’s movie is sure to represent the rich complexity of the characters, I’m also sure it will touch the morbid interests of a few.

Update: vicarious Grizzly Man movie review.
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My dad forwarded me the following pictures and story:

These pictures are of a guy who works for the US Forest Service in Alaska and his trophy bear. He was out deer hunting last week when a large grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away. The guy unloaded his 7mm Mag Semi-automatic rifle into the bear and it dropped a few feet from him.

The big bear was still alive so he reloaded and shot it several times in the head. The bear was just over one thousand six hundred pounds. It stood 12′ 6“ high at the shoulder,14′ to the top of his head. It’s the largest grizzly bear ever recorded in the world. Of course, the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Commission did not let him keep it as a trophy, but the bear will be stuffed and mounted, and placed on display at the Anchorage airport (to remind tourist’s of the risks involved when in the wild).

Based on the contents of the bears stomach, the Fish and Wildlife Commission established the bear had killed at least two humans in the past 72 hours. The US Forest Service, backtracking from where the bear had died, found a hiker’s 38-caliber pistol emptied. Not far from the pistol was the remains of the hiker . The other body has not been found. Although the hiker fired six shots and managed to hit the grizzly with four shots (they ultimately found four 38 caliber slugs along with twelve 7mm slugs inside the bear’s body) it only wounded the bear and probably angered it.

The bear killed the hiker an estimated two days prior to the bear’s own death by the gun of the Forest Service worker. Think about this – if you are an average size man; You would be level with the bear’s belly button when he stood upright, the bear would look you in the eye when it walked on all fours! To give additional perspective, consider that this particular bear, standing on its hind legs, could walk up to an average single story house and look over the roof, or walk up to a two story house and look in the bedroom windows.

Not wanting to get fooled again, I went to check it out on Snopes.com. Surprisingly, Snopes says the pictures are real, even if the story is heavily embellished:

The basic story here is true although some of the details are wrong, perhaps because two different recent incidents of very large bear killings in Alaska have been conflated into one.

The bear pictured above was killed in November 2001 by a hunter (not a Forest Service employee) who came across it while he was deer-hunting in Alaska.

The hunter told his own story at HuntingNet.com.

The pictures of the November 2001 shooting became confused with a later account of a killing, also in Alaska, of another very large bear.

That story is told here.

Update: Grizzly Man, a new movie by Werner Herzog, is related only in theme. Here’s my vicarious Grizzly Man movie review.

tags: 6000 pound bear, alaska, bear, bear attack, bear attacks, bears, big bear, biggest, biggest bear, grizzly, six thousand pound bear, wilderness, world’s biggest bear, worlds biggest bear