Grizzly Man
Grizzly Man was an intriguing movie, although I did not see the good he was doing by living with grizzly bears. Timothy Treadwell was not brave in my eyes, I saw him as ignorant. Any person in their right mind would not put their life in danger to live with five hundred pound beasts.
Timothy Treadwell is a man in his middle thirties who went to the Alaskan peninsula every summer to live with the bears. The last few years that he did this ritual, he brought his girlfriend with him. I think this was a very selfish act on his part to put his girlfriend’s life in danger, when she did not want to be out there in the first place, just so he would not be lonely and would have someone to keep him company. He spent thirteen years, or seasons, out with the bears. Timothy followed the grizzly bears around documenting their everyday procedures and habits. Often times he would come within feet of a bear when it did not know he was there. Once while he was filming himself talking into the camera a bear was sneaking up on him until he turned around and yelled at it. He had many “brushes” with danger as he tried to be friends with the bears. On one occasion the bear just got done going to the bathroom and it was walking around a tree and was within 48 inches of Timothy.
The bears would live in one part of the peninsula for the first part of the summer season, and then they would move upstream, to where the fish were trying to make a run to their breading beds, so they could eat before the winter came. On one occasion there was not enough rain to fill the stream enough for the fish to make a run, so Timothy moved the rocks in the stream so the fish could have an easier run, therefore the bears could eat. He often thought he was helping the bears when he was really just tampering with nature and running the risk of taking nature out of equilibrium. This could have a devastating effect on nature if done enough or in a significant way.
A major reason why Timothy Treadwell spent his summers out in the wilderness was to help keep him out of the bottle. He was a recovered alcoholic and he said that being out with the bears helped him. Living with the grizzly bears and protecting them gave him something to live for and motivation to stay sober. He said he thought about taking his life because he thought he did not have anything to live for before he decided to live for saving and helping bears, as Timothy would have explained what he was doing. He was also trying to look good every time he would record himself. His bandana needed to math his shirt and shorts, and he would also comb his hair if he was not going to wear a bandana in the shot.