Werner Herzog’s “Grizzly Man” is an amazingly rich film, and an indefinably important one for those who have a vested interest in artistic showcases of man’s position in his natural world.
That Herzog, a madman in his own right, would be drawn to the life and times of Timothy Treadwell is hardly surprising, but what did catch me off guard watching the film was how much Herzog, even given the controller that he is, allowed the seams of his staging and the melodrama of his subjects to come across on film.
I don’t really want to dig too deep into the film. Treadwell was a madman, but a beautiful man. And Herzog, a cinematic genius, found a fascination in his fellow filmmaker’s exploits. Hearing Herzog’s view of his basis for nature’s common denominator (chaos) bouncing off of his subject’s basis (balance) was an exercise in exemplary cinema where filmic essays are concerned. But what really bothered me was how out of control the director let his obviously theatrical (in personality) interviewees get.