Q&A with Werner Herzog: The Bear Truth
Timothy Treadwell could not live without his bears—his self-proclaimed (and somewhat delusional) mission to "protect" the grizzlies of Alaska was what enabled him to escape the ravages of drug use and alcoholism. For 13 summers, he camped in dangerous proximity to the bears. He also founded a nonprofit group called Grizzly People, spoke to schoolchildren, and shot 100 hours of extraordinary nature footage. His idyll ended in October 2003: A bear attacked and ate Treadwell and his girlfriend. When noted German filmmaker Werner Herzog read about Treadwell's story, he knew he had found his next project. Grizzly Man, his highly praised documentary, is now out on DVD.
So now you're making bear movies.
Well, I think you are wrong because it's not a bear movie. It's not about bears; it's about human nature.
To be honest, I didn't like Treadwell's nature. He gave bears cute nicknames—Mr. Chocolage, Aunt Melissa. He was self-aggrandizing. He ranted like a madman about the park service, which really does protect bears. But then you show him with wild foxes, and he seems like a different soul—sweet, gentle, genuinely kind.
I searched all his footage, 100 hours of footage, for footage of him and foxes. With foxes, he didn't have an agenda. He doesn't have to be the preacher. He is so wonderful [with the foxes], almost like the most wonderful child. That is very much him as well.
In other words, he was a man of many contradictions.
Of course. He is full of joy, full of exuberance, full of feeling proud about himself and of how women love him. And the next moment he is crying and dejected and completely down, with moments of paranoia: everything in the spectrum of the human soul. That's why I say it's a film of human nature. You will not see a film where you can look to that degree into the human condition.
What has been the reaction to your movie?
I think everyone is kind of relieved that the film has an attitude against the sentimentalization of wild nature, the Disneyification of wild nature.
Did Timothy Treadwell's Grizzly "Save the Bears" group like the movie?
In particular, I was kind of afraid of the directors of Grizzly People. After they saw the film the first time, the lights went up, they all looked at me; there was a long moment of silence. I thought this was going bad. And they burst out in applause, shook my hand, hugged me.
Another documentary set among wild animals, March of the Penguins, has sparked a debate about "intelligent design." Do you believe in intelligent design?
Sorry, I really am not [a believer]. If you take a good look at nature, I think that there is no such thing as some sort of harmony out there, some sort of benign cohabitation of wild creatures. It doesn't exist. It's hostile out there; it's chaos.
But in that chaos, you find beauty?
What a treasure we have. Nothing in our universe could be as good as this planet.
It's hard enough surviving among bears. How did Treadwell get the money to live among people when he wasn't camping in Alaska?
I think a lot of Hollywood, including Leonardo DiCaprio, financed Grizzly People. So [Treadwell] had a knack for how to appeal to the Hollywood crowd. He felt he was one of the Hollywood crowd, he was so grandiose.
Do you think he would have made his own movie if he had lived?
I'm sure he was planning to do that. You can see that in how many times he repeats a statement [when he is filming himself]. He was the centerpiece of all this, the real star. He had the quality of a star. He was also very selective. He sometimes filmed a scene 15 times, erased everything except takes 2, 14, and 15. He didn't want anyone to see a take he erased. I'm surprised that he left moments where he is deeply depressed, very angry, in the deepest abyss of the human soul.
Did he have a death wish?
He makes a statement that his mission would be better understood if he died, and that was probably somewhat true. But not that he had a death wish. I don't see it in any of his film, [which captured] his joy and exuberance in life. -Marc Silver