Search - Grizzly Man on DVD

JUSTINE L. from ALPINE, WY
Reviewed on 2/17/2021...

This is a fascinating documentary, but very upsetting also.

1 of 1 member(s) found this review helpful.

Donna W. (stringpluckers) from CEDAR LAKE, IN
Reviewed on 11/8/2011...

I admired Grizzly Man for Werner Herzog's consistently captivating work on an interesting story. It is for the most part, strange in many ways, I'm not certain this is documentary into the conserves of nature and bears, albeit somewhat of an shadowy insight into the mind of Timothy Treadwell - an eccentric person who was mentally wounded long before he ended up in the clutches of a bear's jaws. Many times this film veers away from a realistic sensation and although I'm not for certain it is staged or a product of Herzog's personal weirdness, if you are looking for unadulterated facts about this nature lover's plight, I'm not certain you'll get the real version here. All in all, it was worth a watch, for me, and both wilderness worshipers and psychoanalytic pundits will love this.

2 of 3 member(s) found this review helpful.

Duane S. (superpoet) from FORT WORTH, TX
Reviewed on 7/12/2008...

Wow, this movie really makes you think about wildlife, poaching, bears, living in the wild, etc. It's really good. It is the story of Timothy Treadwell aka Timothy Dexter ( in real life). He was a naturalist and film maker. He championed the bear in all aspects. He lived a portion of his life for 13 summers in bear country in Canada. His last trip he took a girlfriend. They both were killed by a rogue bear very late in the season. He never carried weapons and swore throughout the film that he never would hurt a bear to save his own life. When he was not in bear country filming and living, he traveled around Canada and gave free talks to schoolchildren and audiences.

4 of 5 member(s) found this review helpful.

Nicole B. from SUN PRAIRIE, WI
Reviewed on 11/27/2007...

Nature documentaries don't get any more surreal than this.
This *untrained* happy-go-lucky, animal rights activist (Tim Treadwell) crosses the line between man & nature, legality, and... reality.
People say things about dogs like "Ahhh... he thinks he's people!" - Tim pretty much thought he was a bear. A Care Bear. And he and his girlfriend paid with their lives...

This movie is amazing though, because there is no attempt made by the director to gloss over reality or idealize/idolize Tim's life. There are a lot of very mean things said about him in here. There are a lot of good things too. (It's a lot better portrait of the (idiotic) romantic notion of Alaska as the last frontier than the fictionalized version of "Into the Wild.")

This movie is gruesomely vivid in it's detailing of the death. So this is NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY. That being said, it's an amazing, and haunting movie that will stay with you for a long time. And Tim did get some seriously amazing footage of American Grizzlies. It's a worthy legacy.

6 of 7 member(s) found this review helpful.

This isn't your typical National Geographic...

Andrew Ellington | I'm kind of everywhere | 08/09/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"As a whole, `Grizzly Man' really works. As far as creating a fascinating and engrossing documentary, I have rarely seen any this well crafted. Sadly though, upon reflection I do have some issues.

I happened to see the film alongside the short documentary counterpart, `Diary of the Grizzly Man' and the two together are perfect complements. They create a great film. Separate though, it becomes apparent that `Grizzly Man' is missing some important facets to a great documentary. I kind of had similar issues with Sean Penn's film `Into the Wild'. The film focuses on one aspect of this person (obviously the most influential) but by leaving out the other areas of his personal life we get an almost manipulated idea of who Treadwell was.

I think it's hard with a subject like this. Your obvious inclination is to focus your efforts on the thing that made him so well know, the crazy bear lover side of him. But, without much time (if any really) spent on dissecting what he did when he wasn't with the bears we get an incomplete knowledge of Treadwell. I really wish that `Diary of the Grizzly Man' were a part of this film, because the debated segments and comments made by friends of Treadwell really help elaborate on who he was to them, outside of the bear lover the world knew him as. I also felt that certain segments of `Grizzly Man' that didn't make it into the final cut really would have helped flesh out the motive stirring within Treadwell a little more.

One of the issue commented on in `Diary of a Grizzly Man' was that the film makes poaching seem like a small problem. A scene cut from the film that is shown in `Diary of the Grizzly Man' shows that in the months following Treadwell's death there were six poached bears found. It is a disturbing sight to behold, and it also gives a validity to Treadwell's claims and his mission that I think is lost a bit in the film itself.

That isn't to say that Werner Herzog doesn't `respect' Treadwell and what he stood for. In fact, Herzog's treatment of the controversial subject, I felt, was superb for you could really see the unwavering respect he held for the life Treadwell lived, even if he didn't agree with him 100%. It's just that the films focus at times seems to paint Treadwell a certain way to the general public. While it is easy for a filmmaker and or someone who dwells in a similar world as Treadwell to see past appearances to the meat of who he was, to those on the outside so-to-speak, Treadwell appears crazy. While I wouldn't doubt that he had a few mental issues (a lot of which I feel came from isolation for all those months), I don't think he was crazy. Omitting key moments like the uncovering of the poached bears makes Treadwell's whole purpose seem in vain. I think had that moment been kept, as well as some more in depth discussion about his home life (and by home life I mean life away from the bears) been filmed then the film truly would have breathed a new life into Treadwell.

One thing that I will say about this film, that I absolutely loved, was the contrast between Treadwell and Herzog. Their views are very different, and having someone like Herzog direct this film, for me, was a very smart move. You don't have something who overtly sympathizes with the man's viewpoint, and so you have a film that remains very objective, and one that stirs debate. In fact, when you factor in the sad demise that befell Treadwell, Herzog's sentiments in regard to nature in general seem to ring loud and clear. That said, having two sharply contrasted viewpoints only goes to make Treadwell seem all the more `crazy', despite claims by his friends that he comes off like a rockstar. I don't see a rockstar, I just see the films `star'.

Still, I highly recommend this film. Despite any flaws I can find, it is remarkably engrossing and completely engaging from start to finish, and the footage documented by Treadwell himself (which litters the screen throughout the film) is glorious to behold. It is some of the most beautiful footage I've ever seen taken in the wild."