Grizzly Man Essay

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Aaron Jackson Prof. P. Burgey English 1101-33Gai 7 November 2011 Herzog’s View Timothy Treadwell was a complex man with a love for nature and grizzly bears. During the course of his life, Treadwell spent thirteen summers studying grizzly bears in the Alaskan peninsula. For the last five of these summers he recorded footage of his stay and interaction with the bears. The purpose of his studies was to draw attention to the grizzly bears, with the hopes that this attention would stop the poaching of bears. While Treadwell gained some fame for his work, the public's real fascination was with the man behind the work. This fascination led Werner Herzog to create a compelling documentary titled Grizzly Man. Werner Herzog attempts to pull apart the mystery surrounding Treadwell's life to reveal the man Timothy Treadwell was in his documentary Grizzly Man. Laced throughout Herzog's documentary are video clips made by Treadwell himself. These video clips are an important part of Herzog's documentary because they allow the viewer to see Treadwell as he saw himself, and allow the viewer to create their own opinions of Treadwell. However, it is hard to differentiate between what is purely acting and what is Timothy Treadwell's true nature just by considering the films Treadwell created. The interviews conducted by Werner Herzog, as well as the comments he makes throughout the documentary show two different, and sometimes conflicting points of view when it comes to the life and identity of Timothy Treadwell. Werner Herzog's opinion is that Timothy Treadwell was a lost man with a profound and misunderstood love of nature. Timothy Treadwell held the opinion that he was a fierce, yet gentle warrior, and the lone protector of grizzly bears. Treadwell's opinion is only viewable in the footage Herzog selected, a few clips from five years of film. In this sense, Treadwell's

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