By Lucy Spicer
In a world where film serves as a form of escapism to many, it's rare to see a documentary grab hold of public attention and embed itself in the zeitgeist. But that's exactly what Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man did, and its influence still holds 20 years after its initial release in theaters on August 12, 2005. Frequently named a favorite title from the Sundance Film Festival by the Festival's alumni over the years, Grizzly Man has stood the test of time, even recently appearing on The New York Times' 2025 list of The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century.
Winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, Grizzly Man examines the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, a bear enthusiast who spent years camping in Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve before he and his girlfriend were killed and eaten by a bear in October of 2003. By combining Treadwell's own footage from inside the park with interviews with both the man's loved ones and scientific experts, Herzog pieces together a portrait of a singularly passionate individual whose misguided love for animals ultimately got him killed - and arguably put the animals in danger, as well. For every tearful interview with a friend of Treadwell's is another account from a professional - an ecologist, a biologist, a pilot, a coroner - that gives us a new lens to look through.
Self-professed conservationist Treadwell spent 13 summers living among brown bears in Katmai National Park and Preserve, all the while filming himself and the animals around him in an effort to raise awareness about what he believed to be dangers to the bear population. Skillfully employed by Herzog, Treadwell's self-shot footage - including outtakes and multiple takes of the same scene - shows Treadwell's deep affection for the bears, which he names and insists are friendly with him. The footage also shows a man desperate for an audience and full of anger toward the National Park Service, whose restrictions he repeatedly violated. Herzog's own voiceover commentary adds a strikingly necessary layer to Treadwell's story as viewed by an outsider, observing the violent indifference of nature where Treadwell could only see kinship.
Herzog had been directing both fiction and nonfiction films for 35 years before Grizzly Man premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival - so what sets this project apart? According to Sundance Film Festival alums who cite it as one of their favorites, the film took the medium of documentary in a new direction. As someone who grew up on traditional National Geographic nature documentaries, I was blown away by Herzog's film Grizzly Man, as it took the genre and turned it upside down, says Andrew Durham, writer-director of Fairyland (2023 Sundance Film Festival). I left the theater thinking, this isn't a film about grizzly bears made by a man, it's a film about a man made by grizzly bears. It's a detailed depiction of a human in nature and a thought-provoking examination of human nature.
For Sarah Dowland, director of Sue Bird: In The Clutch (2024 Sundance Film Festival), the combination of Treadwell's footage and Herzog's narration yields an unintentional levity to a film anchored in tragedy. Grizzly Man is unlike any observational wildlife documentary I've ever seen. Maybe now we'd see it as something closer to reality TV? she explains. The goofiness and lunacy of Timothy Treadwell's experiences with bears juxtaposed with Werner Herzog's bleak and deadpan commentary is hilarious. It also sets us on course toward the inescapable tragic ending. I loved Treadwell's fake Australian persona, too! It's what Australians call being a larrikin' - someone who is mischievous and ignores social conventions but is fun to be around even if the things they do are crazy.
Among Grizzly Man's other admirers are Davis Guggenheim (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, An Inconvenient Truth), Natalie Rae (Daughters), and Mimi Cave (FRESH), to name a few. The list of filmmakers inspired by Herzog's documentary is a long and varied one, proving that Herzog managed to overcome the sensational and lean into the universal, troubled humanity inside the short life story of one peculiar man. Revisit the film below with memories from Grizzly Man's Sundance Film Festival premiere as well as evocative shots from Treadwell's footage included in the documentary.
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By Lucy Spicer
