Your slightly garbled sentence makes it unclear whether or not you are presenting an either/or, but clearly living among the bears fulfiled both needs for Treadwell -- to experience his love of nature and to -- I would not say "escape," but to find a situation where his personal problems would not trouble him
. Sounds like a pretty straightforward sentence to me, but you seem to have a need to criticize my grammar. I could start attacking your spelling but what purpose would it serve? You might express it a different way but my meaning is clear. I wasn't sure what the biggest factor was in leading him to the wild.
Your summary is a bit confusing since you say Treadwell developed a "brash confidence" around the bears, and then you cite Rogers' views at length to suggest that Treadwell "cautious, even fearful, around bears he didn’t know, but he developed relationships and mutual trust with a few individual bears over the years."
The key word here is developed. He may have been cautious but as he developed relationships, he became more confident. Now how confusing is that?
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Though the film raises complex questions that do not lend themselves to easy answers, it has nonetheless been seized upon by the corporate media to denounce environmentalists and those who dare to live on the edge of society.
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This may have some truth in it but nonetheless is misleading, since, as the film itself makes clear, the denunciations of environmentalists were going on and took in Treadwell well before Herzog's "complex" treatment came along. Herzog can't be held responsible for any such crude exploitation of the issues; you acknowledge in this very sentence that Herzog's treatment is "complex," not simplistic.
I say the film raises complex questions not because Herzog treats the subject matter with complexity but because it is so ambiguous. Herzog is responsible in a way because of the negative slant he gives the project and shows Treadwell in large part to his disadvantage.
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Treadwell has been called a nut, a certified madman, foolish, obsessive, an egomaniac, bipolar, paranoid and schizophrenic. While his on-camera behavior is often bizarre and at times repugnant, we don't know how much this represents who Treadwell really was or even whether Mr. Herzog selected particular footage to produce a desired effect.
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Your logic is unclear, your desire to give Treadwell the benefit of the doubt is exaggerated. The film provides a complete picture of Treadwell's accomplishments, even if it is ultimately disapproving of his outlook. "Who Treadwell really was" surely includes the sometimes (but not exclusively) bizarre moments Herzog shows us. If a person freaks out, behaves bizarrely, it doesn't have to have happened every day to be an important characteristic to consider in evaluating them.
My only question is - was this incident taken out of context and made to seem more important than it actually was. In other words, we are privy to over one hour of 100 hours of footage. I would really like to know what was on the other 99 hours.
You choose to overlook the fact that he took chances he oughtn't have taken, and that he caused not only his own death but that of another person.
How he died does not invalidate his activity over a period of 13 years. We hear so much BS about he was so self serving and how the bears got acclimated to humans yet you cannot come up with a single incident during that period that showed the effects of any of this. He was killed because of several mistakes, in not camping in open ground, in remaining too late in the season but keep in mind that the bear that killed him was not from the area and was not one he had any relationship with. He was not prudent in that regard and the one mistake cost him his life but it does not invalidate his work in educating the public about grizzlies or the organization he formed to protect the environment.
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Bizarre or not, the fact remains that Timothy did what he said. He lived in open and honest communication with wild animals for thirteen long years,
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You buy into Treadwell's anthromorphism here when you speak of "open and honest communication." What that means, I don't know.
Well you discovered a big word here. Good for you. What it means is exactly what it says. Communication doesn't mean speaking words. It means a relationship that allowed man and beast to live side by side in peace and harmony for 13 years.
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Grizzly Man, under Herzog's direction, veers toward the sensational. In one sequence Treadwell demonstrates the emotional maturity of an eleven-year old in an expletive-laden rant against the Park Service, but the sequence has no timeframe and no context.
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I repeat: the occurrence itself is significant, not how often -- or when -- it happened, though the film in general does provide careful timelines for events. Treadwell's history and the evidence in the footage show that he was unstable -- although nature and the grizzly world provided a wonderful haven for him where he could be high functioning, on his own terms, and do good.
Who he was certainly includes his rants and I didn't deny that he was unstable, yet what I don't know is if this happened early on or what the situation was that caused this immature outburst. In an interview with a park ranger, he said that he had some differences with Treadwell at the beginning but it was patched up and they had a good relationship.
Herzog has said in interviews and it is pretty well known I guess that he doesn't pretend to be neutral; that his documentaries are works of artifice.
Yes but he does pretend to be honest which he is not.
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Many critics have called Treadwell delusional for thinking he was protecting the bears. Yet perhaps the most telling fact is that during his time in Katmai, no bear was known to have been killed by poachers. In the first year after his death, five bears were poached.
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I doubt that this is good evidence of Treadwell's importance. Bears were pretty safe -- that's why people have pointed out that his "protection" of them was unnecessary -- and delusional.
You doubt it is good evidence. Well isn't that nice? What would you consider good evidence? During the time he was with the bears, no bear was killed by poachers. In the year after he leaves, five bears are killed. If that isn't good evidence I'm not sure what is,