Man Lives With Bears For 13 Years. You Wont Believe How It Ends (but you can guess) Grizzly Man

➡ The text discusses the life of Timothy Treadwell, a man who dedicated his life to living with and protecting Alaskan grizzly bears. After a failed acting career and struggles with addiction, Treadwell spent 13 summers living with the bears, filming his experiences and sharing them with schools as educational content. Despite his passion, Treadwell’s approach was controversial, with some believing he misunderstood the nature of wild animals. The story ends tragically, with Treadwell and his girlfriend Amy being killed by the bears he loved.
➡ The text discusses a man who, feeling disconnected from society, finds purpose in living with bears. He sees himself as a protector of these creatures, even as his mental health deteriorates. The story explores themes of isolation, mental health, and the search for purpose, and is captured in a documentary that the speaker highly praises. The man’s increasing paranoia and delusion, as well as his interactions with the bears, are highlighted as particularly poignant aspects of the film.
➡ The text discusses a documentary about Timothy Treadwell, who filmed himself living among bears. The documentary, directed by Werner Herzog, uses Treadwell’s footage to show his life and interactions with the bears. The text suggests that Treadwell’s actions were driven by a desire for fame and a complex relationship with his girlfriend. It concludes by praising the documentary as a deep and insightful look into human behavior.
➡ The text discusses a documentary by Herzog, where he contrasts his view of nature as brutally neutral with Timothy’s more harmonious perspective. Herzog’s approach of occasionally voicing his thoughts is appreciated. The text also mentions an upcoming documentary, “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”. Lastly, it encourages support for Paranoid American through purchasing merchandise and art.

A Californian Steve Irwin that gets real big in the bears. Under the docks. Under the docks. Under the docks, yeah, under the docks. And we’re back under the docks. Paranoid American Sean Chris. Where we watch the docks and let you know if it sinks or swims. And, you know, I’m something of a grizzly man myself. Today’s film Grizzly Man 2005 film directed by Warner Herzog and narrated by Warner Herzog, this documentary follows Timothy Treadwell’s adventures in the Alaskan wildlife, where he decided, hey, let’s go live with bears. Humans suck. Bears are much easier to live with and maintain a life with.

It follows his actual story because you got footage from all of this, like, some credible footage. For real. Wasn’t there a meme going around this or last year about would you rather have a man or have a bear or something? It wasn’t that the meme, or am I. Oh, you got it. So this. Yeah, I guess that’s. It’s the meme. But it was a little bit late, right, because this dude was doing this in the 90s, like the early 2000s. Plotting the course. Timothy Treadwell dedicated his life to protecting and preserving the Alaskan grizzly bear wildlife.

And this is his story. So it’s kind of broken down a little bit differently than most other films. I will say that her song is like, this is my first time ever watching any of his films. As before, we were talking about, I seen, like, the Simpsons make mockery of him and like. Like, I never knew who that voice was because he has this slow, like, methodical, like, voice of, like, how he presents a story. It’s really artistic. And I will say, like, I’ve. I was pretty blown away, even just right away, of how he presented the story.

The story unfolds pretty uniquely. But basically Timothy Treadwell decides after a failed acting career, after addiction to all kinds of stuff, he says, hey, you know what? I’m going to start this foundation or be a part of this foundation where they’re going to preserve the grizzlies in Alaska. And he lives with them, actually lives with them for 13 summers. So he goes in, flies in over there and with food supplies and stays there for the whole summer. And he interact. It’s his interaction with these animals and the nature out there. But then it goes deeper. There’s one name that never comes up in Grizzly man that, like, keeps coming up in my head, and that’s Steve Irwin.

Like, this guy is basically a Californian Steve Irwin that gets real big into bears and Even to the point where he’s shooting kind of a children’s show in his head as he goes out here and does this, and he does bring it back to schools. And I guess he meets with teachers and educational, you know, districts and shows them, hey, here’s this free content about me living with bears. And it’s all edited, and some of them pick up on it. And he starts considering that to be, like, education. But you also realize, I don’t think he gets paid for any of this.

So he’s doing all this stuff. And in fact, some of his closest friends are basically saying, timothy was the poorest person that I ever knew, because the guy just lives in a tent for most of his life, even when he’s not with the bears and everything. So it was interesting that this guy truly was fully removed from society. Like, he lived with bears. He preferred the company of bears to humans. Even to the point where towards the end, actually, I’ll save it. I’ll save it. And he also believed that he could, like, rehabilitate and change the behavior of bears, right? He was like, oh, yeah, they’re just misunderstood.

Like, you just gotta kind of check them. You know what I mean? Like, it’s like when someone that thinks they’re a dog person, they’re like, yeah, you could just train any dog. Or you could just not understanding how animals actually work and the craziness of nature. So were. Her sauce has a different perspective and philosophy on wildlife than Treadwell. And it kind of goes throughout this film of this challenge of Timothy’s view and her SOG’s view of, like, what nature is and how it unfolds. But Treadwell believed that he can change the attitude and what a bear would do by, like, just kind of like, I love you.

Hey, we’re okay, buddy. Like, he’d kind of, like, dad him up, right? He’d be like, hey, don’t you do that. But I still love you. You know what I mean? Hey, go back. Go lay down. And he. He had this, like, delusion going on where, like, you said, he lived in this alternate world. And one of the parts that I thought was interesting, it’s not necessarily a claim, but, I mean, it is a claim. He used a fake name, right? They interview his family, and they’re like, yeah, he changed his name, which. And then the dad’s like, well, that is a.

A family name. Like, you know, he kind of wanted to hold on to that, but. But he’s talking about how he was boozing it up. You know, partying a lot. They didn’t. They said drugs, but they said only weed. But I. I have a feeling where he was at, it was more than just weed and maybe some like cocaine, methamphetamine kind of delusional kind of things that you can get some of that from behind the counter at a. At a truck stop at that point. Tomato a little bit. So I think this is more than just the story of him with the bears, but the.

The evolution of Timothy’s mindset, right, and his mental health, like the declining of, like, him living in this fantasy. So the parents talk about, like, he went out for the role for Cheers, Woody Harrelson’s part, and he supposedly got the number two, but, you know, it really set him in a tailspin. And then all of a sudden he meets somebody and they’re like, hey, you know what we should do? We should go live with the bears. And he created this whole Persona, like you said, like, I like that. I didn’t even think of the Steve Irwin part when you brought that up.

But he thought of this Persona that he was this wildlife expert that was like, oh, yeah, man, you can just like walk up to these things, man. Like, dude, I wrestle with the bears, I pet them. And he had this whole fake identity that really, it’s almost equivalent to me of like watching Breaking Bad in the development of a character. And you see from the beginning of the videos that he shot himself to towards the end, how he evolved into this new character. Hidden treasures and overboard moments. I don’t know what you got. I got a couple good ones there.

There is. There’s a lot of hidden gems in this whole entire flick, but there’s a couple that really stood out to me. I mean, this could just be the whole movie for me. This is honestly, I guess. Well, spoiler alert. I think we got let you know that he dies, right? Timothy dies at the end of this, or basically halfway through. And it’s. It’s on tape. We don’t see it. Herzog listens to it in front of, you know, one of his. His ex girlfriends. It’s still alive. And she hasn’t even listened to it. She hasn’t seen it, but she’s got the tape.

Herzog listens to it and he’s like, you should destroy this thing. You should destroy this tape. Don’t listen to it yourself. Just get rid. So it’s obviously horrific what happens to Timothy. And we do talk to the coroner, and the coroner has seen the tape. He analyzed Timothy’s body. He saw claw Marks, tearing open the top of his skull. Like it was incredibly violent. And not to mention that his girlfriend went with him at the time. Amy. This girl Amy. That’s only in, I think they say, like 20 minutes worth of footage, or maybe it was like two hours worth of footage in this guy’s hundreds or thousands of hours of, you know, B roll and him talking to the camera and everything.

So part of that too is that we don’t really get a whole lot of insight about Amy or any of these other people that he kind of grew up with. But he dies at the end. So this becomes a very cautionary tale. Every. Everyone that criticizes Timothy for doing something crazy and not respecting the barrier between man and nature, they’re kind of proven right a little bit. And there’s even some people that throw some pretty hard shade. And I guess these are like my. Some of the, The. The hidden treasures. Although again, this is probably my favorite Werner Herzog documentary to date that I’ve seen.

So, like, the entire movie, like, I highly recommend just watching the whole movie is a freaking hidden treasure. But really getting the critical aspect. It’ll be so easy to sit back and think about, like a martyr to this wildlife cause like this. Oh, the Steve Irwin out in the Kodiak. But some of the things are a museum director that I think is. He’s like part Inuit or, you know, he comes from people that claim that region to be like, their. Their true ancestry. And this guy was like, my ancestors lived alongside Bears for 7,000 years. And like, we always kept distance from them.

And it’s almost like it’s common sense that you wouldn’t integrate into like a bear community. It just doesn’t make any sense to him. And he saw it as disrespectful. There’s one guy that flat out was like, oh, we all thought he was mentally, we just straight. And again, it’s like from the 90s. So this is before that was a, like, the R word was a horrific thing to say. But he was like, yeah, this, like, everyone knew that this guy was just kooky. He was just this failed, you know, like, recovering drug addict actor from California that rejects society and goes and lives with bears because he’s in this like.

And to be fair, the documentary opens up on footage of Timothy and he’s calling himself a warrior. He says samurai a couple times. He refers to himself as master of the bears. So there’s a little bit of hubris involved here. And I, I think the. That’s my favorite part of this whole documentary is how well Herzog is able to show that just through Timothy’s own footage. And. And without him saying, like, look at how this guy’s got hubris. Like, you just see that on your own as it goes through with him and interviews and all the footage of him.

And for me, like, it’s the evolution because there’s so many layers of stories, right? There’s the story of, like, the. The environmental activists, like, going too far, or the people that were like, oh, this idiot, this dummy. But then there’s also the spirituality part. There’s also this, like, mental health aspect of like, this guy was searching for a purpose, right? Like, one of the scenes that stood out for me is like, it’s pouring. Like, he wants rain because there is no rain. And the. The salmon, like that he wants it to rain more so the. The water comes up so Sam would come up so the bear can eat, right? His whole dedication is like, man, I hope the bear’s all right.

And then he has this fox friend that, like, he just loves and adores. Like, he’s your typical tree hugging, what you’d call a hippie, right? But at least the Persona that we see, because then it splits a little bit because you can tell that he did not want. Some of these scenes were not for all of us, right? They were just. He was filming. So some of them you could see when he was in character of like, hey, kids, about to go check out Winnie the Pooh, he go to this cave. But this particular scene, he’s like, wishing for.

For rain. And he’s like, if there is a God, Allah. Like, he starts speaking the Hindu, whatever. Like, he says, like, that’s. That cracked me up. And then it starts pouring rain and he feels like, so overwhelmed with the emotion. Like, thank God. Like, yes, the bears are. And you see that he starts losing himself. He’s losing himself in this identity that he does. He has no connection. He doesn’t feel connected with his family. He. He talks about, like, love. And like, he’s like, man, I wish I could talk to women. And like, even tries to have a little, you know, know, out there.

Like, I’m pretty good in bed, but, you know, you’re not supposed to say that. Like, you know, he’s trying to. And you see that he had connections with women, but I think that he didn’t have a full purpose. And when he found this purpose in life of being with the grizzlies, he didn’t know anything else. And it’s a fantastic story. This is probably one of my favorite Films now, top 10 of all time, of exploring the human mind and, like, how the hu. How someone can feel broken. And he’s coming from this addict mentality, so he had to latch on to something.

You gotta imagine he was an addict for a long time with drinking and doing drugs and maybe with women, right? He had multiple women that were in his life that at the end, you’re like, okay, well, he was. Obviously, they were more than friends. And they even mentioned in the film, hey, there was other women. But, you know, they said they were strictly platonic and they didn’t want to be interviewed in this film. They. The other part, to me, that’s, like, really incredible was the actual footage that they took of, like, stuff where you’re seeing a bear swimming and catching salmon.

Like, and maybe that might. Maybe the bear that actually ended up killing him. They’re. They’re not 100 sure, but like, the close encounters and then him just sitting there talking, like at one point. I’ve never seen this before. Two bears fighting and one just himself, right? He just literally himself. And you’re like, whoa, this is incredible. This huge, giant monkey. He was bigger than the other bear, and he got punked. And then Timothy felt so connected to these bears. He went so close to him while the guy’s sitting there, and he’s like, yeah, I know you’re trying to get your girlfriend.

I get it, bud. Like, you started seeing this, you know, breakdown of the. The. His mind of where he felt like these were his only friends. And. And it kind of gets you a little sad because you’re like, wow, that he just really doesn’t feel connected with anybody in this world. And it’s easier for him to connect with these giant creatures that he pretends are his friends. Like, he’s named all of them. He has names for them. He. He. He’s even like, oh, man, you didn’t. You underestimated Mr. Chocolate. Mr. Chocolate. Mickey. You know what I’m saying? Your girl.

I’m gonna take care of it. And I like that, buddy. And like, that is just such a trip to me that you can actually capture that those moments, not only the nature, but the human nature of, like, what the psychology of the isolation of being alone for so, so many days and be. That means that he was probably alone when he was back. Because then he starts as he gets more like, you know, into 10, 12, 13 years, be right up to his death, he gets more and more aggressive, more and more delusional. People are on the island at one point.

And. And he’s like, they’re throwing rocks. They’re throwing rocks at Hank or I forgot the little cub’s name. They were. They were legit throwing rocks at a bear so that the bear would, like, look at them and they can get their photos. So it was kind of like, look at these, actually throwing rocks at bears. And then he goes into that scene of where he shows that they wrote me a note and there’s a smiley face. And he’s like, they’re after me. And then he started. Paranoia. That one was. That was why. Yeah, he. They literally leave a little thing that’s like, see you next summer.

Or like a little smiley face. And he’s sitting there like, these are threats. These are threats on my life. And it’s actually even scarier that they would put a smiley face. This is psychological warfare. Like, you could see that he had gone to such an extent of distrusting human species that something as simple as a smiley face as. As like someone was like, hey, we know you’re here. Here’s a little smiley face to let you know. You know, to me, I guess it’d be like, friendly human has been here. We didn’t want it to disturb you.

Okay, we’ll be on our way now. And he’s like, this is a death threat. Yeah. He said, they didn’t say they’re going to murder me, but basically that’s what they meant. I can. I mean, I can relate. Paranoid Americans. So I. I understand the thinking at least. And I’ll say my overboy board moments where one, it’s a great scene, but like. And I get it. Like, her song is like really about the emotion and grabbing. I. That’s what I’ve noticed watching all these films that we got into, especially starting with this one. You can see that he’s.

But he does it in. I like the way he does it. But if I had to pick overboard moments, it would be listening to the tape over there. Like, oh, my God. Like, you know, because it’s so dramatic where you see the side of his face. You don’t really get to see him. And I know he’s like really not wanting to be in it and then to tell on that. Like, because they put it later because you don’t know. The corners heard the tape. He kind of just tells you. He doesn’t say. And he’s like, I’m hearing it.

Like, the corner was out there for me a little bit. He was a little quirky and he was just like. And I could hear. So I’m thinking when I’m watching the film at first that he’s recreating these thoughts from the remains. Right. When you first interview the corner, like, he’s like, I could hear Amy’s voice. And I’m like, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So, like that part. But these overboard moments are just me nitpicking. Like, overall, I, I, if I had to pick something, that would be it. And I still like those parts. Yeah.

Like, I guess part of this movie, this is part of the hidden treasure aspect maybe, is that it would be more accurate to call this a collab. This was a, A Timothy Treadwell, you know, collabing with Werner Herzog. Because a majority of the footage is shot by Timothy. It’s of Timothy, or it’s at least his footage of those bears fighting of, you know, like, these cubs and him finding all this stuff. So a majority of it. And the reason why I think it works so well is because this guy was literally trying to shoot an entertaining TV show.

There’s some cases where Herzog shows Timothy’s multiple takes, where he’ll just do a take. One part. He did two different takes for each color bandana that he may or may not be wearing. So it ended up being eight takes. I think something around these high numbers and that this was somewhat typical. So Herzog had a lot of content to work with. But I also feel like it’s not a hundred percent all Herzog here. Like, it’s, it’s Herzog’s interpretation of all this guy’s footage. So part of that, too, is that we capture a lot of, like, his own wild points.

Tread wells. So I think my overboard moment is maybe when he goes overboard and one of those biggest overboard moments is that he finds the paw of one of the cubs. And I guess he implies that he saw these, you know, the parents killing their own cubs and eating them because the rain hadn’t come. So that this is what leads to him, you know, praying to all the different gods of the universe and then thanking all the gods of the universe once it starts raining. But he’s saying that because it hadn’t rained, then the salmon didn’t come, the stream of salmon.

And then the bears end up, you know, starting to starve a little bit because they’re supposed to be bulking up for hibernation, so they just start eating their own kids. And. And he’s almost seen himself is like, thank God this white savior is here to pray for rain for you. You know, you Poor animals. And finally that the rain’s here and you guys are much better now and you can stop eating your kids. So I guess that was the. To me like the height of Herzog showing us of his delusion that he thinks that going out into the middle of the Kodiak where bears are starving and then praying for, you know, Jesus or Muhammad or whoever you want to pray to ends up making it rain there and then he can like go back for another season.

That. That is kind of like the height of the hubris. So that one is the, the hardest to be like man, I can. I mean you can understand the mentality of him going out there and, and doing that because he’s also trying to make it through. I don’t know if you watch any of these like survival shows, like Alone or even like Survival is kind of like a cheesy version of that. But there’s versions where people go out into the Kodiak and see how long you survive. But those are all kind of like game shows. And even this guy, again like he’s shooting this because he wants to be on tv, he wants to be an actor.

So it’s hard to separate that as you’re watching this. But Herzog does a good job of constantly reminding you of all that. So I guess the, the overboard is just that this guy is kind of a try hard Steve Irwin that around and found out. And I’ll say an extra over the board moment is now that you brought that up makes sense because he was also trying to have this illusion not only that he was this character, but this illusion that he was completely by himself. And like he did have more help than he alluded to in a lot of his films.

Like not only was his girlfriend there a few summers, but he had other women there. He had women that he stored stuff at. He had a pilot that would deliver him supplies with his wife. And he had more help. Yes, he was times that he was very alone over there, but he had more help than he leaded to us to believe. And I gotta just squeeze this in too that at the very end of the movie they, they show you or they tell you how right before he died they had left, the season was over, the bears went into hibernation.

And apparently in this documentary they mentioned that when the bears that Timothy was familiar with and had named, you know, Mr. Chocolate and Sergeant Brown and you know, Rus or all these Rowdy Roddy or something. But after those bears go into hibernation for the winter, these interior bears come out and Sort of like fill their spot until the new, you know, those bears come back out of hibernation and the interior bears go back into the interior. But that those interior bears are these rugged ones that don’t see humans very often. And that was one of the ones that killed him but that he had already left after his bears went into hibernation, flew back to California with his girlfriend and then I guess like at the airport, I don’t know, I don’t know the exact sequence of events but as soon as they land, he’s just like, that freaking guy looked at me wrong.

That guy, you know, stepped on my shoe. And man, I hate humans. And he’s like, hun, let’s just turn right back around and go back out there and just, you know, take the whole winter with the bears and somehow talks her into it and then that’s when they die. So man, even at the last, the last bad decision he made to go back and interact with these new bears that he had absolutely no rapport with and it hadn’t been conditioned to him and that’s ultimately what killed him. Well, I feel like the underlining story that’s to, that’s not told, but told was.

So the girlfriend was about to get a new job. I think his whole life was crumbling underneath him as he was not getting where he wanted to in life. He was kind of stuck. Like he thought he was going to get all this fame and he’s doing this for like 13 summers. So 13 years of not getting really much credible income or like he’s getting a little notoriety from like schools and stuff like that. But he’s not able to really survive off this. And I think his girlfriend may have wanted to leave him or like she was really in love.

They had some kind of rocky, it doesn’t, you know, moment that they don’t explain. And then turns out she’s like terrified of bears. Like he writes in his note. Yeah, she’s scared of bears and he’s having her. But I think her love or her fascination with Timothy got her stuck in this situation and, and she wanted out. And I almost feel like subconsciously and this is just my opinion that like he kind of wanted to die out there. Like that was his plan, like. And I think then it happened and he didn’t want her to die maybe, but he was just like, hey, life is over, then maybe this will make me a martyr and I’ll be, you know, more meaningful.

And I think he thought she could film it, but he didn’t realize it would probably kill both of them. Foreign. It’s that time Sink or swim. I mean, this one’s got to be swim. For me, it’s definitely the best Warner Herzog documentary. And I think it might, like you said, top 10. I think I would say that it’s probably in top 10 documentaries of all time. I don’t know if. If I even compare documentaries and movies. I don’t even know if those two categories work in my brain. They’re kind of apples and oranges. But this. This one’s got everything.

It’s got entertainment. It’s got some really deep sort of, like, analysis at all. Like, deep down, aren’t we all just grizzly, man, like, 13 years into something that we’re trying to make work. And for me, it’s a swim all the way. First time getting to see this. I really love this film because it just tapped into what, like, now I’m like, yeah, this is why I want to do this. Like, I didn’t realize until I watched this. I’m like, breaking down these documentaries and kind of putting the human touch and how humans act. Because all of this really has to do with humans, right? No matter what documentary we’re watching, it’s like an insight to the human species.

And this is one of the most incredible insights you can get. Like a breakdown from a person that on all different levels and then having, like, you know, this middle ground of where he gives, you know, compassion and wants to. Timothy’s story, but also like, hey, man, nature’s not what you think it is. It’s a little bit more violent. Yeah, Herzog does a good job, especially in this movie. But I do like it when the documentarian shows what they’re thinking of their biases on camera. Because a lot of the time, like, maybe that’s why I don’t like archival footage as much is because there’s no one sitting there.

And like. And here’s what I think about all that, right? Like, I’m. I need some of that sometimes. And Herzog does a great job at maybe once or twice, he’ll. He’ll stop. He’ll kind of, like, give his own little voice over and he’ll mention where. Here’s Timothy giving the UAT most trust in nature and just, like, believing in the natural order and that this is some kind of harmony, like a very hippie way of thinking. And then Herzog will come in and talk about how he believes in nature being brutally neutral and that nature has no morals and no ethics.

And if I got to Eat my own cub to survive, then so be it. And that this isn’t registering with Timothy. And he kind of points out this is where him and Timothy sort of separate the most. This is where like their biggest disagreement kind of lies in this one little aspect. And I like how he. He’ll just do it like laser focused. He’ll say it once, maybe twice in the entire documentary and let the rest of it speak for itself. Foreign. What we got next? We’re doing more Vernon Herzog. So you said you’ve never watched any of his documentaries before so this is a good way to ramp up.

The next one I think is called Cave of Forgotten Dreams and we’re almost watching him in the order that I’ve. I first came across Herzog I saw Grizzly man first in the early 2000s. I think I accidentally downloaded it and then I ended up watching Cave of Forgotten Dreams because I think it was contemporary like I saw that one when it came out. So we’ll watch that one next, you know, go to paranoidamerican.com kill them support support Share Share Share the show this is under the docs Peace. Yeah, under the docks Buried deeper we breaking the locks.

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