The Grizzly Details

Last week your correspondent purchased a copy of the much-acclaimed 2005 Werner Herzog documentary Grizzly Man, the story of Timothy Treadwell, a guy who spent 13 summers in Katmai National Park and Preserve on the Alaskan peninsula studying and filming wild bears before he and his girlfriend were killed by one.

The film made me think. The subject was obviously a seriously disturbed individual (and, to be honest, an insufferably irritating one). Treadwell was a recovered alcoholic, failed actor and wannabe TV star who found meaning in his life through communing with these awesome creatures. Except as the years went by, he became more and more deluded, fancying himself a latter day Grizzly Adams and lone crusader beyond the petty mores of park rangers. (One of the soberest voices in the documentary came from a Native American gent who observed simply that Treadwell’s untimely end came about because he had transgressed on Grizzly turf and paid the price for it. The tragedy is his girlfriend also lost her life in the process.)

Herzog’s film undertook the feat of bestowing upon this man’s life a sort of dignity, venerating his filming skills and eulogizing the admittedly beautiful footage he shot. The German director has always loved these driven madmen figures, as mythologised in films like Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre – Wrath Of God. There’s a documentary film about the relationship between him and the late Klaus Kinski – My Best Friend – that would turn your hair white.

But the DVD also came with a special feature that I thought was even better than the main attraction: a 50-minute film about the recording of the Grizzly Man soundtrack. This was built around fly on the wall footage of the scoring ensemble, led by Richard Thompson and including Jim O’Rourke, none of whom had met before the session, all improvising to very strict cues, Herzog sitting right there among them as the tapes rolled, listening more intensely than anyone I’ve ever seen. Listening, the great underrated art.

I only have one or two Richard Thompson records, but I really love what he does. No persona or star nonsense, a real craftsman, you feel the music come through him like running water. My old housemate Fiachra alerted me to the a live album and TV series he made, 1000 Years of Popular Music, that traced the evolution of the pop song from medieval balladry right up to Britney’s ‘Oops I Did It Again’. The version of ‘Shenandoah’ would wring tears from a civil servant.

Art wears two faces, inhabits two identities. One capers and cavorts and throws tantrums and gets eaten in the wilderness. The other goes about its work, secure in its place in the larger tradition, serving its chosen form with no small humility and grace. I know which one I’d want to go for a drink with.