DOI 10.6094/helden.heroes.heros./2018/A/07

Tom Chadwick 61

“Let’s Have Some Fucking Water for These Animals.” Animal Survival and Inter-Species Heroism in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man

If there is a God I want him to kick some as con­tinuing to live through a difficult or ­ dan ass down here, let’s have some water gerous experience – appears in this instance to Jesus boy, let’s have some water Christ rely on the interrelation of both the survivor and man or Allah or Hindu-floaty-thing. Let’s the thing survived. It is this duality within the sur­ have some fucking water for these ani­ vival narrative, the interrelation of survivor and mals. (Grizzly Man 01:14:00) survived, human and animal, species and envi­ Midway through Werner Herzog’s 2005 filmGriz ­ ronment, that this paper will explore in relation to zly Man, Timothy Treadwell, who spent ten sum­ heroism. mers living and filming the grizzly bear popula­ The trope of survival is often figured in terms tion in Katmai National Park in Alaska, sat inside of heroism. Indeed, perhaps the most infamous his tent and delivered a piece to camera. Tread­ example of the survival narrative is Daniel well calmly explains how the summer rainfall ­Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, with its hero of the has been insufficient and concludes that if the same name. Defoe’s novel suggests not only the bears are to survive then there will need to be at manner in which heroism can be a product of least two more inches of rain. Then, in a sudden survival, but also indicates the structure of the change of tone, Treadwell becomes desperate: heroic survival narrative itself. Robinson Crusoe “I want rain,” he growls at the lens, launching into sees an individual human subject not only sur­ a tirade that ends with the plea: “Let’s have some viving within an inhospitable nature, but ultimate­ fucking water for these animals.” (Grizzly Man ly formed by that same act of heroism. As such, 01:14:30) Treadwell’s call is answered and in the nature is both what threatens Crusoe, but also next scene rain drums on the roof of the tent. that which allows for his heroic survival through Yet, the miracle that for Treadwell secures the his own mastery over it, a mastery that is only bears’ survival is for Treadwell himself a cause of confirmed when Crusoe returns to the civilised concern. Two weeks on from the first scene, the world and provides an account of his heroism. tent’s roof has caved in and from a hunched pos­ The heroic survival narrative is therefore tem­ ition lying on the floor, Treadwell explains that porally bound by first an encounter with wild na­ the storm has prevented the biplane that would ture, second the survival, and thirdly the telling of pick him up from landing and until the wind and the survival tale on return. Yet in this context, the rain cease he is trapped. atomised, individual survival narrative through At the centre of the monologues that Tread­ which the humanist subject is formed raises well delivers from his tent, as well as across problems for the question of heroes that are not Grizzly Man more widely, are questions of sur­ human. Due to its containment within a tempo­ vival. On the one hand, there is the survival of rally bound survival event, heroism in the sur­ the bears who Treadwell believes are at risk vival narrative is the product of an individual en­ from both poachers and starvation, with the counter with wild nature rather than an on­going lack of rainfall preventing the salmon runs that collective relationship. As such, the individual form the bears’ principal diet. On the other hand, survival of wild nature becomes emblematic of there is his own survival, as he spends his sum­ a human exceptionalism that sees wild nature mers living with the bears in often inhospitable not only survived but mastered. This makes the Alaskan conditions. More precisely, however, very notion of animal heroes problematic. On the Treadwell’s spliced-together monologue from one hand, collective inter-species survival does the tent indicates the duality that this survival not fit within the atomised event-based structure situation presents. Survival – understood here of the individual survival narrative and Crusoe’s helden. heroes. héros. Tom Chadwick

62 conquest-driven mentality. On the other hand, have been unsettled by anthropogenic climate any individual acts of animal survival see the ani­ change, this essay wishes to sketch the theor­ mal read through an anthropomorphic lens that etical background to this entwinement. It first in turn further supports the singular exceptional­ considers the manner in which the notion of the ism of the human. Read in these terms, animal ‘animal’ works to reflect the exceptional status of heroism could be perceived to be a misnomer. the human (Giorgio Agamben), before second­ This essay takes its starting point from the fact ly considering the manner in which the animal that anthropogenic climate change has shifted has, with modernity, been reduced to the status the terms of the survival narrative and, as will of an image (John Berger). By reading Berger’s be contended here, the terms through which insight alongside that of Agamben, this essay we understand heroism itself. It is argued here argues that within the traditional survival narra­ that while survival and heroism are tradition­ tive, heroism emerges as an aesthetic act, bound ally bound up with human exceptionalism, in up with the formation of the human subject. the Anthropocene­ that humanist framework In an early scene from Grizzly Man, Herzog has been disrupted and the survival of both interviews the helicopter pilot who helped collect humans and animals now requires new modes the bodies of Timothy Treadwell and his com­ of heroism that are not restricted to the individ­ panion Amie Huguenard. The pilot unreservedl­y ual performance of heroic deeds. This argument criticises Treadwell’s judgement in confusing is developed in three parts. In the first part, the human and animal and acting as if he were with essay turns to the work of Giorgio Agamben and “people wearing bear costumes instead of wild John Berger to provide a theoretical background bears” (Grizzly Man 00:18:10). Whilst expressed to the entanglement of animal heroism with both in particularly blunt terms, the pilot’s opinion the survival narrative and human exceptional­ stands broadly for the overriding perspective on ism. The second part considers the perspectives Treadwell that steadily emerges during Herzog’s of Dipesh Chakrabarty and Kate Marshall to film. Indeed, while other interviewees are more argue that anthropogenic climate change has sympathetic towards Treadwell’s ambitions and challenged the traditional notions of heroism while Herzog himself is keen to explain Tread­ contained within the survival narrative by disrupt­ well’s time in Alaska in relation to his earlier bat­ ing the temporal framework and forcing humans tles with mental health and addiction, Herzog’s to think on the scale of the species rather than narration ultimately alights on a similar position: that of the individual; it contends that life in the Treadwell fatally misunderstood the relation epoch of the Anthropocene needs animal heroes between man and the harsh reality of nature. as a way of navigating beyond received human­ Herzog therefore presents Treadwell in far from ist notions. The final part of this essay considers heroic terms. Treadwell’s narrative is presented what such animal heroes might look like. It turns as a failed survival narrative that is the result of to the work of Donna Haraway and her notion his fatal misjudgement about the relationship of companion species to re-read Timothy Tread­ between humans and animals. At one crucial well’s depiction in Grizzly Man as offering new point, Herzog interjects to make precisely this terms of survival, be that animal or human, terms point: “Here, I differ from Treadwell,” he states, that might contain new possibilities for animal “he seemed to ignore the fact that in nature there heroism. The essay concludes by arguing that are predators, I believe the common denomin­ Herzog’s film can be read as a lament for older ator in the universe is not harmony but chaos, humanist forms of heroism and that through his hostility and murder” (Grizzly Man 01:11:00). In own oeuvres’ reliance on the traditional sur­vival this sense, the most straightforward reading of narrative, Herzog’s film occludes the manner Grizzly Man is that it is Herzog’s dramatisation of in which Treadwell’s time spent living with the Treadwell’s sentimental view of nature, with Her­ bears at Katmai National Park might offer new zog carefully pointing out the manner in which possibilities for inter-species heroism. Treadwell anthropomorphised the bears, leaving his experience in Alaska to stand, ultimately, only for Treadwell’s own demons and estrangement. As Timothy Corrigan has commented, “Griz­ The optics of heroism: The survival zly Man is, in short, not so much a portrait of a narrative and indifferent nature man’s excursion into the extremes of the natural world but a meditative reflection on that excur­ The received tropes of the heroic survival narra­ sion in which a passionate subject acts out his tive and their entwinement with the framework longings and frustrations on the surface between of human exceptionalism leave little scope for self and world.” (Corrigan 128) Other critical re­ the very notion of animal heroism. Before turn­ sponses have also stressed Herzog’s critique ing to the manner in which these received tropes of Treadwell’s overly sentimental nature. “What

helden. heroes. héros. Animal Survival and Inter-Species Heroism in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man

Herzog cannot seem to abide,” writes Matthew Berger argues that: 63 Abbot, “and what drives his voiceover’s most po­ lemical moments – is Treadwell’s sentimentality.” [t]he same animal may well look at other species in the same way. He does not re­ (Abbot 140) Similarly, Paul Sheehan describes serve a special look for man. But by no Grizzly Man as a “cautionary tale of human–an­ other species except man will the animal’s imal relations: respect the boundary between look be recognised as familiar. Other the two, it tells us, or suffer the consequences” animals are held by the look. Man be- (Sheehan 118). Treadwell is routinely criticised comes aware of himself returning the look. for his shameless anthropomorphisation of the (Berger 4-5) bears, particularly his assignment of names and his insistence on drawing their interactions with­ For Berger, then, rather than the recognition of in a reso­lutely human domestic framework, ten­ their own image, there exists between man and dencies which are used by Herzog to support his animal “a narrow abyss of non-comprehension” conclusion that Treadwell was not living in kin­ which allows man to comprehend that as well as ship with bears, but rather using the image of the “being seen by the animal, he is being seen as bear as a mirror for his own human loneliness. In his surroundings are seen by him” (ibid. 5, em­ this sense, then, the inhospitable nature in which phasis in original). While similarly constructed, Treadwell survived for ten summers, served pri­ Agamben’s optical relation between man and ani- marily as a foundation for the construction of his mal is based on recognition, whereas Berger’s own human self. appears more attuned to a non-recognition, a For Giorgio Agamben, the human is some­ glimpse of the abyss that roots man’s conscious­ thing that has always been negotiated through ness in the world. its relation to the animal. Agamben argues that Yet where Berger and Agamben coincide is in through the division between man and animal, their sense that the terms of the optical encoun­ a “mobile border within living man” is produced, ter between man and animal have shifted with “and without this intimate caesura the very de­ modernity. For Agamben, the anthropo­logical cision of what is human and what is not would machine has ancient and modern variants. In probably not be possible” (Agamben 15). To earlier times the machine worked by including frame the negotiation of the human at this mo­ an outside and in this way the “non-man is pro­ bile border, Agamben puts forward his notion of duced by the humanisation of an animal” (Agam­ the anthropological machine as a device which ben 37). He cites the slave, the barbarian and produces a recognition of the human in the non­ the foreigner as “figures of an animal in human human (cf. ibid. 26). As such, the anthropological form” (Agamben 37). In modernity, though, the machine functions through both exclusion and anthropological machine functions “by excluding inclusion, which in turn produces a space of ex­ as not (yet) human an already human being from ception: “the place of a ceaselessly updated deci­ itself, that is, by animalizing the human, by isol­ sion in which the caesura and their rearticulation ating the nonhuman within the human” (ibid.). are always dislocated and displaced anew” (ibid. Yet, what Agamben articulates as the machine’s 38). It is here, through the articulation of the mo­ variant, moving the gaze from “figures of an ani­ bile border within this zone of indistinction, that mal in human form” to the animalised human, the optical aspect of Agamben’s anthropological Berger sees as a more fundamental breakdown machine becomes central. For Agamben, the in the originary relation between animals and anthropological machine is “an optical machine humans. For Berger, until the nineteenth century constructed of a series of mirrors in which man, the formative gaze between man and animal looking at himself, sees his own image always was an expression of human and animal proxim­ already deformed in the features of an ape” (ibid. ity, but with modernity the form of this gaze has 26-27). It is this emphasis on the optical quality shifted, as the presence of animals has gradually of the interaction that indicates a more nuanced receded. Berger outlines the increased mar­ understanding of human–animal relations and ginalisation and estrangement of the animal in thus, the heroism of the survival narrative itself, mod­ernity, both theoretically – with the Cartesian which starts to emerge as an aesthetic construc­ divide removing the animal from man’s originary tion in its own right. narratives surrounding embodiment and exist­ If Agamben articulates the manner in which ence – and then literally, with first the mechan­ the human uses the anthropological machine to isation of animals within agriculture and industry, hold up a mirror to their own image deformed then the replacement of animals with machines, in the features of an ape, John Berger’s 1977 and finally the relegation of the animal to the essay, “Why Look at Animals?” considers the im­ zoo, the childhood toy, the pet or the metaphoric plications of the gaze of the animal on man and image (cf. Berger 12-15). Intriguingly, Berger cites the reduction of animals to the status of image. the reduction of animals to images as the cause

helden. heroes. héros. Tom Chadwick

64 of our modern crisis in the construction of animal Man. Indeed, if heroism, as framed by the re­ and human which is evident in the widespread counting of a survival narrative, is bound up with anxiety over anthropomorphisation – one of the human exceptionalism, then animal heroism be­ principal counts on which Herzog critiques Tim­ comes a misnomer as no animal encountered in othy Treadwell. Contrary to modern scepticism, Treadwell’s footage is able to speak to anything Berger argues that until the nineteenth century, other than its ‘otherness’ from human excep­ anthropomorphism was integral to the relation­ tionalism – as much as the human becomes the ship between man and animal as “an expres­ survivor, the animal is always already the thing sion of their proximity” and that only in the last survived. By the same measure, Treadwell’s two centuries have animals disappeared: “To­ attempts to live in kinship with wild nature are day we live without them,” Berger writes. “And similarly flawed, bound in Agamben’s terms by in this new solitude anthropomorphism makes his inability to see anything other than his own us doubly uneasy” (ibid. 11). Unlike Agamben, human self. For Herzog and Agamben then, the then, Berger laments the loss of the look of the encounter with human and animal can only ar­ animal: ticulate human exceptionalism, and as Herzog himself states at the end of the film, Treadwell’s That look between animal and man, footage is “not so much a look at wild nature as it which may have played a crucial role in is an insight into ourselves, our nature” (Grizzly the development of human society, and with which, in any case, all men had al­ Man 01:40:00). ways lived until less than a century ago, The place of the animal in the thinking of has been extinguished. Looking at each Agamben and Berger, then, makes the notion animal, the unaccompanied zoo visitor is of animal heroes problematic. Firstly, following alone. (ibid. 28) Agamben, the animal other is bound up with a devoutly human exceptionalism. Secondly, Berger’s extrapolation of the reduction of ani­ in line with Berger’s argument, the animal has mals to images has implications for the notion been relegated to the status of an image. Yet, of survival and the examination of heroism that by following the line of argument introduced by this essay explores. If we read Agamben’s no­ Berger, namely that modernity and more specif­- tion that the animal provides the ‘other’ by which ically capitalism, have estranged the human from human exceptionalism is reflected through Berg­ their proximity with animals, reducing their rela­ er’s analysis of the animal’s reduction to image, tion to the metaphoric and image-based encoun­ then that animal ‘other’ becomes less a reflec­ ters found in public zoos and children’s toys, it tion of lived reality and more of an aesthetic con­ is possible to look for alternative ways of formu­ struction in itself. lating Treadwell’s time in Alaska, a reformulation At this point it is worth reflecting on the in which, as Stefan Mattessich contends, Tread­ fictional quality of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson well’s desire to “become a bear” brings the “op­ Crusoe. Returning to the argument made earlier erative principles of the anthropological machine that Crusoe’s survival on the island can be to a breaking point” (Mattessich 54), and where read as formative for the relationship between a concept of animal heroes may yet be pos­sible surviva­l, heroism and human exceptionalism, or even necessary. Before considering this re­ Berger’s insistence that with modernity the an­ formulation in detail, however, it is necessary to imal other has been reduced to the status of an first look at the manner in which the impact of image is a timely reminder that Defoe’s text is humans on nature has reframed the very terms itself a fictional construction. As such, the ‘sur­ of the heroic survival narrative itself. vival narrative’ is also a fictional narrative, and just as the animal other has been reduced to the status of an image, heroism in turn has arguably become an aesthetic act: Within the survival The survival narrative re-framed narrative, heroism is a construction based on an encounter with an image of the animal “other”. Central to John Berger’s argument is the no­ Irrespective of whether or not heroism should tion that the relationship between humans and be read as a purely aesthetic act, the reduction animals has not remained static but has rather of animals to images and the loss of human–ani- shifted with modernity. In our present moment, mal proximity more generally are accompanied however, it has shifted still further as the im­ by a human–animal relation in which an encoun­ pact of Anthropogenic climate change becomes ter with the animal other serves primarily to sup­ more and more apparent. This in turn, as will be port the construction of a bounded, individual argued here, has shifted the terms of the survival subject. In that sense, and in line with Agamben’s narrative and challenged the framework of hero­ optical machine, there is no heroism in Grizzly ism encoded within it.

helden. heroes. héros. Animal Survival and Inter-Species Heroism in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man

The impact of human activity on the natural 1) The hostile nature that the hero (human or 65 world is arguably a result of the same human ex­ ani­mal) must ‘survive’ is now a hostility produced ceptionalism that has been identified within the not solely by an indifferent nature but also by heroic survival narrative in the first part of this man himself. essay. It is man’s own heroic mastery of nature 2) It is the bodily or ‘animal’ aspect of man’s ex­ that has led to the eradication of super-preda­ istence that is ultimately threatened by climate tors, the blanketing of the planet in maps, com­ change. munication networks and defence systems, as 3) Climate change forces man to think not only well as the sanitization of wilderness into national at the level of species survival but also to think of parks and wild animals into zoos, children’s toys, how any notion of species survival may be deter­ metaphors and images. The hostility that Crusoe mined and defined. found on the island populated by wild beasts In the era of Anthropogenic climate change, ani­ and an inclement nature, has been – in line with mal heroes start to emerge both in the sense that Crusoe’s own efforts – tamed; and the natural it is animals who are now struggling to survive hostility that man once fought on a daily basis is the impact of man and in the sense that it is the now actively preserved in an effort to maintain bodily – or animal – future of man which is now its formative role, even if, as Berger has pointed threatened. In these terms, the survival narra­ out, that preservation has seen man and animal tive looks quite different; today the factories and lose their proximity. At the same time, however, fossil fuel consumption on Crusoe’s island mean human exceptionalism has gone too far in the that it is the flora and fauna of the island that sense that anthropogenic climate change has are struggling to survive; at the same time, rising led to an environment whose inhospitality is the sea levels confront Crusoe with the possibility of direct result of human as opposed to non-human his own extinction. In short, if heroism was pre­ actions. This has led geologists to argue that viously bound up with human exceptionalism, the impact of human activity on the environment post-Anthropocene heroism will have to operate is now so great that it would be readable in the outside human exceptionalism: and whereas future archive of the earth’s stratigraphic devel­ heroism was previously closed off to animals by opment (cf. Lewis/Maslin 171-180). Since its pu­ survival narratives that support human excep­ tative inception, this new epoch of the Anthropo­ tionalism, in the epoch of Anthropogenic climate cene has been rapidly adopted outside geology change, survival on any level (animal or human) as a key marker for certain tensions surrounding will require animal heroes. both the environment and human exceptional­ In light of these shifts, the second half of this ism. As Kate Marshall has commented, there are essay asks what these animal heroes might look two sides of the desire encoded in the concep­ like. To do so, it offers an alternative reading of tual apparatus of the Anthropocene: on the one Grizzly Man that relocates heroism in Treadwell’s hand, there is a “kind of ultimate egocentrism or time “living with” the grizzly bears, consider­ing anthropocentrism”; on the other hand, there is how beneath the shared prefix of ‘grizzly’, the the encounter with “what would seem like a rad­ film documents the manner in which both man ically non-anthropocentric fantasy of extinction” and bear might return to their proximity and live (Marshall 525). In that sense the Anthropocene in line with Donna Haraway’s notion of compan­ marks both the triumph of human exceptionalism ion species. and, arguably, its final act. Crusoe’s heroic mas­ tery of the wild nature on his desert island starts to look decidedly less heroic. Taking on the implications for human ex­ Grizzly bear, grizzly man: Compan- ceptionalism directly, Dipesh Chakrabarty has ion species in Katmai National Park argued that the Anthropocene marks the col­ lapse of the humanist distinctions between Despite Herzog’s own insistence that Tread­ human and global history, qualifies human his­ well fundamentally misunderstood the division tories of modernity and globalisation, and forces between humans and animal nature, there is, humans to consider themselves and their sur­ on closer reading, evidence within Grizzly Man vival at the level of the species (cf. Chakrabarty for an alternative form of cohabitation and thus 201-213). In addition to the shifting perspec­ for what an animal heroism might look like. At tive on human exceptionalism, Chakrabarty’s one point during the film, Treadwell films an en­ approach indicates the implications of man’s counter with a bear called The Grinch. Treadwell shifting relation to nature for the heroic survival stands before a running river dressed in black narrative. This essay considers there to be three while the bear stoops over a bloodied carcass specific implications for the heroic survival nar­ on a rock behind him. Treadwell introduces the rative: Grinch as one of the “key role players” in that helden. heroes. héros. Tom Chadwick

66 summer’s expedition, but as he speaks the bear percent made up of “genomes of bacteria, fungi, stops eating and starts to approach. Finding the protists, and such, some of which are hitching bear behind him, with its shoulders hunched and a ride and doing the rest of me, of us, no harm” its eyes on his back, Treadwell turns and, in a (Haraway 3-4). From this bodily disruption of the high-pitched voice very different from the calm notion of man’s singular embodiment, Haraway informative tone he uses to camera, says, “Oh, argues that the human form is always figured hi Grinch” (Grizzly Man 00:16:30). As the bear amidst multiple companion species and that advances, Treadwell alternates between high- “[t]o be one is always to become with many” pitched introductions to the bear and informative (ibid. 4, emphasis in original). Crucially, in re­ segments to camera. The bear, he explains, has lation to Treadwell’s encounter with the bear “kind of an aggressive attitude” and he notes sketched above, the relationship of “becoming that “if I turn around too much she’ll bite me” with” is both imperfect and ongoing. Just as (Grizzly Man 00.17.00). The bear, however, con­ Treadwell is forced to shout at the bear when tinues to approach and Treadwell is forced to it appeared to attack him, there will be times aim a punch at the bear’s face, and, in a deeper, when companion species appear to threaten growling voice, to demand, “Don’t you do that” us. What both Haraway’s theory and Treadwell’s (Grizzly Man 00:17:15). The bear does as Tread­ albeit unusual cohabitation in Katmai National well asks and backs off. At this point, however, Park draw attention to, however, is that our on­ rather than collecting his equipment and retreat­ going survival is not a singular Hobbesian war ing, or even returning to summarise the scene between bound subjects, but rather a per­sistent to camera, Treadwell’s interest is solely taken and unavoidable encounter, or, as Haraway puts up by the bear. Returning to the high-pitched it, “cat’s cradle games in which those who are tone with which he first introduced himself to the to be in the world are constituted­ in intra- and Grinch, he stoops into a submissive position and interaction” (ibid. 4). Haraway’s notion of com­ attempts to console the bear: “It’s okay,” he says. panion species also serves to reframe notions of “I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I’m human exceptionalism as found within the hero­ sorry” (Grizzly Man 00:17:30). ic survival narrative, as it disrupts both the tem- This scene indicates some of the ways in poral frame in which the heroic actor encounters, which Treadwell’s experience in Alaska subverts survives and relates their survival in wild nature, the traditional terms of the survival narrative, in­ and the culturally received notion of human ex­ dicating the manner in which alternative forms of ceptionalism. Haraway’s work draws attention to animal heroism might yet be constructed. Having the fact that if – as Agamben and others have been forced to defend himself, Treadwell’s next argued – becoming human requires some for­ concern is to reassure the bear of his ongoing mulation of the animal – then to become human affection, and the repeated declaration of love is to rely on that companion who allows such a speaks to a relationship where cohabitation and becoming: “Thus,” Haraway contends, “to be a survival is framed not at the level of the individ­ human is to be on the opposite side of the Great ual encounter, but rather in a longer and ongoing Divide from all the others and so to be afraid of encounter where both Treadwell and bear live in – and in bloody love with – what goes bump in proximity. the night.” (ibid. 11) Yet, unlike Agamben with his It is this ongoing, proximate living that can predominantly negative formulation, Haraway be read in line with Donna Haraway’s notion sees a more positive future for humanity’s rela­ of companion species. Haraway’s work has al­ tion to others particularly if less rigid and more ways focused on the liminal spaces between the creative encounters are theorised: human and the non-human, be that through the process of machines and cyborgs, the develop­ There is no teleological warrant here, no assured happy or unhappy ending, so­ ment of alternative subject positions, or the en­ cially, ecologically, or scientifically. There gagement with simian and animal others (cf. is only the chance for getting on together Haraway 1990). It is in her 2008 work When with some grace. The Great Divide of ani­ Species Meet that she puts forward the particu­ mal/human, nature/culture, organic/tech­ lar notion of companion species. Here Hara­way nical, and wild/domestic flatten into mun­ indicates a more positive and also more literal dane differences […] rather than rising to path through the zone of indistinction theorised sublime and final ends. (ibid. 15) by Agamben, in which the animal ‘other’ is dir­ ectly implicated not just in any process of be­ It is in relation to the reformulation of the sur­ coming human but also in the state of being vival narrative forced by Anthropogenic climate bodily alive as a human being. Haraway notes change that Haraway’s imperfect and ongo­ that the human body contains only 10 percent ing framework is most relevant. In particular, that could be called “my body” with the other 90 Hara­way’s formulation both demonstrates the tem­poral disruption the survival narrative must

helden. heroes. héros. Animal Survival and Inter-Species Heroism in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man endure as well as indicating the future terms on singular event-based account that emerged from 67 which survival both human and animal might be Herzog’s more traditional intervention. This final predicated. If the heroic survival narrative of hu­ point is of particular significance in relation to the man exceptionalism was temporally bound by survival narrative drawn from Defoe’s Robinson first an encounter with wild nature, second the Crusoe. Where Crusoe’s heroism is temporally survival and thirdly the telling of the survival bound in the passage from event to survival to tale on return, both Haraway’s theory and Tread­ narrative, Treadwell deliberately opens up an well’s experience indicate a survival that is not open-ended and ongoing process of “becoming temporally bound to a specific survival event, with” through his collection of footage, a process but rather stretched across longer narratives of that it only concluded and brought back into the inter-species living. This temporal reformulation temporal framework of the traditional survival has significant implications for the relationship narrative by Herzog himself. between survival and the account of that sur­ While the bear biologist interviewed by Herzog in vival in the sense that the telling can no longer the film contends that Treadwell “tended to want occur after the event of survival but rather must to become a bear” (Grizzly Man 00:27:30), there be positioned within the survival encounter as is scant actual evidence to suggest that Tread­ part of an ongoing account. As Haraway ex­ well actually wanted to become a grizzly or was plains, the idea of companion species refers to unaware of the differences between himself and the discourse and play through which the “be­ other species. This is most immediately evident coming with” is made possible. Thus, heroism in Treadwell’s appearance. His bleached blonde might take the form not of antagonism but of hair, wrap-around sunglasses, bandanas and inter­relation, which, it will be argued here, is one baggy clothing have more in common with Cali­ way in which Timothy Treadwell’s time in Alaska fornia Surf Culture than with the bears’ existence can be read. in Katmai National Park. Treadwell also appears The notion of discourse and play has signifi­ to be under no illusions as to the different meas­ cant implications for the principal charge levelled ures he must take as a human in order to live at Treadwell by Herzog and others, namely his in the inhospitable conditions of Katmai Nation­ sentimentalisation of nature and anthropomor­ al Park. He never spent his winters in Alaska, phisation of the bears. In line with Berger’s per­ seeking to hibernate in California rather than spective that anthropomorphisation is only con­ in the hills with the bears. Even when he was sidered a problem within a modernity estranged camped in Alaska, Treadwell took human pre­ from animals, Haraway’s theory of companion cautions, keeping his food in a secure container species emphatically allows for the heritage of and sleeping in a tent. In that sense, Treadwell’s humanist discourse, which is included within the day-to-day existence during his summers in Kat­ “play of companion species learning to pay at­ mai National Park demonstrates no attempt to tention” (Haraway 19). As Haraway explains: live as a bear, but rather his concerted, and in some sense extreme, efforts to document the Not much is excluded from the needed bears’ grizzly existence alongside his own very play, not teleologies, commerce, organ­ human habitation. isms, landscape, people, practices, I am not a posthumanist; I am who I become The second element that Herzog suggests with companion species, who and which speaks of Treadwell’s inability to conceptualise make a mess out of the categories in mak­ his difference from the bears is the portrayal of ing of kin and kind. (ibid.) his intimacy and affection towards them. From the opening scene in which Treadwell blows the When read as an ongoing, imperfect “becom­ bears kisses onwards, the film is littered with ing with”, Treadwell’s ten summers living with both physical and vocal statements of affection. the grizzly bears in Katmai National Park begin Yet, Treadwell’s deep-seated affection for the to indicate the possibilities of Haraway’s notion bears and the joy he experiences from living in of companion species, as well as suggesting proximity to them do not appear to prevent his means by which heroic survival, both human keen sense of their potentially life-threatening and animal, might be framed beyond received difference. In fact, in some instances, Tread­ notions of human exceptionalism. Central to this well’s affection for the animals serves to remind argument are three points about Treadwell’s him of his otherness. Following a fight, Treadwell time in Alaska: first, he never attempted to be­ introduces two bears he calls Mickey and Ser­ come a bear and remained fully aware of his dif­ geant Brown, who, as he explains, were fighting ference; secondly, he was determined to live in over the right to court Saturn the Queen of the an on-­going relationship of cohabitation based Grizzly Sanctuary. Treadwell clearly identifies on affection; and thirdly, he persisted in his ef­ with the bears in their act of aggression over forts to produce an ongoing account of the play a love interest, and he particularly empathises between him and the bears, as opposed to the helden. heroes. héros. Tom Chadwick

68 with the underdog Mickey: “Mickey, I’ve been changes to his appearance. As Treadwell ex­ down that street. You don’t always get the chick plains: “The basic deal is that this stuff could be you want.” (Grizzly Man 00:57:00) Yet while cut into a show later on, but who knows what look he outlines the parallels between the two spe­ I had” (Grizzly Man 00:39:30). For Treadwell, cies’ pursuit of sexual gratification, he is also then, the multiple takes allow for a future film, in plainly aware of their difference. At the end which multiple versions of his story can be cut in of the scene, he tells Mickey that he is going multiple ways, right down to the continu­ity of his to see Saturn but that Mickey has no need to clothing. Herzog interprets the multiple futures be jealous: “I’m cool,” Treadwell says, “I’m re­ found in Treadwell’s footage as evidence of his spectful. Things are bad for me with the human methodical film-making and relates it to his life- women, but not so bad that I’ve got to be hitting long practice of constructing his identity. Her­ on bears yet” (Grizzly Man 00:58:30). Treadwell’s zog’s pyschologising of Treadwell’s narrative is declarations of affection then, while undeniably not without its validity. Yet when Treadwell’s own anthropomorphising the bears and drawing them film project is distinguished from Herzog’s fin­ into sentimental human frameworks, do not ne­ ished film, it is possible to see how what Herzog cessarily have to stand as evidence for Tread­ portrays as an account of Treadwell’s estrange­ well’s confusion of human–ani­mal distinctions. ment from nature can equally be read as a Rather, they can be read in Haraway’s terms of dormant collection of his time living with the “becoming with”, as declar­ations of indirect kin­ bears in Alaska. In short, before Herzog cut the ship and community that takes into account that footage into a film, Treadwell’s archive simply their ongoing habitation will require them to live documented the imperfect and ongoing com­ alongside one another. In these terms, heroism panionship between two species. is not the result of a singular, individual encoun­ In a telling scene, Treadwell attempts to close ter, but rather a longer and more diverse process out his year in the park with a long monologue of “becoming with” that makes space for the to camera, but finds himself unable to complete ebb and flow of individual lives within a broader the take as he would like. The scene breaks heroic environment. down into a rant against the park service, who Finally, Treadwell’s documentation of his ten have helped him in the past, but whom he now summers on film can be aligned with Haraway’s believes to have abandoned him. As Treadwell insistence that the notion of companion species launches into an expletive-laden diatribe, Her­ is a relation between beings that is both “on-go­ zog interjects: “Now Treadwell crosses a line ing” and “imperfect,” as “the play of companion in dealing with the park service that we will not species learning to pay attention” (Haraway 19). cross.” (Grizzly Man 01:24:00). Yet, in the fol­ Significant here is the manner in which Tread­ lowing take, having vented his rage at the park well’s documentation method is markedly dif­ service, Treadwell speaks calmly and closes his ferent from the event-based record of Robinson year without any mention of the park service or Crusoe; where Crusoe’s narrative was temporal­ display of anger. Despite its benevolent inten­ ly bound, Treadwell’s is open-ended and ongo­ tion, Herzog’s intervention, then, rather than pro­ ing, only completed after his death by the efforts tecting the viewer from Treadwell’s rage, actually of Herzog himself. forecloses Treadwell’s ongoing account and, in Treadwell’s desire for an ongoing relation­ line with the traditional survival narrative, reduc­ ship can already be seen in his behaviour to­ es it to a temporally bound event. This reduction, wards Grinch, in which having shouted at the in turn, denies Treadwell the opportunity to ex­ bear to ensure his survival, he then apologises hibit the imperfect moments that Haraway sees and seeks assurances that the two can enjoy a as central to the process of living with, the mo­ relationship beyond the confines of a singular ments of reduction and anger that if viewed in instance of survival. In addition to this, Tread­ isolation can appear as a failure, but if viewed as well’s film-making produces a more structural part of an ongoing companionship can still form insistence upon relationships that are ongoing part of a success. In the same way, Treadwell’s and open-ended. Herzog was keen to compli­ relation to the bears and wild nature can be read ment Treadwell as a filmmaker, insisting that for as constituting an ongoing and imperfect co­ Treadwell the camera was a “tool” and highlight­ habitation. The notion that an ongoing process ing the methodical aspects of his filmmaking. In of cohabitation amounts to heroism is, of course, one scene, Treadwell tells the camera that he’s very different from the traditional notion of hero­ going to shoot a number of different takes that ism encapsulated by the survival narrative. Yet, he calls “wild Timmy jungle scenes” (Grizzly it is precisely this stark difference and Tread­ Man 00:38:00). In these takes, Treadwell films well’s ongoing attempts to construct a distinct, himself walking numerous times down the same affectionate and ongoing relationship with the small tree-lined bank, each time making subtle wild bears that Werner Herzog finds so perplex­ ing, drawing Treadwell’s narrative – and found

helden. heroes. héros. Animal Survival and Inter-Species Heroism in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man footage – into a more traditional framework that he argues, be they films or art more generally, 69 presents him as a failed hero, unable to survive “change our perspective on things” and it is the wild nature through his misjudgement of it. For metaphorical and ecstatic truth offered by pro­ Herzog, Treadwell’s behaviour exhibits a dan­ spective-shifting images that, for Herzog, both gerous sentimentality; in conclusion, however, defines art and singles out the exceptionalism of this essay will argue that it is in fact Herzog who man (ibid. 8). is in danger of being the more sentimental. For Herzog, though, such “ecstatic truth” as opposed to “factual truth” or “accountant’s truth” is not the product of a collective effort but rather the singular effort of the individual (Cronin 65). Herzog’s sentimental nature and One only has to briefly glance at Herzog’s own grizzly heroism filmography to see how his insistence on indi­ vidual heroism is premised on an inhospitable Herzog’s film dramatises Treadwell’s overly sen­ nature itself formative for human exceptionalism. timental view of nature, with Herzog’s curt narra­ Herzog even makes this point directly in Burden tion meticulously detailing how Treadwell’s naïve of Dreams, Les Blank’s documentary following and sentimental perspective saw him draw the the production of Herzog’s 1982 filmFitzcarraldo : grizzly bears into anthropomorphised positions that they simply, and tragically for Treadwell, did Of course there is a lot of misery, but it is not occupy. In that sense, Herzog’s film presents the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery and the birds are itself almost as a lament for Treadwell’s failed in misery. I don’t think they sing, they just survival, praising his abilities as a film-maker screech in pain. (Garrard 48) and bemoaning his sentimentalised and ultim­ ately fatal perspective on nature. In Herzog’s In line with Berger’s perspective on animals in terms, then, there is little heroism to be found in modernity, heroism for Herzog is a fundamen­ Grizzly Man on the part of Treadwell, let alone tall­y aesthetic act, produced by an individual in the grizzly bears. the face of nature’s bitter indifference. This view This essay, however, has sought to exam­ of nature has been identified in Herzog’s oeuvre ine what heroism might look like beyond the by Greg Garrard. Garrard writes of Herzog’s pre­ framework of human exceptionalism. It first con­ occupation with “disanthropic moments” in which sidered the manner in which heroism is bound nature is exhibited in its indifference to mankind up with human exceptionalism through the sur­ who, in turn, is reminded of the perils of over­ vival narrative, before arguing that in the epoch ly sentimentalising it (Garrard 48). Herzog does of the Anthropocene, human exceptionalism has not have contempt for nature, indeed much of become problematic and that we in fact require his filmography is dedicated to bringing nature’s animal heroes if humans and animals are to sur­ ecstatic beauty to bear, but for Herzog “the cold­ vive. With this in mind, this essay turned to Don­ ness and cruelty of nature help us recall that we na Haraway’s notion of companion species to are marooned in an obdurate universe” (Prager reread Treadwell’s time in Alaska as an ongoing 13). What Herzog’s perspective fails to account encounter with wild nature and thus constituting for is first the shifting terms of the human relation­ a new form of animal heroism. Rather than join­ ship to nature as nature’s hostility becomes the ing in with the lament for Treadwell’s failed sur­ product of human as well as non-human actions; vival, this essay argues that Grizzly Man might and, secondly, the role of images in constructing be better understood as Herzog’s own lament nature as inherently other. For all its determin­ for older forms of heroism based on human ex­ ation to uncover Treadwell’s sentimental view of ceptionalism in which heroes are constructed nature, then, Grizzly Man exhibits Herzog’s own through their individual survival of an encounter sentimentality for a black and white relationship with wild nature. As it is, Herzog’s film occludes between man and nature, human and animal. Treadwell’s efforts to construct alternative and As such, Treadwell’s narrative and the film ongoing relations with wild nature. arch­ive of his attempts to live and document his Central to the alternative notion of animal her­ time with the bears become bound up with Her­ oism put forward here is the notion of survival at zog’s own perspective, a perspective which is, in the level of species. In a short documentary film turn, formative for his own artistic project. What’s entitled Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, Herzog more, Herzog’s own insistence on Treadwell’s states that we are all going to “die out like dino­ failures and the insertion of his opinion directly saurs” if we do not develop adequate images into the film’s narrative obstruct the possibility (Prager 8). For Herzog, then, the survival of the of viewing Treadwell and his time with the bears species is intimately bound up with aesthetic art otherwise. As Timothy Morton has put it: “A fate and its production of an ecstatic truth. Images, worse than being eaten alive by wild bears in

helden. heroes. héros. Tom Chadwick

70 Alaska could well be Herzog making a docu­ Morton, Timothy. The Ecological Thought. Cambridge: Har­ mentary about you” (Morton 75). It is wise not to vard UP, 2010. overstate Treadwell’s relationship with the bears, Prager, Brad. “Werner Herzog’s Companions: The Consola­ especially when we cannot know the perspec­ tion of Images.” A Companion to Werner Herzog. Ed. Brad Prager. London: Blackwell, 2012: 1-32. tives that Treadwell himself carried during his Sheehan, Paul. “Against the Image: Herzog and the time in Katmai National Park. Herzog’s actions, Troubling Politics of the Screen Animal.” SubStance 37.3 however, his sentimental lament for the lost (2008): 117-136. heroism of human exceptionalism and the man­ ner in which he draws Treadwell’s disparate footage into a singular event-based film, can be said to occlude a new form of heroism beyond human exceptionalism: a defiantly animal hero­ ism. Tom Chadwick is a PhD researcher in the lit­ erature department at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where he works under the supervi­ sion of Prof. Pieter Vermeulen. His research focuses on contemporary American literature and culture. His thesis uses the theoretical concept of archive as a methodological lens through which to explore the implications of the Anthropocene for contemporary fiction.

Works Cited

Abbot, Matthew. “The Problem of Wild Minds: Knowing Ani­ mals in Grizzly Man and Ming of Harlem.” SubStance 45.3 (2016): 137-154. Agamben, Giorgio. The Open: Man and Animal. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2004. Berger, John. “Why Look at Animals?” About Looking. Ed. John Berger. London: Bloomsbury, 1980: 3-28. Burden of Dreams. Dir. Les Blank. Arthaus, 1982. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “The Climate of History: Four Theses.” Critical Inquiry 35.2 (Winter, 2009): 197-222. Corrigan, Timothy. The Essay Film: From Montaigne, After Marker. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. Cronin, Paul. Werner Herzog – A Guide for the Perplexed: Conversations with Paul Cronin. London: Faber & Faber, 2014. Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. London: Penguin, 2001 (first published 1719). Grizzly Man. Dir. Werner Herzog. Lions Gate Entertainment, 2005. Garrard, Greg. “Worlds Without Us: Some Types of Dis­ anthropy.” SubStance 41.1 (2012): 40-60. Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Re­ invention of Nature. London: Routledge, 1990. Haraway, Donna. When Species Meet. Minneapolis and London: U of Minnesota P, 2008. Lewis, Simon L. and Mark A. Maslin. “Defining the Anthropo­ cene.” nature. International Journal of Science 519 (2015): 171-180. DOI 10.1038/nature14258. Marshall, Kate. “What Are the Novels of the Anthropocene? American Fiction in Geological Time.” American Literar His­ tory 27.3 (2015): 523-538. Mattessich, Stefan. “An Anguished Self-Subjection: Man and Animal in Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man.” English Studies in Canada 39.1 (2013): 51-70.

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