The man who knows everything about the man he never knew

It is difficult to determine exactly who Timothy Treadwell was through the lens we are presented with. Werner Herzog, in the NPR interview introduces Treadwell as a man with many demons, which included struggles with drugs and alcohol. As we know, Treadwell along with his girlfriend Amie were attacked and killed by a bear in 2003 and the way this interview is approached seems to frame the incident as if it was Tim’s fault, or that he had it coming.  Herzog claims that Treadwell made a mistake in loving the bears rather than respecting him, implying his obsession is what caused him blindness to the danger he was in. He also claims the solitude of his living caused him a sense of paranoia, saying he was in a sense “suicidal”. Herzog makes his views clear and since Treadwell is no longer alive to tell his side of the story, we as the audience only have the word of Herzog to base our opinions. The issue with the way Herzog presents this documentary is that there is very little room for interpretation from the audience since his bias is utterly clear. A documentary should be a factual recollection as best as it possibly can be told and even Herzog says in his interview that because Treadwell is dead, he must respect him and not distort his story. It seems ironic that Herzog says this based on the intensely biased picture he paints of the deceased Timothy Treadwell.