Starting to watch Grizzly Man, I questioned myself as to how this movie might tie into the concepts of manipulation and of lying as we’ve talked about in class all semester. Nothing was dawning on me until I realized that I was absentmindedly scratching my lower arms and the back of my neck. For some reason, I felt incredibly itchy.
Then I noticed the buzzing in the background. In a lot of the interviews of the pilot who found Grizzly Man’s body, there was a swarm of gnats all around him. The gnats reminded me of a pond that I spend a lot of time at in the summer. I spend a lot of time there towards the end of the day when the bugs came out, and the noise of the bugs buzzing subconsciously made my arms start to itch. This unintentional manipulation made me start thinking about the other things that movies can force you to do without being obvious about it. The music in horror movies, for one, apparently make them three times scarier. The bugs made me uncomfortable and skewed my entire I just found it very interesting that such a small thing, maybe even something that the producers of the movie were unable to control, had such a significant effect on my view of the movie.
I also was affected by the presence of the bugs, though I felt more uncomfortable and overwhelmed by the large amount of flies than reminded of any specific memories. It seemed to me that the bugs supported Herzog's idea that nature is hostile and uninviting. I like the example of music in horror movies. Sometimes, for example, the music can be used in order to mislead the audience. There are certain patterns and sounds in music that we as an audience normally recognize as leading into a scary scene, for example, establishing a sense of tension. Whether or not this suspense leads to something, the music itself acts as a signal for the audience to pay attention. I wonder what other cues exist in novels and movies in order to make sure the audience is listening attentively?
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