A BURDEN TO BEAR WERNER HERZOG EXPLORES THE TENUOUS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMANS AND NATURE IN 'GRIZZLY MAN'.

Byline: Fred Shuster Staff Writer

Werner Herzog once said civilization ``is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.'' An apt description of one of many themes weaved throughout the acclaimed German director's spellbinding new documentary, ``Grizzly Man.''

The film explores the life and gruesome death of amateur grizzly bear expert and self-styled wildlife preservationist Timothy Treadwell. A cautionary tale and adventure story about man's relationship to nature, ``Grizzly Man'' follows Treadwell's journeys to Alaska, where he lived, unarmed, among the bears for 13 summers and even had cute pet names for the beasts, which can weigh 1,200 pounds, loom as large as a Hummer and outrun a racehorse.

Naturally, there's a Valley connection. A former cocaine addict and alcoholic who had several run-ins with the law and a near-fatal overdose, Treadwell lived for three years in the mid-'80s on Whitsett Street in Sherman Oaks. His luck with bears ran out in autumn 2003 when he and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were attacked, killed and eaten just days before they were due to fly back to Los Angeles, where the two shared a Malibu apartment and Huguenard was about to start a new job as a neurologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

The story of ``Grizzly Man'' recalls Jon Krakauer's true-life tales ``Into Thin Air'' and ``Into the Wild,'' with Herzog fashioning added pathos by drawing from 80 hours of video footage shot by Treadwell himself.

The Munich-born, Los Angeles-based Herzog - who has produced, written and directed more than 40 films (including ``Aguirre, The Wrath of God'' and ``Fitzcarraldo''), published more than a dozen books of prose and directed as many operas - has studied hubris bordering on madness before, most famously in 1982's ``Fitzcarraldo,'' in which Klaus Kinski portrayed an obsessed opera lover who wants to build an opera house in the jungle.

But that was drama. Treadwell's tale, which seems like an extended installment of the Darwin Report, is tragically true, and chillingly documented. Alongside the remains of Treadwell, 46, and Huguenard, 37, a six-minute audio-only tape of the attack was discovered at Katmai National Park and Preserve on the Alaska Peninsula. Huguenard had apparently triggered the camcorder thinking she was going to document another benign bear adventure starring Treadwell, who was known for approaching, touching and petting the wild animals. (Ironically, Treadwell's death caused two grizzlies to be killed by park rangers.)

The death tape isn't heard in the documentary, but Herzog - who eloquently narrates the film in his distinctive German-accented English - is shown in a side view reacting emotionally as he listens to it through headphones.

We met with the erudite 62-year-old director just before he flew to Thailand, where he's in preproduction on ``Rescue Dawn,'' an action-adventure film about fighter pilots struggling to survive in the jungles of Vietnam. Along with ``Grizzly Man,'' Herzog has completed two other documentaries. ``The White Diamond'' deals with a whimsical attempt to explore the rain forest canopy in a helium-filled flying machine and ``The Wild Blue Yonder'' explores the spiritual quest to India's holy Bodhi Tree (not the West Hollywood bookstore).

Q: Did Treadwell have a death wish?

A: He wants to survive but there's something ambivalent about it. He was reckless. He had a history of drugs and alcohol abuse, but he pulled himself out of it, and that should be seen as an achievement. The bears actually saved him. They gave him a life and he says so in the film.

Q: They also took his life. If you had permission, would you have used the death tape in the film?

A: Of course not. I'm not doing a snuff movie and secondly, there's such a thing as the dignity and privacy of your own death. So, you don't touch that.

Q: Very little is revealed of Huguenard. Why did she turn on the video camera while Treadwell was being mauled?

A: This much is clear - the camera was found switched on, lens cap on, on the floor of the crushed tent. What you hear on the tape, you can tell she must have switched it on. She must have grabbed the camera because you hear Treadwell screaming in the distance. She must have dropped the camera because the attack must have been so sudden, so violent, that she dropped the camera without removing the lens cap, left it in the tent, and went to try and defend Treadwell. The remarkable thing is she stood by his side and tried to defend him when Treadwell himself is heard telling her to run away.

Q: What brought you to the story?

A: I instantly knew there was something big. These kinds of characters kind of find me. In a way, Treadwell stumbled across me (after his death). His story gives us some insight into our human condition, and he left us with some incredible footage. We compliment each other very well. I think he needed someone to give form, coherence and style to his material.

Q: Treadwell was a self-made eco-warrior, defending the bears from imaginary enemies, wasn't he? I mean, Katmai park and preserve is a federally protected wilderness. Nobody was going to come build a shopping mall there. There were no poachers.

A: No, and of course, you have to ask another reasonable question - can you defend a brown bear, 1,000 pounds heavy, fast like a horse, able to travel 200 kilometers in 24 hours, able to drag a huge moose up a steep slope alone? Do you defend a bear of that size and that power by standing three feet away from him? But I have no doubt Treadwell imagined himself on a very big mission. He believed deeply in his own fiction.

Q: Was Treadwell somehow heroic?

A: You have to decide, depending on your own background and personal relationship with wild nature. My attitude has always been the nonromantic, nonsentimentalized, nonbenign, non-Disney take.

Fred Shuster, [phone]

fred.shuster(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

photo