The real Voight-Kampff test of our era is whether you have ever searched “grizzly man death footage” after watching the fascinating but ultimately unsatisfying Grizzly Man. You yourself have looked for it many times, late at night, usually alone. One night — expecting nothing — you find yourself clicking on a new link reading simply “Grizzly Man Dies.” The video loads. At first there is only darkness. Suddenly, a piercing scream fills your small room. Then there is only silence. At last the lights go up and documentarian Werner Herzog appears on your screen, sitting in an old rocking chair. He smiles blandly, then addresses you by your Christian name.
WH: Welcome. I see you have found your way here. So many of you have. May we speak together, for a time? Would you like that?
You: Can you…can you hear me?
WH: I can, yes. If I couldn’t, however, it would hardly matter. Everyone who finds me here has the same things to say.
You: I’m not — look, I’m not happy that he died. I just — if he was going to die, and he did, I mean — Look, if you rent a movie called Grizzly Man about a man who was eaten by grizzly bears, I hardly think it’s unreasonable to expect to see –or hear, as the case may be — a man get eaten by a grizzly bear sometime before the credits.
WH: [Calm, emotionless eye contact]
You [heatedly]: Oh, come right the fuck on. Don’t get all high and fucking mighty with me. You got to hear it. You made us watch you hear it. Like a fucking tease. You sat there, all…all “getting to listen to Grizzly Man footage Werner Herzog” in your precious castle, describing how bad the sounds of a man getting eaten by a bear are but not letting us listen to a man getting eaten by a bear.
WH: [Gentle silence]
You: Oh, go right ahead and strictly fuck yourself. I know it’s a bad idea. I know I’d have regretted watching it the second it started. I know it would give me nightmares and I’d develop a new sympathy for Timothy Treadwell. I know he’s a real person, and so was his girlfriend, and…look, I know. I know I’ll hate myself the second I hit play. I know I’ll regret it quite possibly for the rest of my life. [breaks down sobbing] I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I’m sorry…
WH: I have nothing left to say to you. Should you still wish to hear the audio you came for, a pop-up will appear in the upper-right corner of the screen. Make good choic…
You click the pop-up. In the moment before you hear the noises of two human beings torn asunder by the paws and claws of a wild animal, you see a moue of disdain cross Herzog’s face. The memory of that facial expression remains with you even longer than the exact nature of the sound of teeth scraping curls off the surface of living bone.
Tags: bears, death, grizzly man, magic, the void, werner herzog
Individually bylined, Nicole and Mallory are a delight. TOGETHER THEY ARE PURE EVIL.
Have you missed Mallory’s retellings of childrens’ books? I would not call those delightful. Something else, compelling maybe, but those are not a delight. Oh I must read them, we all must read them, such is the blessing of Mallory, but delightful is not a word I would use for that series…
Haha good grief, I thought I had been hallucinating that whole experience with WH, but I’m really glad I’m not the only one who went ahead and clicked the pop-up.
I cringe and cover my eyes when Michael Scott does something stupid on The Office. No way in hell I could bring myself to watch/listen to that.
Me neither. I did, however, once try to get someone to do a couple’s Halloween costume as Undead Grizzly Man and a bear with a video camera.
Turns out it is hard to rent a bear costume.
Also turns out I am a terrible, terrible person.
I realized just how old and soft I am last week, when I realized I was involuntarily ducking and flinching while watching fight scenes in the new Captain America. So I’m totally with you on never watching/listening to that.
“Yower eppitite for the zouwnd of baones cranching and brayking is as andless ant deehp as the voiyd in yower soal.”
Would it be childish of me to clap and clap and clap and ask for more?
Ze chihken’s stihl dencing; ze chihken waon’t stap.
I can’t even watch those ‘funny accident’ videos cause omg what if they really got hurt those are PEOPLE not, like, moving dummies that get chucked around for my amusement.
Are there really people out there who let their morbid fascination carry them so far as to want hear the horrific death-by-mauling of two people? I don’t want to. It’s different in horror movies, because they are actors.
GIRL. LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF PEOPLE. If you google “grizzly man death footage” you will not find any footage of him dying because it’s not out there, but you will find videos claiming to be it with LITERALLY MILLIONS OF VIEWS.
I think this is one of those things that I will never understand because it is just so different to the way I look at the world. No commonality of experience at all.
I mean, morbid curiosity, I get it. I’ve indulged in it. But all those pictures of dead people that some seem to seek out upset me, and if that footage was really out there, I would never want to hear it.
I’m in your camp. I wonder if it comes down to the way we look at death. I see existence and consciousness and the sheer, visceral tingle of life as such a precious thing, a gift where none was expected, that to even think about its snuffing triggers a mini-existential crisis in me. It’s less that I’m afraid of death than I am just so in awe of life. And yes, this makes me a fairly sensitive soul, and yes it’s a bit embarrassing, but I can’t bring myself to see death as that natural endpoint of life, something to be celebrated or welcomed. But I’m well aware that there are others who see death very differently.
you can definitely see life as a shocking and wonderful gift and still want to hear a dude getting eaten by bears you precious little flower
Yes.
I am kind of a little flower. I think I would not do well during wartime.
why can’t I like this more than once
This reminds me of a video I watched years back. I had no idea what to expect, but it showed a businessman in front of his employees, and to everyone’s surprise he pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head. Relative to many things, it isn’t very gory – he simply falls to the floor like a ragdoll, and blood slowly pools around him.
I have many joyous feelings about life, but each time I remember it, I am glad I watched this video. It showed me in no uncertain terms how fragile human life is. One minute he is standing and speaking to staff, the next he is gone. I think that seeing this transition has helped me towards a better understanding of the human experience and ethics.
Though, the grizzly bear thing does sound much more unpleasant…
Although the particulars of our thoughts-on-death differ, I get you. It’s just in the past two years or so that I’ve started to accept that yes, I am a sensitive person, and no, it is not a character flaw.
Everyone reaches a place where your curiosity to see what happens next intersects with the knowledge that you will never be able to forget when you just saw and heard. I propose it be named the “2 Girls, 1 Cup” point, because ten seconds into that video is precisely where mine occurred.
oh yeah I have never seen even half a second of 2 girls 1 cup and I never ever will
You are better off for it. It added nothing positive to my life, beyond the realization that I would pay big money to scrub the last ten seconds of my mind clean.
I once saw three seconds of it out of the corner of my eye, because my roommate and her boyfriend were watching it. I do not feel that my life has been bettered by this experience.
I saw it. I will watch anything. I am always suspicious when people are all HIS SEARCH HISTORIES REVEAL A DEEP PSYCHOPATHY because mine sure do, and I am just fantastic.
I feel like LASCIVIOUS SEARCH HISTORIES is kind of an underserved clickbait area. Who the hell wouldn’t click on “Paul Ryan’s LASCIVIOUS search history will SHOCK and AMAZE!”
I did not know I wanted to see Paul Ryan’s LASCIVIOUS search history, but now, more than anything, I want to see Paul Ryan’s LASCIVIOUS search history.
For me part of it the A/V component. Like I’m semi-okay with crime scene/ grisly death photos but the sound and/or visuals are what will stick with me (and come to mind at 2am when I’m trying to sleep) so I avoid those.
I was on a date a couple weeks ago, and extreme urban climbing came up, and I said “Of course I don’t WANT anyone to slip and fall, but if they DID, I would want there to be video, and I would DEFINITELY want to see it.”
No second date.
Your date was a fool.
And after you gave him such a sterling idea for what to do for it, too. Some people
NOPE, not watching. Happy to enjoy the bittersweet schadenfreude of reading about naive bear apologists getting eaten by bears, but not watching.
One time my sister made me watch Grizzly Man when The Fifth Element was playing on another channel.
WORST. SISTER. EVER.
Can someone listen to the audio in the Youtube link up there and tell me what it is? I’m scared, but so curious. I don’t want to listen to Timothy Treadwell’s snuff audio, but I want to know if that is Timothy Treadwell’s snuff audio without sullying my ears.
I guess this is why we’re all here, actually.
dude the audio doesn’t exist outside of that one tape and werner told the guy’s mom to destroy it, it has never been leaked onto the internet IF IT HAD I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU ALL ABOUT IT
it’s a picture of a fox and some very vague, very fake “bear sounds” and a dude yelling
like “rrr, rawr,” and then “oh noooo”
OK BUT I still kind of think I might go listen to it and it could be some guy dying. In the Internet Pantheon Mallelis is a trickster god.
I listened to it and it’s not some guy dying.
And would have listened to it and reported back, no doubt. SO WHAT IS THAT LINK YOU POSTED?
TBH I think Werner Herzog was looking out for us all when he told dude’s mom to destroy that tape. He is always looking out for us.
Also, since watching Grizzly Man I have taken to narrating my daily life in the voice of Werner Herzog, which really lends a feeling of gravitas to otherwise mundane chores.
“Zshe takes out die trahsh, not knowingk if die trahsh will someday take zout her.”
When it feels the need to be in character, my internal monologue is usually either Werner or Linda Belcher.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRSe2LODPNg, i don’t think this is the first time this clip has been relevant
I spent most of Girzzly Man laughing at his misfortune because that dude was SO STUPID. #sorrynotsorry
I am an awful person, yes.
It probably doesn’t help that he resembles nobody on earth so much as an even more effete Van Driessen, so entire generations have been conditioned from early on to expect and want to see him getting attacked by bears.
I did too. My friend and I were wise cracking through that whole movie, even though we knew how it ended. I mean, there was some jaw-dropping foolish moments in that movie.
He really was a dingus.
I usually have to change the channel when the medical examiner goes into his lovingly detailed descriptions of the remains. Then I eventually wander back to it, I think. But I definitely will watch up until that part.
Why is there so much coverage for MEN this week?! I thought I was on the toast, not MILQUETOAST!!!!!!
(jk i love you all)
I hope this means it is acceptable to post my favorite thing on the internet, “Werner Herzog Reads Where’s Waldo”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvWh6PMi9Ek
I can say I definitely would not watch the footage, as I’ve resisted seeing the movie entirely. I live a life where bear encounters are not uncommon, and I’m worried that if I watch it I’ll end up freaked out and useless next time I run into one, like some of my coworkers, and then I’ll get eaten.
omg where do you live
When I lived in New Brunswick I lived in a pretty normal area and there were still plenty of times when there were like, Twitter alerts like “Hey, adolescent bear running back and forth alongside the highway near exit whatever, be advised” or “Please be absolutely sure to put your garbage in your bear bins as bears have been spotted at [long string of addresses]” and my dad constantly freaked out about my going on hikes.
I live in a not rural area of the US South and news reports of “bear in Neighborhood” are a fairly regular thing. One of the downsides of local planning commissions deciding a long time ago that paving over every square inch of dirt in sight was detrimental to the environment.
It’s still better than when I lived in FL and we had a panther loose in our neighborhood. Panther! Besides having a fun name to say, panthers are also terrifyingly quiet.
Small-town north-west Canada, and I work in the bush. It’s a neverending funhouse of dangerous wildlife up here.
Is it weird that I was a little disappointed that this comment didn’t end with another “like some of my coworkers”?
It’s a real good movie and the bears are actually astonishingly chill given how this weedy little dude keeps trying to dive down their throats. The horror is entirely of the suffocating existential variety that cannot be escaped no matter what you do or where you run to.
This. I grew up in Anchorage. The first time he made the local news, I shook my head and said, “he’s going to get eaten.” Then several years later, he was. To this day, I can not believe he was not eaten sooner.
Don’t worry, it’s a comedy.
For a second I thought some of your coworkers were bears
I am reviewing a report one of them wrote. I think a bear might have done a better job, even given the slow typing on account of the giant claws.
Oh god, everything about this is so true. It should be noted that I am very sensitive, cannot watch GoT because they murder babies offscreen, watched the video of Neda Soltan getting shot in Iran 5 years ago and am still haunted by the look in her eyes … and would probably listen to this audio if it were publicly available and it would never leave me. So, thanks, Werner Herzog, I guess.
GUYS, QUIT BEING SO PERFECT.
Even knowing that the audio of the fatal attack wasn’t in the film, it took me two tries to watch Grizzly Man past the half-hour mark, and I had to watch alone because I knew I’d be yelping and jumping in dismay and anxiety the entire time.
I mean you know ol’ Werner gets off on the fact that only he’s seen it.
I learned today both what a “Christian name” is and that I don’t have one.
Also, I feel like the name ‘Wernor Herzog’ now just reminds me of bears.
Now I have to go self-loathingly search for it AGAIN…
Someone has it. Why are they holding out on us?
Got a strong “David Foster Wallace short story” feel from this -> which is to say… i really, really liked this.
This post speaks to my very soul. Not gonna lie, I once spent hours looking for that footage, but I’ve also searched for horrible accidents and watched a few beheadings, and for me I think it actually comes down to an intense fear of death: if it’s possible to straight up watch it, see it in all various terrifying forms, maybe it’s less scary?
I definitely feel this way. Plane crashes are way way up there on my list of fears but I have looked at way more plane crash photos than I’d like to admit. I think a big part of “morbid curiosity” also comes down to wanting to be more comfortable with death and destruction, though I guess it’s a privilege not to be comfortable or familiar with it.
I had never thought of Timothy Treadwell’s snuff film prior to this, nor had I ever considered watching it (I’m such a wuss I can barely watch ghost videos on youtube. I DON’T KNOW WHY; I’m just left with this creeping sense of dread, like the ghost will come out of the screen and eat me) and yet, now that this article has raised the possibility . . .
Today I decided that if I were an omnivore of the animal kingdom I would be a bear (my daughters are a lion and wolf- this thought process brought to me by hours of nursing) and I felt pretty smug thinking that bears aren’t that violent and eat mostly berries and the odd fish. Ha Ha, forgot about Grizzly man.
I’d watch it, I don’t give a FUCK. Even with Werner pursing his lips at me. I’d eat Hannibal’s cooking too, I don’t care.
So I actually know someone who had heard it. An aquantince knew a trooper on the Kenai and managed to get a listen. She didn’t go into details except for how the girlfriend sounded on tape. Her description of the wailing was such that I knew I would never want to hear it.
And because the rest of my comment was cut off:
I was so anxious watching Grizzly Man because I really didn’t want to hear the audio. Watching WH react was enough for me.
I have lived in Alaska for more than 10 years and am always surprised by how badly people want to hear about/see bear maulings.
I was always a bit surprised at the glee with which I terrified visiting camping buddies with the “Ways to Die in the Alaskan Wilderness, with Instructive Examples Drawn from the Anchorage Daily News and the Experiences of My Friends and Relations.” High points: moose, bears, hypothermia, moose, mudflats, scared hikers armed for bear, drunk campers armed for bear, moose, hypothermia, bane berries, moose, other large mammals, wild canines, domesticated canines, owners of domesticated canines armed for bear, humans generally, mud slides, free climbing on wet shale, hypothermia.”
DO YOU THINK THEY CAN GET ME A COPY
If I could warp back to the summer of 2004 when I worked with this woman, I would try.
I thought the movie made great use of not showing/playing the bear mauling…but if I knew it was just sitting around online I’d be curious to hear it. Appalled and probably destroyed afterward, but curious. Oh, and thanks for the thread leading me to look up 2 girls one cup and goatse, neither of which I’d heard of. People are bonkers.
I was all set to ridicule this man for his naivety but then I saw in the trailer that he slept with a teddy beat in his tent and I teared up…#adultswhosleepwithstuffedanimals
I was so mad at him throughout the whole thing. SO MAD. I do not understand people who think that they are exceptional and that they aren't going to do or come to any harm.
Bears are gonna bear no matter what. They do not give a single solitary shit about how exceptional anyone thinks they are.
"Bears are gonna bear"
"BEARS ARE GONNA BEAR"
"BEARS ARE GONNA BEAR"
ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Bear Facts. Bearfax? Bearfacks?
Late to this thread but just had to say that I recently saw Miyazaki’s “The Wind Rises” and didn’t realize until the credits rolled that the mysterious German prophet of doom character with the unsettling spinning eyeballs was voiced by Werner effing Herzog. That’s all.
And then, missing the point and misunderstanding irony in a spectacular and mind-blowing way, they keep pointing out that it's so IRONIC that she was AFRAID OF BEARS.