Subject: A man who lives among grizzly bears
A good documentary should leave a person more confused than when he or she began the film. To this end, Grizzly Man is a success. Its opening portrayal of Timothy Treadwell as a happy wanderer, or perhaps as a Peter Pan figure in the Alaskan wilds, becomes something different by the end of the film.
Grizzly Man is also an interesting documentary in that most of the footage is not Herzog's - Treadwell recorded over a hundred hours of video that Herzog edited to make into this documentary. Having this much material is like a blank canvas - the editor can make it into whatever he chooses.
I'm considering going to a 'See It/Don't Bother' rating system for documentaries.
how about a 3-term system: don't bother/see it/reality-altering
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