Grizzly Ghost Herzog, Bazin And The Cinematic Animal Analysis

Hannah Kerr
Green Cultural Studies
March 17, 2014

“Grizzly ghost: Herzog, Bazin and the cinematic animal”
By Seung-Hoon Jeong and Dudley Andrew

Overall, Hoon and Dudley’s article “Grizzly ghost: Herzog, Bazin and the cinematic animal” is valuable and interesting. It is written for an audience who has seen The Grizzly Man and is very familiar with its content because there are not many explicit references to specific moments in the film. I appreciate that Hoon and Dudley introduced the text with a few paragraphs that describe the general tone of Herzog’s films and the approach Herzog takes to create his work. This immediately conveyed Hoon and Dudley’s knowledge of Herzog’s films and critiques as well as giving me a general sense of Herzog’s
In western philosophy it is said that animals do not truly die because they are considered too close to death. I do not agree with this. They explain that animals “have neither reason nor language, and so are unable to project an identity”(3). Hoon and Dudley reference Akira Mizuta Lippit’s Electric Animal, which is a source I would be interested in researching. I think the concept that animals lack identity is very compelling because it can easily and equally be supported and contradicted. Continuing with this concept that animals lack subjectivity, Hoon and Dudley explain that “animals do not die as humans do; they simply expire and perdure through their species” (3). Hoon and Dudley state that Grizzly Man shocked “us into reappraising life and death” (3). I think their argument gets a little contradictory when they describe how Herzog is interesting in the viewer understanding the unknown through exposure, but then move on to say that death cannot be represented. I found the statement that “cinema symbolizes, civilizes, and effectively defers death” (3) to be more
While I think their observations of Treadwell’s behavior are useful and accurate, I do not fully agree with their argument that he is “becoming animal”. They highlight the contrast between Treadwell’s excessive discourse, which is full of “childess rage”(6) and “Herzog’s measured narration”(7). They continue this comparison between the film styles and explain how Treadwell’s uncontrollable footage of the outside is logged inside Herzog’s careful documentary film. I appreciated their idea that by incorporating Treadwell’s copious video footage, Herzog is attempting to “follow Treadwell beyond the human and beyond representation”(8). It is how Herzog takes trivial material into the “sublime realm”