Grizzly Man

by Mark Deming Filmmaker Werner Herzog commissioned legendary guitarist Richard Thompson to compose and perform the musical score for his documentary Grizzly Man, about the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, a man who fled society to live among the grizzly bears in the Alaskan wilderness. In the manner of Thompson's previous film scores, the Grizzly Man album is longer on atmosphere than on songcraft; anyone expecting the British folk-derived melodies of Thompson's most familiar work will be disappointed, though if you love the expressive modalities of his electric guitar playing, there's plenty of them on display, and they conjure up the beautiful but dangerous surroundings of Treadwell's environment very well indeed. Along with some lovely but subdued guitar-based pieces from Thompson, his periodic collaborator Henry Kaiser and Sonic Youth / Wilco interloper Jim O'Rourke sit in for a handful of harsher, atonal pieces that represent the more discordant and unforgiving aspects of life among the bears; fans of Thompson the folkie will probably be turned off by "Big Racket," "Bear Fight," and "Corona for Mr. Chocolate," but those who embraced the expressive angularity of the French-Frith-Kaiser-Thompson recordings will certainly want to hear this. In short, this isn't an essential Thompson release, but his more discerning fans will find it firmly possessed of the great man's magic, and it offers a trip down a few paths he doesn't often visit.