Didn't hear too much of what his friends had to say but I agree that it probably would not be fair to judge a person and their life on a couple hours of film. I am obviously only commenting on that little bit about him and the feeling I got...I felt the guy had a serious deathwish and somehow figured being a meal for a bear was a good way to go. Which I have no argument with...if that's what he wanted then that's what he should have been allowed to do. In the end I think he got his wish, it's certainly sad that he got another person killed in the process.

As far as seeing a purity in him...I didn't. Not in the way I saw a purity in Chris McCandless when reading "Into The Wild" and I suppose you could compare the two people. The big difference I think was that I just didn't get the feeling that when McCandless headed into the wild he wanted to die...with Treadwell it really seemed his hope was to get killed. Again who am I to judge these people...just the feeling I got.

I don't know Andrea about the fame thing...maybe that drove him maybe not...I don't think I saw enough about him to know. One sort of aspect about it that bothered me was the fact that Treadwell ended up on Letterman...for what I saw as being a guy that hoped to be killed and eaten by bears. He was not an expert or anyone with a background in the field he was a guy that was obviously a loon out to get killed and it sort of feels like the Holden character in "Network" nailed it:

 Fantastic! The Death Hour!  I  love it!  Suicides, assassinations, mad bombers, Mafia hitmen, murder in the barbershop, human sacrifices in witches' covens, automobile   smashups.  The Death Hour!  A great Sunday night show for the whole family. We'll wipe fucking Disney right off the air --

And I just see some guy sitting there going "Hey, let's put this loon on. He's gonna get eaten by a fucking bear. People will love this nut!"

He was getting famous for wanting to be bear food and they were going for ratings with it...sort of sick.