Posted on 05/27/2004 9:26:51 PM PDT by Rennes Templar
May 27, 2004 | Filmmaker Michael Moore filmed an interview with American Nicholas Berg in the course of producing his documentary film "Fahrenheit 9/11" before Berg left for Iraq, where he was taken hostage and killed, Moore confirmed to Salon in a statement Thursday. The 20 minutes of footage does not appear in the final version of "Fahrenheit 911," according to the statement.
Word of the footage reached Salon through a source unaffiliated with Moore or his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," which is reported to feature stark images of U.S. civilians and soldiers grappling with conditions in war-torn Iraq, as well as examining the relationship between President George W. Bush and the bin Laden family. It received the Palme d'Or, the Cannes Film Festival's highest honor, on Saturday.
In a statement widely circulated by Moore's people after an initial request for comment by Salon, Moore said, "We have an interview with Nick Berg. It was approximately 20 minutes long. We are not releasing it to the media. It is not in the film. We are dealing privately with the family." Moore's camp declined to comment further on any aspect of the interview. Because the footage is not in the film, a spokeswoman for Miramax Films, the production company behind "Fahrenheit 9/11," said the company had no comment.
It was not clear from Moore's statement whether footage from the interview with Berg had ever been included in early cuts of "Fahrenheit 9/11." Reports about a film industry controversy surrounding distribution of the film first hit the news on May 5, a week before Berg's death. The film officially screened for the public and the press for the first time during the Cannes festival on May 17.
The news that Moore spoke to Berg while he was still in the United States only adds to the mystery surrounding the young man's presence in Iraq and tragic death. The interview was shot before the 26-year-old Berg left for Iraq late last year as a private contractor in the hopes of helping to rebuild the ravaged country. Though it was unclear what Berg spoke about in his interview with Moore, or how the two men met, unrelated reports following his death indicate that he headed for the Middle East with plans to work to improve the country's technological infrastructure and communication abilities. He ran his own company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, in a suburb of Philadelphia.
Berg did not find employment in Iraq, and when he attempted to return to the United States he was detained by Iraqi police and questioned by American forces. He was released after his family complained. But shortly after, he is believed to have been kidnapped by Islamic terrorists. Video of his beheading was released on an Islamist Web site on May 11. Salon was unable to reach the Berg family for comment before publication.
Moore's film chronicles the United States' military, political and business involvement in the Middle East in the years before and after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. His previous politically charged films, including "Roger & Me" and "Bowling for Columbine," have created controversy and won him praise (including an Oscar, for "Columbine"). "Fahrenheit 9/11" has already sparked a media storm; in early May, Miramax's parent company, Disney, announced that it would not allow Miramax to distribute the film, which is highly critical of Bush and his administration.
Miramax has yet to make a deal with a distributor, though the film's warm reception at Cannes and the publicity surrounding the film have made it a hot property that is generating a lot of interest in Hollywood. "Bowling for Columbine" grossed $21 million, making it the highest-grossing non-IMAX documentary of all time.
A source close to "Fahrenheit 9/11" said that a new distributor will be announced shortly, and that the film is expected to be released in theaters during the first week of July, as originally planned.
6 degrees of separation(or slander)/Forest Gump/Tourist Guy ping
Sorry if you already have seen this, I just returned and am not about to read through 1600 posts, but thought you might be interested in this additional page in the story. I have no clue what it means(if anything.)
placemark.
WHy would "this actually became quie relevant to my stay in Diwaniya".????
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2004/05/16lastdaysofnickb.html
Now I have printed out the article so that I can quote directly from it. The final paragraph (in part) states;
'The next day, he vanished.
'Azis, though, says he heard from Berg one more time.
'The morning he disappeared, Berg "surprised me by calling me at 9 or 10, to say that he had found some freinds to travel with to Jordan," he says.
'Berg said he was en route; Aziz doesn't know who he was with or what kind of vehicle they were driving. "He said they were nice people. I told him to have a nice trip."
'Aziz says he understands Berg's phone was used as recently as April 19, and that three calls were made that day - to Jordan, to the United Arab Emirates and to a local number. "He could still have been alive." (Aziz said)
No way -- the buses here in Norman are not the latest as it is -- in fact, they are older buses and a trolley. No way there was an Internet connection on these buses then or now. The busses only travel around the apartment complexes and OU to take students to and from campus. You can be at OU in 15-20 minuts from anyplace in the main part of Norman where the buses run.
we were announced as Harris's approved tower sub-contractor about two days before the award...
This is in January yet in a NY Times article dated May 26, 2004, they say Berg met with Jan Bosman in Mosul in late March looking for work. The only comment by Bosman was that Berg seemed casual about the security situation. Source It seems Bosman might have commented on Berg's status as an approved sub-contractor or the working relationship with Harris Corporation.
So I finally find the site at around 1900, it's dark and I can barely make out the tower. But I found it and learned what I needed to know.
I wonder what he needed to know from a portable tower he could barely see. Maybe he was just confirming its location.
The air was clean (er), and when I'm climbing these towers I even get to go a few hours without some awkward "Americai?" question. (The answer to which is usually "Sawa" - as you like).
I wonder what Sawa means. According to this, Sawa isn't an Arabic word. There is a US run radio station in the Middle East named Radio Sawa. Berg says "as you like," which seems odd. I wonder who he figured like the response Sawa.
I just checked and it is back.
I had been told earlier by another freeper it was up and they said Moore had posted today about Fred Barnes. I could not get the old site to load. Now it's up without the "www":
http://michaelmoore.com/
I wondered about that, too. Sure seems like he spent a lot of time and effort just to eyeball it and try to get on back to Baghdad.
I agree. I was just trying to look like I hadn't gone over the deep end by trying to think of a reasonable explanation :)
His website is NOT down. Maybe it just crashed for a while or people misspelled the URL. And O.R., I am not having any problem navigating to the MM site, or that webpage you say is missing.
I always remember the easiest way to find his site is to google for for miserable failure, Michael Moore always comes up near the top of the list.
I don't believe M.Moore is the tiniest bit concerned about government backlash at him, and he would welcome the attempt, and spin it for his own PR. He's probably the least likely to purge anything off his website. But if Nick was blogging regularly, or a close friend was blogging Nick's stuff, that might disappear.
Data dumping random MM stuff 'somewhere' might be a good idea at times (providing the Robinsons dont mind), but NOT HERE on what had been a fast moving participation thread (and the author of this thread agrees #1272).
It would be much better to data-dump huge things onto a week-old inactive M.Moore thread, and then index, and link back to that data-dump area from here.
But if someone IS going to reproduce large publications here, PLEASE do like Nita did in #1482 (or nunya did in #1586) and HILIGHT in BOLD or RED the portions that are specifically RELEVANT to NICK BERG.
[in fact ALL of you have been very good about that lately, thanks!] FLE
Moore has his website back up sans "www":
http://michaelmoore.com/
Is it me, or are the postings he made about having two crews over in Iraq secretly (dated April 14, I believe), and his later post from early May about how he was editing his movie to have it ready in time for Cannes, missing?
Anyhow, the story ends in a rather anti-climatic fashion - the police collect me and take me off to the Lieutenant who is more worried for my safety than about me being an Iranian spy.
Huh? If they weren't worried about him being an Iranaian spy, then WHAT was he talking about the whole topic for?
The fact that Duke was 'estimating' meant he was never told any specifics, only that Berg was TRYING to make himself look very successful.
That would be especially true if Berg felt he was 'networking' with a fellow businessman, or if his drinking buddy Duke appeared to himself be a good source for possible new work.
Re: Harris, all sorts of things sound weird. There was alot of info in this Harris Press Release.
It most definitely was down, and the old link I used doesn't work anymore. You're right, though, he has a site up. I couldn't find some of the writings that we had read there before. Could be me missing them. Or they've been removed.
Someone else gave me the "miserable failure" hint earlier, but that has the "www" in the address and for the life of me I can't get that site to load.
I finally tried just michaelmoore.com and got on his site.
then can you give another example? the page listed in 1596 shows up fine for me. I've noticed it working this morning too, when others couldn't reach it. Maybe its a browser thing, or 'options' issue, or 'cookies' issue.
At any rate, I've also been in the South a little, two sites near the small farm towns of Ash Shomali and Al-Diwaniya. For those interested, these are about 180 kilometers, (115 miles) south of Baghdad, along the main road to Basra and Kuwait. My three days in the SouthCentral was by far the most pleasant time I've spent in Iraq. The Shomali site is one of tallest towers in-country, and sit's out in the middle of a fairly peaceful, flat, irrigated farming area. From the top of that tower (which is in excellent shape and currently broadcasts on UHF) I sat and watched a few farmers with donkeys, the little town area of Shomali (about four blocks long and mostly dedicated to Petrol/Benzine stations) and mostly a lot of open space.
Of course anyone could write an email about foreign adventures and give up these minute details?
OK, then it sounds like a temporary DNS problem like we had here at FR a few weeks back. Some of could find the site because the www.xxxxxxx.com was still in our DNS server's cache. The internet ca be a b*tch at times.
Isn't that the same killing? There's been so many of them, it's hard to keep track.
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