Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Moore interviewed Berg for "Fahrenheit" [index to thread at reply #1859]
Salon.com ^ | May 27, 2004 | Rebecca Traister

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.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 911; 911hijackers; abughraib; almudafer; almuzaffar; andrewduke; aziz; azizaltaee; berg; bergresearch; cannes; duke; dylanwyrnn; fahrenbalanced911; fahrenheit911; hugoinfante; infante; michaelmoore; monsterthread; moore; moussaoui; mudafer; muzaffar; nickberg; petetridish; prometheus; prometheusmethods; prometheusradio; prometheustowers; silverwires; traitors; yasin; yassin
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 821-840841-860861-880 ... 2,041-2,048 next last
To: proud American in Canada

I don't know if this has been posted before, but I am positive that I read that Fahrenheit 911 contains video footage of the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib.

Now, that seems strange to me. How exactly did he get that, and when?



It would be helpful if we knew what was in Moore's hit film shown in France.


841 posted on 05/28/2004 2:19:39 PM PDT by Grampa Dave ( WHAT DID MICHAEL MOORE KNOW ABOUT NICK BERG? WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 827 | View Replies]

To: Darlin'

Well, one thing is for sure; now that this has broken in so many people, sooner or later somebody is going to ask this jerk HOW he met Nick Berg.


842 posted on 05/28/2004 2:19:51 PM PDT by Howlin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 825 | View Replies]

To: Howlin; All
Is there ANy way to do a Separate thread on a dateline and info basis only? Dates and contents of e-mails...dates ofKNOWN overseas trips, Kenya, 2 to Iraq....date when missing...what those two hotel people in Baghdad said about him and what he left behind....quotes from his father....etc.?

It would be terrific if all info we have were "catalogued" somehow.....and THEN we could noodle it. What do you all think?

843 posted on 05/28/2004 2:21:25 PM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion: The Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience. DCN)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 771 | View Replies]

To: BlessedByLiberty

Some interesting Berg research is done by a radical leftist guy named Soj - an American writing out of a Romanian blog site. His conclusions are preposterous but some of his research is quite in depth and unpublished elsewhere. He's got a multi part series going on Berg, some of it total hogwash, some of it interesting. If you don't mind wading through his anti U.S. rhetoric you can find his stuff here:

http://www.weblog.ro/soj?day=20&month=05&year=2004&


844 posted on 05/28/2004 2:22:12 PM PDT by nerdgirl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 835 | View Replies]

To: Junior_G
What motivation would Moore have for lying about having the interview footage?

I can think of a few.

One, he's a media whore. He put his finger in the wind and figured that his new film is going to be a box office bomb. He tried the trick of whining about not being able to get a distributor because of the controversial nature of his film. Heck, it worked for Mel Gibson, he figured. Hmmm...didn't work for Moore, though. He won the top award at Cannes and figured maybe that'd bring him some box office. Wrong again. Within a few days of Cannes, he'd already dropped out of the headlines and people were yawning. Suddenly this story of the Nick Berg video is "leaked" to salon.com. Don't believe for a minute that anything is accidentally "leaked" to salon.com without Moore's knowledge and blessing, if not his outright instigation. Now everyone is talking about Michael Moore and F911 again.

Two, he's an America hating Bush bashing idiot of the highest magnitude. So is Nick Berg's father. With Mike Berg's shared agenda and cooperation, they're both happy to use the brutal murder of Nick Berg as nothing more than a prop. Between the two of them, they can cook and spin this anyway they like. Moore can scream about becoming an FBI and Bush administration target when he refuses to release the video. Imagine him screaming, "The Bush regime has NO principals and NO morals. Nick Berg's family doesn't want the Bush propagandists to have this video of their son. How dare Bush make such demands of a grieving family?" That's just one scenario I can think of.

So far it doesn't make him look good.

You don't really think he cares about that, do you?

845 posted on 05/28/2004 2:22:53 PM PDT by lonevoice (Some things have to be believed to be seen)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 761 | View Replies]

To: Howlin

I was very sorry to read about your son!


846 posted on 05/28/2004 2:23:04 PM PDT by nerdgirl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 834 | View Replies]

To: Ann Archy; Howlin

Great idea. I nominate Howlin'.


847 posted on 05/28/2004 2:23:16 PM PDT by bonfire
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 843 | View Replies]

To: Howlin

"As a person who lost a son that age"

I'm so sorry to hear that, Howlin.

And you're right, Mr. Berg's reaction to Nick's death has been nothing short of bizarre. It just doesn't ring true with the public story.

And even if all we're speculating about is true, and Nick went over there to subvert the war, etc., with his father's blessing, and things went so wrong, one would think the father would suddenly realize the horror of what he had done.

On the other hand, perhaps not. Perhaps that would be too awful for him to consciously accept.

That kind of psychological displacement would explain his vicious lashing out so viciously at GW Bush.


848 posted on 05/28/2004 2:23:57 PM PDT by proud American in Canada
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 812 | View Replies]

To: Ann Archy

Great idea for a research oriented thread on Berg. Add me to the list if there is a "ping" thing!


849 posted on 05/28/2004 2:24:11 PM PDT by nerdgirl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 843 | View Replies]

To: nerdgirl

Thank you - bookmarked and will wade through it later.


850 posted on 05/28/2004 2:24:24 PM PDT by BlessedByLiberty (Respectfully submitted,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 844 | View Replies]

To: NRA2BFree

I think that the articles that claim that the Berg murder was staged by the Bush administration are aimed at deflecting any revelations of what the FBI or CIA know about Nick Berg. I think that Berg has been an anti-American leftist since his schoold days in Norman, OK, when he shared his computer with Mussoui and I doubt that it was really Berg senior who registered Berg's business on the ANSWER web site. What would motivate a father to place the name of his son's business on a communist web site if he knew the son would not support that? It just doesn't make sense. Nick Berg was not a Bush supporter.


851 posted on 05/28/2004 2:24:46 PM PDT by Eva
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: proud American in Canada
From a google search on "Abu Ghraib, Farenheit 911":

One sequence, for example, shot for Moore by free-lancers in Iraq, shows American soldiers in the field humiliating Iraqi detainees. "You've not seen footage and photographs outside the prisons," Moore said. "This occurred in the field. This occurred outside the prison walls. That is disgraceful."

Source

Don't have time to do any more searches right now..."see" y'all tonight!

852 posted on 05/28/2004 2:25:47 PM PDT by ravingnutter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 827 | View Replies]

To: Grampa Dave

"It would be helpful if we knew what was in Moore's hit film shown in France."

Exactly! I feel the same way.

People have asked him to "distribute" the film on the Internet, yet he refuses.

Perhaps there are reasons other than money that would explain that.


853 posted on 05/28/2004 2:25:49 PM PDT by proud American in Canada
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 841 | View Replies]

To: Grampa Dave

Didn't Aziz show up at a Freep?


854 posted on 05/28/2004 2:26:17 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 829 | View Replies]

To: 91B
I would like to go with that.

Only 2 things...

1. I don't know that Nick was as "conservative" as he was capitalist, and hated dictatorships. (fits his profile from all I've read by his friends & teachers anyway) His friend, Luke Lorenz, said he wasn't so much "pro Bush" as he was "Pro-Iraqi freedom" efforts by Bush.

2. It seems that most of the things that seem too coincidental, are things that happened going back years.

So if we say he went to Iraq for the reasons he gave (not as a spy) then we have to throw out our suspicions about everything that happened before - like the e-mail, the Prometheus name, his politics conflicting with his dad's...

I see nothing strange about the last two, but many do, and it could be something.
855 posted on 05/28/2004 2:27:42 PM PDT by Trinity_Tx (Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believin as we already do)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 836 | View Replies]

To: Ann Archy

If someone does this, please add me to it!


856 posted on 05/28/2004 2:28:48 PM PDT by BlessedByLiberty (Respectfully submitted,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 843 | View Replies]

To: Howlin

Yes, I'm sure someone will but I also sure he will never answer truthfully. He is a sham, a con man and a disgusting pig.


857 posted on 05/28/2004 2:29:01 PM PDT by Darlin' ("I will not forget this wound to my country." President George W Bush, 20 Sept 2001)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 842 | View Replies]

To: ravingnutter

Thank you!

have a great evening...


858 posted on 05/28/2004 2:29:01 PM PDT by proud American in Canada
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 852 | View Replies]

To: Saundra Duffy

Nice catch!


859 posted on 05/28/2004 2:29:03 PM PDT by Howlin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 839 | View Replies]

To: nerdgirl

Ah, you should have warned us about those pictures!!!!


860 posted on 05/28/2004 2:30:08 PM PDT by Howlin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 844 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 821-840841-860861-880 ... 2,041-2,048 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson