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.
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?
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.
It would be terrific if all info we have were "catalogued" somehow.....and THEN we could noodle it. What do you all think?
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&
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?
I was very sorry to read about your son!
Great idea. I nominate 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.
Great idea for a research oriented thread on Berg. Add me to the list if there is a "ping" thing!
Thank you - bookmarked and will wade through it later.
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.
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."
Don't have time to do any more searches right now..."see" y'all tonight!
"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.
Didn't Aziz show up at a Freep?
If someone does this, please add me to it!
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.
Thank you!
have a great evening...
Nice catch!
Ah, you should have warned us about those pictures!!!!
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