ReThink Interview: Amir Bar-Lev, director of THE TILLMAN STORY

My ReThink Interview with Amir Bar-Lev, the director of the documentary THE TILLMAN STORY, which tells the story of pro football player Pat Tillman, who quit the NFL to join the Army Rangers and the cover-up that ensued when Tillman was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

In this interview, Amir talks about why he wanted to tell Pat Tillman’s story, why there was not more public outrage when it was revealed that the military’s stories about Tillman and Jessica Lynch were lies, why America seems to crave a “sanitized” version of war, and what Amir’s favorite movie is.

For more about THE TILLMAN STORY, visit http://www.tillmanstory.com/

For more ReThink Interviews and Reviews, visit http://rethinkreviews.net/

Video Transcript

the very first time i met the tolan family it was at the congressionalhearing in two thousand seven pc at the filmi was same minor when she said policing the film which is it's not about patpersonal and that was something thatjust struck me becauseyou know i think there's a kind of a misperception out there that the familyis doggedlyyou know trying to reach justice for pat tillman they as she says so clearly thenshe said consistently sense that moment andto the present-day it's really not about pat it's not about something we of thetone and family it's what we ourselves as a countryand do we needwhy have leaders at the very very highest level of government they guyswho are for instance to be in charge of the lives of oursoldiersdo we want to let those people you know allied with impunityactually verymhm childlike lives that they get away with main it's pretty remarkable howdog ate my homework ask some of these lies are and yet they they workso the family is not fighting for themselves are fighting for usand we should all have those high standardsit struck me watching the film just yesterday actually been spent justlaunch has been on my mindthis is the thingwe didn'tdo any kind of particularly gum shoe kind of investigative journalismjessica lunsford so we have in our filmwe got from the mainstream press we got from like a_b_c_ are one of thosearchives okaywhat they had on their raw tape was very incriminatingthey they justchoose to use it and their stories when they were calling her at the femalerambookay so that is the problems like thisthat's the that's the problem in a nutshell rightwomen like find out anything specifically on our ownwell we did wasuse a different part of the raw tape when part we usedyou can actually hearthe production team the film production teammaking sure that this poor girl who's supposed to be a you know being rescuedin thisthere are a midnight operation making sure that that flag is that you knowjust in the right placeand and and and she's terrified and in a lot of pain and they're begging her tosmile for the camera basicallywhy they chose not to use thathimpart of the storyit's not some sinister thingyou know wherewell it is sinister but it's not like you know some shadow government forcedthem to do thatthey take the narrative the narrative was taken from the movie is is this ideaof thisblond woman being of scottish by these dark arrow dark-skinned hordesyou know and she's emptying out her weapon and you know she saved by theseyou know dashing paladins coming from on highokay these are all night yes right and it works that resonates with our culturein that likespeaks to some deep mythology that we believe inthey chose that story and arranging of the flag didn't fit into itright so that's you know that's that's what we do have here in a nutshellwe as a societythough we'd we want to use feed ourselves a sanitized version of warwe don't know i look at the coffins i come back you noted that to blameyou know the bush administration on underon the fact that we weren't able to look at those coffins as wrong because is theclinton administration that that actually said that line set into motionbut also we we get the type of government that wethat we want you know we didn't really want to sacrifice after nine eleven as acop as a culturewe want to go out and shop we want to be told that you know are the best way thatwe could you know sacrifice for our country would be to not sacrifice andsimilarly it we don't want touh...you know we don't want to face whatwhat war is really about because you know we'd rather have a kind of ahollywood version of it in our mindsand you don't mean just yesterday looking out here in the time of the bushadminit's perpetuate because like the m_p_a_a_ a radar fromyou know the firm languageso but they're basically saying is it's okay for the r_o_t_c_ to come and thenyou know and geek and out those video games that show that purport to showyoung people how how amazing you know how exciting warrenbut it's not ok for these guys to hear how soldiers actually talk which is togps or fucking you know when they're being shot at princess di always issociety you knowdon't want to face the war's all about and we alsoeven putting aside militarism we arunyou know we'd worcester ma before about jessica lance likewe karnar enamored with our or our stories are movie stories in ourhollywood stories and uh...passed on and fit the billin nineteen eighty eightand when when when the time for churchfacts about who he actually was pecan from the sidewe had to shut those awayis a can fit into that hollywood cookie-cutter role that we needed in theplaymy favorite movies this is final pathsokay and enact i'd find thatas i go through lifei'm fine i'm constantly comeback that movie becausetheum...the nuances of the waydoes to those actors adelaidecertain kind of selfsomewhat sore like them progressive nano self aggrandizement you know sort of thefarmingin the tillman story for instance if you have a momentwhere upandreporter asks pete gerenaboutthe after they've just pin everything on phil can zingerthey they basically you know they've found a scapegoat and there was thisretired general to adjust retiredand this in the front row this to sell reporter saysheat pump trying to make some sense of this to you know you know you say thatall the blame lies in the sky full kansian he just happens to adjustretired is there some coincidence there and instill sorry pete gerendoes this thing on his face figuresat i'm not for he's basically saying i'm not even saying it was kinda like notfollowing you what the main draw the parallel for itand it's a stop at moment you know because this is like thisis this ham handed thing that people doing ajit did not following it you knowand iby his own iran that has stuff and i was in you've you know i meanbirthit's so you know i learned some lessons from slash

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