ReThink Interview: Amir Bar-Lev, Director of The Tillman Story (VIDEO)

I've been waiting for Amir Bar-Lev's documentary, The Tillman Story, for a long time. Pat Tillman was America's most famous soldier -- a pro football player who turned down a lucrative NFL contract after 9/11 so he could join the Army Rangers and serve his country. Though Tillman shunned the media and did not want to talk about his motivations for joining, he was held up by the military, the public and politicians from both sides as a paragon of patriotism, selflessness and sacrifice -- traits rarely attributed to well-paid superstar athletes. But Tillman was much more complex than the patriotic caricature that had been placed on him, and when he was killed by friendly fire while fighting in Afghanistan, the military and the Bush administration orchestrated a massive cover up to keep this simplified, heroic image in place to promote both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming that Tillman died bravely taking the fight to the enemy and saving his unit. See the trailer for The Tillman Story below.

The day after the Los Angeles premiere of The Tillman Story, I talked with director Amir Bar-Lev about what compelled him to make the film, why Americans weren't more outraged when it was revealed that the made-for-Hollywood stories of Tillman and Jessica Lynch were lies, how Americans romanticize war, and the film that changed Bar-Lev's life. See my ReThink Interview with Bar-Lev below.

The Tillman Story opens today, Friday, August 20. As many of you know, studios decide how widely to distribute a film based on its opening weekend grosses, so if you can see The Tillman Story this weekend, it will really help to get this important film in more theaters so more people can experience it.

For more information on The Tillman Story, visit TillmanStory.com

For more ReThink Interviews and reviews, visit ReThinkReviews.net

To subscribe to ReThink Reviews on YouTube, go here.

 

Follow Jonathan Kim on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ReThinkReviews

Comments

[Cye]

08:17 AM on 08/24/2010

A very interesting interview. His observations about war and our society seem spot on.

[esthermiriam]

12:48 AM on 08/22/2010

Making Bar-Lev's point even more strongly, an R rating was also given to "A Film Unfinished,"
thus limiting what students can learn about the Holocaust and Nazi film propoganda devices....

[hisdroogness]

10:46 AM on 08/22/2010

I have not seen it but isn’t that due to subject matter and horrific images?

[Jonathan Kim]

01:10 PM on 08/23/2010

No, it got the R solely for language, though there doesn't seem to be excessive swearing. It's a real shame since an R rating has a pretty big effect on its distribution and if it can get shown in schools.