Amir Bar-Lev On What You See (and What You Don't) In His Hot Sundance Doc The Tillman Story

Did you have to cut moments or story threads that it hurt to lose?

I could talk your ear off. I mean, that's another reason we were editing for a year. I'll give you a perfect example -- and it's almost embarrassing that this isn't in the film -- but it didn't have a place. We were struggling as filmmakers with the idea that once Pat Tillman dies in the movie, you're ready for the movie to be over, basically. Because we chose this narrative structure that works like an onion, where you're presented with a hero myth that you keep peeling back, we get to the climax of the film where he dies. At that point, you want the film to be over, but it can't, because you have to go to Congress. In a way, you're back at the beginning. In order to get as quickly as we could to the end, we had to skip over some very important chapters in the story. [Tillman's parents] forced several investigations to take place -- you see three, and we kind of conflate them a little bit.

Which was the one in the film's climax, with Rep. Waxman ineffectually presiding?

That was, like, the seventh. The sixth was the one you see that was borne out of the "go f--k yourself" letter [sent by Tillman's father to the Army]. The third was the one that prompted the video you see [that investigates the area where Tillman was murdered], and that guy who went off to Afghanistan to film it was offered to the Tillmans to rectify the problems from their earlier investigations. In fact, Dannie Tillman presented John McCain with 30 questions that she wanted answered, so this guy went off for about a year to answer them. What's missing from the film is this horrible moment where they're going through the transcripts, and they realize that he's part of the conspiracy. It's, like, right out of a 70's movie like China Syndrome or something. You see him stopping the transcript and the investigation when things get too close to the truth, and then they take a 15-minute break and come back and the guy changes his story. It would have been amazing in the film, but emotionally, once Pat Tillman dies, you can't go there.

The pivotal, incriminating memo in the film is authored by General Stanley McChrystal, who has stayed on from the Bush administration and currently commands our forces in Afghanistan. How do you feel about that?

Listen, it's not a complicated answer. No one in the government has ever admitted that there was a cover-up, and to watch the contortions that these public figures go to in order to publicly flagellate themselves without admitting what's pretty obvious to everybody -- that they tried to cover up Pat Tillman's death -- is absurd. General McChrystal is just one of several high-ranking figures who's never been called to account for his role, and the story continues to this very moment. He gets up there at his swearing-in and basically says what has been said all along, which is, "I know what it looks like. I know that it looks like we deliberately covered it up, but believe us that it was this Rube Goldberg-esque chain of mistakes, blunders, and errors that look like a cover-up." The only f---ing idiots who buy that, the only fools who believe that, are the mainstream press. It's just so clear to everyone else, and it's the equivalent of saying, "Honey, I know that it looks like I'm f---ing your sister, but actually I dropped my wallet, and then my belt fell down, and she happened to be there." That's what the military has done in the Pat Tillman case.

Dannie says in the film that she's taken the story as far as she can go, but as a documentarian, you can take it even further. Do you ever feel like the roles of documentarian and advocate are at odds with one another?

Sometimes, but not all the time. I have no problem with advocacy movies or movies that are very obvious about their message. It's not the kind of movie that I would want to make, but I would never begrudge a filmmaker from wanting to do that. I'm a huge fan of Michael Moore's films, and I think there's a place for both kinds of movies. I named my production company Axis Films because I like that duality, that riding a fine line between two opposing viewpoints. Michael Moore came up to us after the film and said he loved it, and I was hugely honored by that, and then a couple hours later, a guy came up to me and introduced himself: "I'm an American exceptionalist, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, I'm pro-military and pro-war, and I loved your film." This is a matter of a few hours, that two people with opposing viewpoints saw their viewpoint in the film. That's the kind of movie I like to make -- not that I don't have a viewpoint, but...

I think people are just sometimes skeptical that documentary filmmakers approach their subject with an agenda already in place. Did the movie you made turn out differently than the one you thought you would make?

I think that if the film you come up with is the one you set out to make, then you've made a very s---ty film. I've made three films, and each time, they turn out very different than I thought. Making a documentary film is putting yourself in a position where you're improvising, and as I learned from being a Deadhead from one of the greatest musical improvisers in all of rock-and-roll history, is that it isn't just "whatever the f--k happen, happens," but you go into it with an idea and you're ready to bounce off of what comes out of your probe.

So you're a "jam band" director.

I learned a lot of my filmmaking by aspiring to the level of Jerry Garcia's music. [Laughs]

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