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Filmmaker Michael Moore said Friday he wasn't sure he did the right thing by saving footage of U.S. American soldiers' cruelty toward Iraqis for his controversial documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11,'' instead of releasing the evidence earlier when it might have helped halt such abuse.
"I had it months before the story broke on '60 Minutes,' and I really struggled with what to do with it,'' Moore said in a telephone interview with The Chronicle. "I wanted to come out with it sooner, but I thought I'd be accused of just putting this out for publicity for my movie. That prevented me from making maybe the right decision.''
The footage, eerily similar to film of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison, shows GIs laughing as they snap photos of each other putting hoods over Iraqi detainees.
In the same scene from "Fahrenheit 9/11,'' which opens Friday at Bay Area theaters, an American soldier fondles a prisoner's genitals through a blanket.
"The stuff with the detainees in my movie is even more shocking than what we saw in that prison because it happens outdoors and is more commonplace,'' Moore said.
The documentary links President Bush to the family of Osama bin Laden and other oil-rich Saudis and takes the president to task for his response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The film, which won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival last month, became the center of a corporate spat between Disney and its subsidiary Miramax when Disney Chairman Michael Eisner said he wouldn't allow the film to be distributed. Later, Disney sold the film to Miramax co-Chairmen Harvey and Bob Weinstein. The film is now being distributed by Lions Gate Films, IFC Films and the Fellowship Adventure Group, the latter specifically set up by the Weinsteins to handle Moore's documentary.
Had Miramax released the film as originally planned, it most likely would have played in art houses, the traditional home of documentaries. But because of the intense interest in "Fahrenheit'' fueled by the distribution controversy, the film will now open simultaneously at multiplexes around the country.
"It will be in 700 theaters," Moore said. "It's the largest opening I've had, four times the number of screens that 'Columbine,' was on." Moore won the Oscar for best documentary for his 2002 "Bowling for Columbine."
"Fahrenheit'' comes down hard on Bush for starting a war the filmmaker clearly sees as folly. But the most disturbing images are of America's fighting forces in Iraq appearing as dazed and confused as soldiers portrayed in the Vietnam movie, "Platoon.''
"The situation is like Vietnam. The conditions in Iraq are just terrible, '' Moore said. "The soldiers know they are over there for a bull -- reason. .. . Bush has created an atmosphere for those who serve under him to also behave in immoral ways.''
Moore said he has received more than 1,500 letters from American soldiers expressing opposition to the war and said he is considering compiling the letters into a book.
E-mail Ruthe Stein at
rstein@sfchronicle.com.
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