By Natalie Finn Thu Jun 1, 8:26 AM ET
It seems as if the fallout caused by Fahrenheit 9/11 will never die down.
A Massachusetts national guardsman filed an $85 million lawsuit against
Michael Moore in Suffolk Superior Court last week, accusing the filmmaker of distorting a TV interview to portray the soldier as anti-war in his scathing 2004 documentary about the Bush administration post-Sept. 11, 2001.
Sgt. Peter Damon, 33, has stated that Moore didn't have his permission to use pieces of the on-camera interview he gave in 2003 to an NBC Nightly News correspondent at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. Damon's appearance in Fahrenheit 9/11 resulted in a "loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation" for him, court documents state.
Damon is suing for $75 million and his wife is seeking another $10 million for the "mental distress and anguish suffered by her spouse."
The lawsuit states that "[Fahrenheit 9/11] creates a substantially fictionalized and falsified implication of a wounded serviceman who was left behind when Plaintiff was not left behind but supported, financially and emotionally, by the active assistance of the president, the United States and his family, friends, acquaintances and community."
Damon, a double amputee, lost both of his arms while stationed in
Iraq when a tire on a Black Hawk Helicopter he was servicing exploded. Another reservist was killed.
In Moore's film Damon is shown lying on a gurney, covered in bandages. He says he feels as if he's "being crushed in a vise," adding, "but [the painkillers] do a lot to help it. And they take a lot of the edge off of it."
The scene prior to Damon's features U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott (news, bio, voting record), a Democrat from Washington state, saying, "You know, [those in the Bush administration] say they're not leaving any veterans behind, but they're leaving all kinds of veterans behind."
In his lawsuit, Damon has argued that the juxtaposition of those two scenes made it sound as if the military and the Bush administration had left him to grapple alone with pain or possibly even a drug addiction when, in reality, he "agrees with and supports the president and the United States' war effort and was not left behind."
NBC had been questioning Damon about the painkiller he was using, a new drug the military was distributing to wounded veterans.
"They took the clip because it was a gut-wrenching scene," Damon told Fox News Tuesday. "They sandwiched it in. [Moore] was using me as ammunition."
Miramax Films, NBC, and Lions Gate Entertainment are also named in the suit, according to Fox News.
The controversial Fahrenheit 9/11 was a smash hit for Moore and Miramax, winning the Palme d'Or at the 2004
Cannes Film Festival and grossing more than $222 million worldwide.
The film, which focused pretty one-sidedly on the Bush administration's response to 9/11 (sorely lacking, according to Moore) and its instigation of the war in Iraq (inexcusable, Moore said) was passed over come Oscar time, however, partly because the director entered his production in the Best Picture category, rather than take a run at Best Documentary.
Damon told the New York Post that Moore couldn't have picked a worse guy to pin the charge of being anti-war on.
"I'm the most fortunate disabled guy," he said. "I was complaining about the pain I would've been having [if it weren't for the painkiller]."
Damon's lawyer, Dennis Lynch, also weighed in with the Associated Press.
"It's upsetting to him because he's lived his life supportive of his government, he's been a patriot, he's been a soldier, and he's now being portrayed in a movie that is the antithesis of all that," Lynch said.
Phone calls from the AP and Fox News to Moore and Miramax were not returned.
