Don’t stare

London, Nov. 3: George Clooney has been dragged into a row between the writer of his latest film, Men Who Stare At Goats, and a documentary maker who claims his contribution to the production has been sidelined.

Jon Ronson, a journalist whose work inspired the film, credited his one-time best friend and film maker John Sergeant in the pages of his book.

However, Sergeant claims to have been “airbrushed out” of the film adaptation and has aired his grievances about the snub in a letter to George Clooney.

Ronson’s work is a non-fictional account of the American government’s attempt to harness paranormal abilities as part of a top-secret military programme.

Sergeant alleges he spent two years researching and gathering material for the television series Crazy Rulers of the World, which was broadcast on Channel 4 in 2004, and from which Ronson’s best-selling book was spawned.

Sergeant says he identified key figures on which the story was based, and persuaded them to speak on camera.

Sergeant told The Independent: “I worked intensely from 2003 and 2004 on it.” He said that, had the material remained within the context of a documentary, he would happily have let the matter go.

“I never formally agreed for the material I unearthed to be used in other media,” he added, “and I was extremely uncomfortable when it was, especially when I was airbrushed out of things. Ewan McGregor is playing this character who finds the story. [Jon] presents that person as [himself] but really, it is me.”

The film-makers state that the work is “inspired by Jon Ronson” but do not acknowledge Sergeant in any way.

He wrote to Clooney after he was not invited to the film’s screening at the London Film Festival on October 15. The letter was passed to the festival’s artistic director who said she passed it to Clooney’s publicist Stan Rosenfield, who said: “George is not aware of any attempt to reach him.”