Director Nick Broomfield's bizarrely fascinating depiction of the difficulties he faced making "Sarah Palin:You Betcha!"

 On his documentary teams arrival in America:

October 24, 2010: We’ve arrived – or I have. Half my film crew have been arrested and deported. Everything is going fine at Seattle airport until they find out we are doing a film about Sarah Palin. The authorities go mad. They search our bags and detain my two researchers. 

Sarah, 22, is subjected to a urine test against her wishes – just in case she is pregnant and tries to get citizenship by giving birth on US soil. Her colleague Mark is spreadeagled against the wall and given a rectal search before being handcuffed. The 25-year-old spends the night on a filthy floor littered with cigarette butts. They are both sent back to England, supposedly because they don’t have the right visas. 

My cover for the documentary is blown. Discretion was the key. But thanks to our airport kerfuffle, the Wasilla branch of Homeland Security – an organisation dedicated to protecting America from terrorist activity (are my films that bad?) – has been told all about us. Instead of slowly ingratiating myself into Sarah Palin’s home community, I have landed in a blaze of notoriety.

On fear of Sarah:

November 21: Not everyone finds Sarah quite so charming. Many are frightened to talk. Sarah, a former Mayor of Wasilla and vice-presidential candidate, is very influential. Friends and supporters have been banned from speaking. But there are a few folk who have fallen out with her and don’t mind saying so. 

We throw a dinner party and invite the local pastor, some of Sarah’s old acquaintances, and a neighbour and sworn enemy of Sarah called Colleen Cottle. 

We rustle up pork loin as a change from our all-moose diet. Moose is delicious; like venison, only better. But there’s a lot of it. A single moose keeps a family for an entire winter. Our guests bring moose sausages. 

The conversation is tortured. One of the wives gets annoyed. Her husband had talked to us for the film and, coincidentally, had lost his job. Word spread that we were responsible for his unemployment. The wife walks out. The night wears on. We drink an awful lot of whisky.

 On getting Chuck Heath to talk to them:  

The only way I can get Chuck to speak to me is to buy moose and reindeer antlers from his mountainous collection. They are $150 a pop. He is getting less communicative as the days go by. 

But he does reveal something more powerful than his words ever could. Chuck points to a picture on his wall of some mangled feet. They are his. 

He explains he once took part in a marathon across the snow and that his toes filled up with pus. Luckily, he had packed a hand drill and bored through his digits to release the fluid. He finished the race. 

You understand a lot about Sarah’s unbelievable drive and grit when you see the picture of her father’s feet.  

On learning that old Alaskan maxi about men in Alaska, "The odds are good, but the goods are odd:"

December 5: We set off on snow- mobiles to a restaurant called Islander Lodge. You can tell it is a classy joint by the fake palms and laminated menus. Another night we visit the Bikini Bar, opened to cater for workers building a nearby prison. 

A 22-year-old brunette opens the window and enquires: ‘How can I help you today?’, wearing nothing but two scraps of fabric over her very generous, goose-bumped chest. In such a religious community, it is hil- ariously incongruous. 

We go to a bar across the way. It is full of bearded, beer-guzzling rednecks. All heads turn as we walk in. Silence descends. Our researcher is not unattractive and the guys’ eyes are out on stalks. It is like Deliverance on ice. We don’t go back. 

By the way I also met Nick's researcher, also named Sarah, and I can attest to the fact that she was quite beautiful, so I don't think I would be too hard on the somewhat inebriated men of Wasilla for gawking at her. I have seen some of the women in that community (Mercede notwithstanding) and one can hardly blame them for acting as if they they had never seen a beautiful woman before.

I had heard some of these anecdotes from Nick himself but certainly not all of them.

I did know they had significant difficulty getting anybody to talk with them after they were outed and that they ran into some very hospitable people, but also some extraordinarily rude behaviors as well. I am ashamed and embarrassed about how they were treated by our customs agents in Seattle. That seems uncalled for, but I have little difficulty believing that was directly due to them wanting to do a film on Palin. Before she became inconsequential her reach was long indeed.

You can read more courtesy of Mail Online.