Described as the "most important documentarian of our time” by Esquire Magazine, Director Alex Gibney is a name to be remembered in the documentary industry. Alex Gibney is an American documentary film director and producer with multiple Emmy awards, Peabody awards, and an Academy Award. Alex Gibney’s first movie came out in 2005; since then, he has produced and directed over 25 films. His work mainly comprises investigative documentaries and exposé journalism.
Gibney was inspired by the documentarians, the Maysles brothers - to go to film school, soon after which he made a documentary called “The Ruling Classroom”. Alex Gibney’s film “Taxi to the Dark Side” has not only won an Oscar but also received critical acclaim. The documentary investigates the abuse of an Afghanistani taxi driver by American Soldiers at the Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan.
His work is dangerous for sure, due to the investigative nature of the films he chooses to work on. In one such incident, he along with his production team ”Jigsaw'' decided to follow up on a story lead for his documentary titled “Zero Days”, where they learnt of a cyber war due to the Stuxnet computer virus- A virus created by the CIA to sabotage the Iran nuclear programme. For a director who "is accustomed to working around a lack of access”, the high-risk nature of this event was not going to stop him from flying to Israel and filming the nuclear facility, even though he only got a few seconds of footage before being forced out.
In 2013, his documentary “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks” received an objection from the Wikileaks organisation on Gibney’s portrayal of the issue, “Investigative work for the Wikileaks film (and Taxi to the Dark Side) have by far been the most challenging. They were difficult because it was hard to get people to talk…because a lot of it (information) was intentionally kept secret”, says Gibney.
The film “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” is an honest commentary about the corrupt business practices of business corporations and an investigation into illegal schemes such as exploiting the California energy crisis to increase the living costs of Americans.
On being asked about his editing experience for documentary films, Gibney believes that “You need to be prepared to elevate material that you did not expect to be interesting, you find something at the cutting table (editing process) and it can suddenly change the narrative of your film.”
Gibney acknowledges that getting people on board to be interviewed for a film that may put them in a negative light is difficult. But his advice to work around this is to try to convince the subject that you will give a fair representation of the situation.
Gibney is a firm believer in the responsibility a documentary filmmaker has to present the truth in their film. “It is a huge responsibility and you have to think about it carefully.” In his process of focusing on a topic, he says “ It usually has to have a combination of psychological, sociological, and moral conflict for me to be interested.”
His films are always evidence-based, but he does give space for a certain amount of personal perspective to creep in. According to Gibney - pretending that a documentary doesn’t have a point of view is simply phoney.
In making a film, Gibney does not start with a rigid plan, instead, he aims to explore more diverging paths and see where the documentary takes him. “It’s like being an explorer….there’s a new world over there someplace”.
Comments