WEBVTT - Alex Gibney Seeks Truth 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:05.800 I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:11.120 from My Heart Radio. Alex Gibney is an old school 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:16.480 truth teller. Watching one of his documentaries focused on strong characters, 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:21.200 there's a propulsive set of facts that expose malfeasance or 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.639 utter incompetence. Often the victim is the little guy or 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:31.200 our highest ideals like democracy. No matter the topic, Gibney's 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:37.400 films are always a fascinating, intense, and enlightening ride. Gibney's 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:42.479 most recent film, The Crime of the Century, which he wrote, directed, produced, 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.720 and narrated for HBO, tells the origin story about the 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:51.440 heart of the opioid crisis poisoning our nation. Big Farmers 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.560 celebrated its marketing muscle, using parties to lure doctors to 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:59.480 write scripts. This was a new drug cartel. There were 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.880 drug deal was wearing suits and lab coats. Basically, here's 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.479 some moneys. Yes, I'm looking at this, and I'm gone, 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:13.560 clearly we're breaking the law. Alex Gibney has made more 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:17.399 than thirty films in the last twenty years. In two 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:19.839 thousand and eight, he won the Academy Award for Best 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:24.160 Documentary Feature for Taxi to The Dark Side, his film 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:28.040 on the CIA's use of torture, whether he's taking on 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:33.560 scientology or Russian interference in our elections, or iconic figures 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:37.600 like Steve Jobs, Lance Armstrong and Frank Sinatra, give Meey 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:41.280 never flinches and his stories stand up. In fact, he 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:43.880 can't think of a time when he wanted to reissue 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.640 one of his docs to make a correction. I can't 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:49.560 think of a time when it did happen. And I 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.840 think about that a lot, because I try to find 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:58.160 a moment in time where it feels like we're absolutely right, 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:00.680 and sometimes, you know, I'm afraid that things may come 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:02.880 out that would cause me to want to redo it. 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:06.120 But I I sort of feel like the films represent 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.839 a certain wisdom at a moment in time, and it's 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.800 it's best to leave them. I am kind of following 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:14.920 up in a film I did and doing another film 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.440 to kind of dig a little bit deeper the film 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.119 I did, a Taxi to the Dark Side. I'm doing 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:21.960 a kind of follow up to it. But I've never 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.519 been motivated to really go back in it's it seems 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.800 like such a painful process. But I usually do think about, 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:30.919 like if I'm going to end this film here? Why 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.120 are we ending it here? And will it stand the 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:35.760 test of time? When the film is over, do you 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.960 ever privately follow up about certain aspects of it? Does 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:42.960 you're caring? Does your curiosity? Does your concern end when 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.560 the film is distributed? No, the ghosts of all my 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.120 films tend to follow me, and I often keep in 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:53.919 touch with sources and interview subjects, and in odd ways, 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:58.560 they keep coming back two films I make henceforth, so 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.160 they kind of reverberate. It's it's a little bit like 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.480 that moment in in Ghostbusters where they say, don't cross 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.600 the streams. My streams are constantly getting crossed. It seems 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:12.520 like characters from one film are intruding into another. They 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:15.320 all stay with me, which becomes a little bit vexing. 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.240 Sometimes it's hard to keep them straight. In your career, 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:23.240 your fabulous career, You've made thirty films or so in 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.600 the last twenty years, one an Oscar. But of course 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:31.600 documentary films have become content for streamers and major major broadcasters. 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.840 What are your observations about that change during your career. 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:36.880 What was it like in the beginning, Well, in the 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.400 beginning was terrible. My wife used to tell me, I 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:40.840 want you to go out and get a job, and 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.560 whatever you do, don't mention that you're interested in documentaries, 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:45.960 because they'll kick you right out the door. So I 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.520 had to be very cautious. And then there was that 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:52.920 terrible era of cable television where every channel had to 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.720 be branded, which meant if you were clicking through channels, 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:58.480 as soon as you got to a channel, it had 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.480 to look like it was the street channel or whatever, 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.840 and which meant that as a creator, you were just 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.600 cranking out sausages. It was the worst possible thing. But 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.640 then I discovered, particularly for political documentaries, there was a 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.960 moment where theatrical films could say things that we're pretty 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:19.120 potent so long as you made them entertaining. And that 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:23.039 was a huge revelation which changed everything. And because suddenly 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:27.440 you weren't operating in a commercial environment where it was 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.960 the least common denominator and basically we were trying to 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.960 sell audiences to advertisers. People were buying the content, that 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:35.440 is to say, they go to a movie because they 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:37.240 wanted to see the movie, not because they wanted to 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.760 buy soap. So that was great, and I think that's 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.240 what helped to explode the moment that we're in now. 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:47.800 My only concern about streaming environment is the extent to 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:51.320 which some of the streamers began to start relying too 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.840 much on their algorithms so that they come to you 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:57.880 and say, well, our algorithm says that at you know, 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:02.000 minute thirty two, you should really be changing the narrative 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.200 to this so that we'll keep our viewers. We're hearing 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:07.840 a little bit of that, and that to be a nightmarish. 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.440 Is that a contractual thing for you? You're an Academy 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.760 Award winning documentary filmmaker. Is it understood that you have 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.320 final cut or is that all boiler plate in a contract? No? 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.080 I mean I I, generally speaking have final cut. Their 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.480 very few instances where I don't have final cut. But 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.239 there are some and and particularly some of the films 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.679 that I produce where I'm not directing them per se. 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.920 That's where we're hearing a little bit more of these notes, 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:34.760 because I mean, in addition to what I do, I 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:37.159 have a company that does a lot of other stuff, 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:41.160 and you get a lot of these notes that refer 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:45.000 to to algorithms, and it becomes a scary process. I mean, 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.039 even the studios trying to make it a science, but 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:49.280 it's never been a science. It's always been they try 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.480 to widgetize something creative, and that's that's impossible. Well, as 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:55.640 I often say, all of their algorithms and all of 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:59.159 their research and so forth is to achieve the lingering 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:03.279 fantasy of the risk free entertainment product. And I often 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:05.839 say to them, the pursuit of the risk free entertainment 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.520 product is absurd. I mean, there's no such thing absurd. 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:10.360 You know, we can only rely on our instincts and 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.520 the instincts that got us where we are now. When 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.279 you talk about your company and you talk about what 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.000 you're producing and not producing, I want you to explain 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:20.880 what's the difference between an executive producer and a producer. 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:22.919 There's a couple of different types of producers. How do 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.120 you function as a producer in your company's work. On 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.800 the projects where I'm named as a producer or an 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.719 executive producer, I generally have a creative role, and sometimes 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:34.400 it has to do with raising the money, but often 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.680 it has to do with having some say or guidance 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.760 in terms of the overall creative direction. Though you know, 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:44.360 we try very hard to empower our directors to do 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.000 films the way they want to do them. But sometimes 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.599 on a series in particular, where you're coalescing around something 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:52.920 like I did a series for Netflix for a couple 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:55.640 of years called Dirty Money, which I was very proud of. 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:59.240 It's all about corporate malfeasance, and you know, we purposefully 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.440 engaged directors to do things their own way. That said, 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.280 you know, it came out of my experience on en Ron, 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.760 which was one where you invest in the wild criminality 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.520 of the purpose and it's a kind of colorful, kind 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.680 of heist like vibe that you engage in. So as 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.200 executive producer, I'm trying to encourage the directors to lean 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:22.520 into that kind of thing without being overbearing about it. 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.880 So sometimes I'm the beard and sometimes, uh, sometimes I 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.240 come come out a little stronger than that. You now 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:30.800 have what like a hundred or a hundred and twenty 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.520 people working at Jigsaw. So the company itself, that is 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.160 to say, permanent employees as fairly small. It's like fourteen 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.840 or fifteen people, but at times we can have as 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.000 many as two hundred people working in the in the 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.160 space on various projects. So that's where things get pretty daunting. 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.120 Are you ever sitting in your office screaming into a 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.119 cushion or you're gonna cry and you're telling your staff 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:54.600 please don't bring me any more projects to do, because 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.040 there's the fear you're gonna become the Jeff Coon's of 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.800 documentary filmmaking, where like you're running from room to room 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:04.280 and going yes, no, change this brightenness. Yeah, well, I 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.040 really try. I mean, that would be the stereotype. And 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:09.720 I do scream into my pillow, but usually not because 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.200 of that. I mean, if if I can get projects 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:17.840 made great, But I purposely tell you know, the other 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.720 executives at the company, there are many projects here I 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.440 don't want to be involved in, not because they're bad projects, 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.240 but because it's important that they run themselves, because otherwise 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.800 I get spread too thin, and who needs that. Then 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:32.920 it becomes a kind of proxy system. The whole idea 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.760 is to create a company that will run of itself 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:40.199 and last long after I've left the field. Well, when 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.080 you talked before about these streamers and their algorithms, what 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.600 I found with some of the even in the podcast world, 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:49.280 what they're basically saying is we need eight episodes because 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.920 we don't get into the grave until episode six. Episodes 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.680 one through five we break even six, seven and days 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.520 when we make money, so we need eight episodes. And 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.160 I'm like, well, I think I got six good ones, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.800 and they're like, we need eight episodes. Do you find 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.040 that that's challenging for you in terms of when you 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.680 make films sometimes? And we try, honestly to push back 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:14.559 on that, because the last thing you know, you want 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.199 is to do a story that feels like it's run 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.400 out of gas and you just keep flogging it. So yeah, 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:24.520 sometimes we do get that, but then sometimes the algorithm changes, 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.280 Like you know, some of the streamers are like, well 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:29.480 that's the way we used to think, and now now 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.559 it's back to five is the magic number or whatever? 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:37.240 You know, haven't you heard? And yeah, exactly, you clearly didn't. 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.760 The website you go to how many episodes this week? 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:45.000 It's far dot com right, Yeah exactly. Now you have 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.840 a great volume of work where you are developing material, 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.080 making films and series and so forth limited series with 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.760 some great, great writers, so great, I mean to just 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.480 keep you alone and Larry right, who I worship because 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:59.959 you worked with Larry before, and going clear Going Clear, 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.440 or in my trip to Al Qaida, and and also 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.520 obviously Looming Tower. So what was your first connection with Right? 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.880 Somehow we were put together on my trip to al Qaida, 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.040 which was a play that he had done about a 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:17.200 one man play that he started about the writing of 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:21.040 the Looming Tower. And we got together on that and 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.000 I did a doc about it. It's part half of it, 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.680 or a lot of it is the play itself. And 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:28.360 then we cut in and out of the play to 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.600 do various documentary thing and we got on really well, 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.600 and so then we were determined to do other stuff together. 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:36.640 You know, I have a kind of a shorthand I 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.720 think with writers because my dad was a journalist, and 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.800 that's the business I was supposed to go into. It 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:45.240 was around me all my life. So in my films, 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.600 well I make them consciously as films. They also they 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.040 have what I would call journalistic baggage. That is to say, 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:56.520 I'm really invested in in a journalistic aspect of them 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.880 that tries to get the facts right. But with somebody 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.520 like Larry Right, it's a similar process in terms of 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:05.400 the storytelling aspect of it. You know, at greater lengthen 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.840 the new Yorker pieces or in his books, which often 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.559 come out of his New Yorker pieces. There is at 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.160 once a kind of fact finding discipline and also a 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:18.520 storytelling discipline where you're trying to engage an audience to 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.560 come along this journey with you, and part of that 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.480 is investing in the propulsion of the narrative, which is 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.240 I mean, that's storytelling, right. So Larry and I got 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.040 on really well because he's always talking about stuff like 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.920 that and and devices that he uses in his writing 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.120 and and so ongoing. Clear that was maybe the biggest 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.880 collaboration we had in terms of impact. The Leoming Tower 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:43.200 was also, you know, had pretty broad reach. When you 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:45.640 do a Crime of the Century. When you do with 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:49.240 something with HBO, the budgets pretty high, correct, it is, 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:53.600 relatively speaking. Relatively speaking, though, and on this one it 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:55.760 it got a lot higher than the original budget because 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:57.640 our original deal with HBO said we were going to 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.800 do a two hour film, and then when we showed 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.240 them the material, they said, well, this is clearly you know, 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.400 going over the bounds of the two hours, you've got 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:07.920 much more material than that, and they let us expand 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.240 it to a four hour and in the case of 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:11.959 Crime of the Century. I mean, to be honest with you. 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.480 We actually started out working with the Washington Post. There 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.520 were some journalists There's Scott Higham and Lenny Bernstein and 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:23.240 others who had first made me kind of aware of 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.920 the breadth of this story. And along the way, you know, 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:31.880 I decided they had were focusing mostly post Sackler, and 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:34.760 I decided I really needed and wanted to tell the 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:36.760 Sacular part of the story to get the breadth of it. 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:38.880 And that's what led me to Patrick, And in fact, 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:43.160 Patrick and I ended up teaming up on not only this, 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:48.520 but also a scripted version of the Sackler story called 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.439 pain Killer, which is going to start shooting later this fall. 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:54.959 When you're working on the Sacular story as well as 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.400 perhaps other stories, is there ever a fear of litigation? 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.120 I mean, talk about a deep pockets opponent off you 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.360 wind up getting litigated. Were you're afraid that they would 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:07.080 suit you? Yes, And that's why the reporting has to 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:09.920 be really good. And I give a lot of credit 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:14.160 to HBO for being really rigorous about that. But once 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.360 you have the facts right, being very brave, I mean 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.400 I learned that on Going Clear. You know, there were 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.280 a lot of lawyers attached to that film, but we 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.199 were very good about getting our facts right. And it's 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.960 not only the stuff that's in but the reporting that 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:31.240 surrounds it. That's what gives you the foundation to put 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:33.560 some of the stuff you put in the film. And 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.160 so with Patrick, because we were working in different media, 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.679 we were able to share things that we might not 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:43.040 otherwise have shared. If he was, say, another filmmaker, and 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.319 he would give me some documents, I would give him 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:48.160 some documents. And also we could geek out with each other. 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:50.480 I mean, when you're deep into a project like this, 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.959 very few people, particularly significant others, want to hear from 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:57.760 you about the arcana of the opioid crisis. You know, 0:13:57.800 --> 0:13:59.840 it's like okay, Han, that's enough. You know, we've got 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.840 embedded in your wife's like honey, what's wrong? And like 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.880 look at the molecular structure of this active ingredient. Look 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.800 at this molecule. Have you ever seen a molecule? Now? 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.120 But when you're doing these projects you talked about all 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.280 the lawyers attached to Going Clear. We were talking before 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.080 about how the early days for you because you work 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:21.360 so much in unearthing truth and facts and there's a 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.960 journalistic stripe to what you do that you've got a 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.760 staff of people doing research and maybe you have a 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.480 part time lawyer. I'm kind of joking here, and now 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:31.760 your company, the difference is you've got a lot more 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.080 people on the payroll doing research. You have ten lawyers 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:35.440 on the payroll. You know what I mean? Like, do 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.720 you need more of everything to get the facts clear? 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.040 You know, we don't operate the company that way. And 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:43.760 and actually while we started to veer in that direction, 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:46.240 I think we're going back to baseline to be a 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.080 little bit more entrepreneurial. What we do is try to 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:51.000 set it up more as units, you know, try to 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.360 function not as a machine or a factory, but more 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.480 like a studio where each film or series has its 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.720 own people and and it's a small but dedicated group, 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.280 and attached to them are are sometimes lawyers we frequently 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.840 work with, and sometimes journalists we frequently work with, but 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:12.240 they're attached to that particular project. So each one is bespoke, 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.240 it's has its own DNA, and that tends to work 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:18.000 out better because sometimes these things take a long time, 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.000 like Crime of the Century took close to three years 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:25.240 to do with a small group that really gets intensively 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.720 into the subject. That's what allows it to happen, rather 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.080 than a kind of big machine which attempts to crank 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:33.520 these things out. They can't be cranked out because the 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:38.360 rhythm of them sometimes depends on when you get documents 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.200 or when you get people to talk at the pace 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.320 of their own. But I'm even talking about the creative 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.720 DNA biology of the project to project. I'm just talking 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.760 about resources in terms of when you're first starting out, 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:52.400 you might not have everything you need. And as you 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:56.400 become this phenomenally successful filmmaker, one thing it affords you 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:58.000 to do is to have more people come on and 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.920 do more research and deepen your research, and have more 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:03.720 legal help to protect you. Now, you know, I was 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:06.040 in Sundance. I saw you there. I went to the screening, 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.040 and uh, I'm in that rarefied position where I'm friends 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.080 with Tom. I mean he's he's a friend in terms 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.400 of my career. You know, we don't see each other 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:15.080 for long periods of time where we pick up where 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.360 we left off. He had me come into a couple 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:21.440 of smaller parts and two am I movies and so forth. 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.120 And I've often speculated and I even wrote in my memoir, 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.880 So I thought, what was it? What did he need 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:30.880 this involvement in this organization, in this uh, in this faith, 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:32.000 or whatever you want to call it. What did he 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.400 need it for? I wasn't quite sure what its purpose was. 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.440 You know, he has everything, you know, wealth and fame 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.480 and legacy and the respect of the community. He has 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.520 everything you could possibly imagine in a career as as 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.440 as a movie star. So what did this add to 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.280 his life? And I I speculated about that in my book. 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.000 I came up with an answer. But when you were 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:57.040 doing Going Clear, the scientology community, which is diverse, I 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.800 mean there's different people. Was not all just Tom incorporated maybe, 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.080 but all those people have been able to in some 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:07.960 way chew away any real close examination. And when I 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:12.480 watched your movie, I was mildly taken aback by how 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.720 deep you got. Your film was among the first people 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.120 from a major filmmaker to say that the the institution 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.960 is guilty of certain abuses. I mean they abuse people. 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.400 Their attitude to me was always like, hey, man, we're 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.000 not hurting anybody. You know, we manipulate people, no more 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.040 or no less than U S military recruitment companies, do 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:31.520 you know. I mean, we have a certain kind of 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:33.600 a thing we do to get people to want to 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:35.480 join and sign up with us, but no one's being 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:39.000 abused or hurt. And you and what was the genesis 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.280 of that movie? Why did you decide you wanted to 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.080 go further and look into that even further. You know 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.360 what's interesting about that is that I had been offered 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:48.879 to do that movie any number of times, and I 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.399 had always turned it down because I always felt it 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.600 was too fringed. There weren't that many scientologists in the 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:57.280 world as opposed to say, the Roman Catholic Church. I 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.399 did a film about the church. Coincidentally or not, two 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:05.439 weeks after it premiered, the pope resigned. So um, you know, 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:10.200 I was familiar with deep seated religious organizations and also 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:12.000 you know the pushback you can get. But in the 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.760 case of Going Clear, it was Larry who convinced me. 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.920 Larry Wright who convinced me to take it on. There's 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:22.080 a phrase in his you know, subhead of his book 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:27.359 is the prison of belief, And that idea was really 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.600 interesting to me because then it was a deep dive 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:36.199 into scientology and indeed, the abuses of scientology. I mean 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.720 that that's the reason to be concerned, is that the 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:43.000 prison of belief leads to real human rights abuses. But 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:45.480 the other reason I was interested in it is because 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:51.720 people like to demonize scientologists as crazies, and the prison 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:56.880 of belief allowed me to put scientologists in a mainstream 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:00.960 tradition of how people invest or get lost in a 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.240 prison of belief, whether it be religious belief or political belief, 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:06.679 and can't get out even though the bars of the 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.840 cell are open. So that's what really motivated me to 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.160 get there. And then as we dug in, we took 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:15.120 testimony and checked facts and found out stuff that other 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:17.960 people hadn't found out before. And and I actually had 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:22.080 a pretty big impact on the Scientology community itself. There 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:23.720 are a lot of people who either left the church 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:28.760 or who as ex members of Scientology, suddenly felt empowered 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:30.359 to speak up in a way that they hadn't been 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:33.840 able to do so before. Because because Scientology using its 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.040 threat of litigation, because they had launched the maybe the 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:41.560 most expensive lawsuit ever against the media company when they 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:46.080 went after Time Warner, you know, people were afraid. And 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:51.359 HBO was incredibly impressive in terms of its ability to 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:54.879 back us up once we convinced them that we had 0:19:54.920 --> 0:20:02.480 the goods. Filmmaker Alex Gibney. One person who never sought 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:06.119 risk free entertainment was Sheila Nevins. As the head of 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:11.040 HBO documentary Films from nineteen seventy nine until her retirement 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:15.080 in two thousand eighteen, Nevin's laid the groundwork for our 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:19.439 current golden age of documentaries. However, when she started in 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:24.320 the early eighties, HBO wouldn't even use the word documentary. 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.640 When we did promos for films, we would call them docutainment. 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.399 We invented this luetic word because we're afraid that if 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:33.879 we said documentary, people would feel that it was for 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.800 the elite and that it was about politics, and that 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.960 it was not going to be about human stories. And 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.960 so we we hid behind this word docutainment. And then 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:47.560 slowly but surely it took a good years we began 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:49.440 to say, well, maybe it's not such a dirty word, 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:54.600 and reality programming sort of said real people can be 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:59.840 interesting in a trivial way. So then somehow it went docutainment. 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:05.720 Reality TV yea documentary, go for it, say that real people, 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:10.800 people without celebrity, people who are trying to survive in 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:13.399 a complicated world, saying their own words and say it 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:17.480 in their own words. To hear more of my two 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:21.520 thousand seventeen conversation with Sheila Nevans, go to our archives 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:26.040 and Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Alex 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.080 Gibney talks about his first job out of film school, 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:41.920 cutting trailers for exploitation films. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:45.600 listening to Here's the Thing. Alex Gibney has said he 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:50.399 inherited some of his anti authoritarian ways from his family. 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:54.440