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Alex Gibney

April 27, 2023

Philip Alexander Gibney (/ˈɡɪbni/; born October 23, 1953) is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, Esquire magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time."[1]

Alex Gibney
Gibney at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival Vanity Fair party
Born
Philip Alexander Gibney

(1953-10-23) October 23, 1953 (age 69)
New York City, U.S.
Alma materYale University
UCLA Film School
Occupation(s)Film director, producer
Years active1980–present
RelativesFrank Gibney (father)

Gibney's works as director include The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (winner of three Emmys in 2015), We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (the winner of three 2013 primetime Emmy awards), Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (nominated in 2005 for Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature); Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (short-listed in 2011 for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature), Casino Jack and the United States of Money, and Taxi to the Dark Side (winner of the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature), focusing on a taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed at Bagram Air Force Base in 2002.[2][3] In 2019, he released his documentary Citizen K, about Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian billionaire exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Life and career

Gibney was born in New York City, the son of Harriet (Harvey) and journalist Frank Gibney.[4][5] His stepfather was the Rev. William Sloane Coffin. After attending Pomfret School, Gibney earned his bachelor's degree from Yale University and later attended the UCLA Film School.

Gibney developed an anti-authoritarian view from the journalism career of his father: "They say to succeed you're supposed to suck up and kick down. Well, he was the classic guy who sucked down and kicked up, which is never a good career path! He was at Time, then fired. At Newsweek, fired. At Life, fired." His stepfather was equally an influence on him. "There was something about my father, my mother, and then my stepfather, I think they all ruddered against authority in their own peculiar ways. And that probably rubbed off on me, too."[6]

He served as executive producer of the documentary No End in Sight (2007). His film Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008) is a documentary based on Hunter S. Thompson's life and his "Gonzo" style of journalism. Under executive producer Martin Scorsese, Gibney was series producer for the PBS television series The Blues (2003) (producing individual episodes directed by Wim Wenders and Charles Burnett) and writer-producer of The Pacific Century (1992) (which won the News & Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Historical Program). Several films he directed and/or produced have been screened at the Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and Tribeca Film Festivals.

In an interview with Robert K. Elder for The Film That Changed My Life, Gibney credits much influence on his filming style to The Exterminating Angel:

[The Exterminating Angel is] dark, but it's also wickedly funny and mysterious in ways that can't be reduced to a simple, analytical explanation. I always thought that's what's great about movies sometimes—the best movies have to be experienced; they can't just be written about.[7]

In an interview with David Poland for MIFF, Gibney disagrees with the view from nowhere, the idea that journalists can be objective:

"Objectivity is dead. There's no such thing as objectivity. When you're making a film, a film can't be objective.[8]

Gibney's frequent documentary mode is the expository style akin to Ken Burns- in which the filmmaker relies on testimony from subjects involved in the subject matter and voice-over narration.[9]

Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival where it won Best Documentary. The film probes the killing of a taxi driver named Dilawar at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.[10]

Gibney is president of Jigsaw Productions, which produces independent films, documentaries and television series. On June 16, 2020, Imagine Entertainment, a film, television and documentary production company run by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, invested in and acquired an ownership stake in the company.[11] Gibney has been honored by the Yale Film Studies program for his contributions to film culture. In 2010, Utne Reader listed him as one of "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World."[12]

His 2013 film We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, is a comprehensive look at WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning. The Wikileaks organization itself has objected to the way Gibney portrayed it, and has posted a line-by-line rebuttal to the entire film.[13] Gibney posted a rebuttal.[14]

In 2015, Gibney received the inaugural Hitchens Prize, awarded in honor of the late writer Christopher Hitchens.[15] Gibney had previously collaborated with Hitchens on a documentary film adaption of Hitchens's book The Trial of Henry Kissinger.

Gibney's most recent projects include work on The Armstrong Lie (about Lance Armstrong), Catching Hell (a contribution to ESPN's '30 for 30' series which looks at "The Inning" in Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series), Going Clear (a documentary about Scientology), Dirty Money (doc-series that explores corporate greed and corruption), The Looming Tower (fiction series based on the book by Lawrence Wright of which he directed the pilot), and The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, which premiered at Sundance 2019.

In 2023 Gibney showed the first part of two-part documentary at the Berlin film festival called Boom! Boom! The World Vs Boris Becker, concerning the life of troubled German tennis star Boris Becker.[16] In March 2023 he announced that he was “several months” into a documentary film called Musk, about entrepreneur Elon Musk.[17]

Gibney writes for The Atlantic, and has written for Huffington Post and other publications.[18]

He has been a resident of Summit, New Jersey.[19]

Lawsuit

On June 19, 2008, Gibney's company filed for arbitration, arguing that THINKFilm failed to properly distribute and promote his film Taxi to the Dark Side.[20][21] He sued for over a million dollars in damages and stated that the film has grossed only $280,000.

Filmography (as director)

References

  1. ^ "Alex Gibney Movie – Documentaries by Alex Gibney". Esquire. April 23, 2010. from the original on November 1, 2012. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
  2. ^ "Taxi to the Dark Side Wins Documentary Feature: 2008 Oscars". YouTube. from the original on December 2, 2019. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
  3. ^ "2008|Oscars.org". from the original on April 19, 2018. Retrieved November 24, 2019.
  4. ^ Goldman, Andrew Jones (November 22, 2013). . Mensjournal.com. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved March 20, 2017.
  5. ^ Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) October 3, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, at IMDb.
  6. ^ "CBS News". CBS News. September 20, 2015. from the original on October 23, 2015. Retrieved March 20, 2017.
  7. ^ Gibney, Alex. Interview by Robert K. Elder. The Film That Changed My Life. By Robert K. Elder. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2011. N. p95. Print.
  8. ^ Gibney, Alex. "DP/30: Alex Gibney on We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks (LA Edition)" Online video clip. DP/30: The Oral History of Hollywood. YouTube, 29 Oct. 2013. Web.
  9. ^ Nichols, Bill, 1942- (December 7, 2010). Introduction to documentary (Second ed.). Bloomington. ISBN 978-0-253-00487-1. OCLC 695998458.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ Cole, Williams (February 2008). "How We Torture: Alex Gibney in conversation with Williams Cole". The Brooklyn Rail. from the original on January 17, 2012. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
  11. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (June 16, 2020). "Imagine Entertainment Makes "Substantial Investment" In Jigsaw Productions As Alex Gibney Becomes Cornerstone Filmmaker In Documentary Growth Plans". Deadline Hollywood. from the original on September 14, 2020. Retrieved August 22, 2020.
  12. ^ "Alex Gibney: The Smartest Guy in the Room". from the original on October 23, 2010. Retrieved October 19, 2010.
  13. ^ "Annotated Transcript of 'We Steal Secrets' by Alex Gibney". Wikileaks.org. May 23, 2013. from the original on April 11, 2019. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
  14. ^ Greg Kilday (November 19, 2013). "Alex Gibney Fires Back at Julian Assange: 'People Are Finally Seeing the Darker Side'". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 26, 2021.
  15. ^ "2015 Prize - Alex Gibney". The Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation. from the original on July 29, 2020. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  16. ^ "Berlin 2023: Screen's guide to the Special, Forum and Generation titles". Screen Daily. February 14, 2023. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
  17. ^ Vinson, Joshua (March 7, 2023). "Elon Musk Documentary Will Be 'Hit Piece,' Billionaire Claims; 'How Would You Know,' Director Fires Back". The Wrap. Retrieved March 8, 2023.
  18. ^ Alex Gibney | Jigsaw Productions May 22, 2013, at the Wayback Machine. Bio.
  19. ^ Tsai, Martin. "Alex Gibney's latest documentary corners Eliot Spitzer" October 15, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, The Star-Ledger, November 10, 2010. Accessed October 14, 2018. "Even though Alex Gibney has an Oscar, an Emmy, a Peabody and a Grammy sitting on his mantel, his life seems pretty much that of an ordinary Jersey guy. He commutes daily from Summit to his Manhattan office via the Lincoln Tunnel."
  20. ^ Christine Kearney (June 26, 2008). "US documentary maker seeks damages over Oscar film". Reuters. from the original on October 3, 2020. Retrieved June 26, 2008.
  21. ^ Charles Lyons (June 26, 2008). "Filmmaker Says Distributor Failed Him". The New York Times. from the original on April 19, 2012. Retrieved July 21, 2008.
  22. ^ Ramos, Dino-Ray (September 10, 2020). "'Totally Under Control': Neon To Release Alex Gibney Docu About White House's Failed Response To Pandemic". Deadline. from the original on September 13, 2020. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  23. ^ "'It's soul-crushing': the shocking story of Guantánamo Bay's 'forever prisoner'". The Guardian. December 7, 2021.
  24. ^ "Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker". Berlinale.de. Retrieved February 19, 2023.

External links

April 27, 2023
alex, gibney, philip, alexander, gibney, born, october, 1953, american, documentary, film, director, producer, 2010, esquire, magazine, said, gibney, becoming, most, important, documentarian, time, gibney, 2011, tribeca, film, festival, vanity, fair, partyborn. Philip Alexander Gibney ˈ ɡ ɪ b n i born October 23 1953 is an American documentary film director and producer In 2010 Esquire magazine said Gibney is becoming the most important documentarian of our time 1 Alex GibneyGibney at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival Vanity Fair partyBornPhilip Alexander Gibney 1953 10 23 October 23 1953 age 69 New York City U S Alma materYale UniversityUCLA Film SchoolOccupation s Film director producerYears active1980 presentRelativesFrank Gibney father Gibney s works as director include The Inventor Out for Blood in Silicon Valley Going Clear Scientology and the Prison of Belief winner of three Emmys in 2015 We Steal Secrets The Story of Wikileaks Mea Maxima Culpa Silence in the House of God the winner of three 2013 primetime Emmy awards Enron The Smartest Guys in the Room nominated in 2005 for Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Client 9 The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer short listed in 2011 for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Casino Jack and the United States of Money and Taxi to the Dark Side winner of the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature focusing on a taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed at Bagram Air Force Base in 2002 2 3 In 2019 he released his documentary Citizen K about Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian billionaire exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky Contents 1 Life and career 2 Lawsuit 3 Filmography as director 4 References 5 External linksLife and career EditGibney was born in New York City the son of Harriet Harvey and journalist Frank Gibney 4 5 His stepfather was the Rev William Sloane Coffin After attending Pomfret School Gibney earned his bachelor s degree from Yale University and later attended the UCLA Film School Gibney developed an anti authoritarian view from the journalism career of his father They say to succeed you re supposed to suck up and kick down Well he was the classic guy who sucked down and kicked up which is never a good career path He was at Time then fired At Newsweek fired At Life fired His stepfather was equally an influence on him There was something about my father my mother and then my stepfather I think they all ruddered against authority in their own peculiar ways And that probably rubbed off on me too 6 He served as executive producer of the documentary No End in Sight 2007 His film Gonzo The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson 2008 is a documentary based on Hunter S Thompson s life and his Gonzo style of journalism Under executive producer Martin Scorsese Gibney was series producer for the PBS television series The Blues 2003 producing individual episodes directed by Wim Wenders and Charles Burnett and writer producer of The Pacific Century 1992 which won the News amp Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Historical Program Several films he directed and or produced have been screened at the Cannes Sundance Toronto and Tribeca Film Festivals In an interview with Robert K Elder for The Film That Changed My Life Gibney credits much influence on his filming style to The Exterminating Angel The Exterminating Angel is dark but it s also wickedly funny and mysterious in ways that can t be reduced to a simple analytical explanation I always thought that s what s great about movies sometimes the best movies have to be experienced they can t just be written about 7 In an interview with David Poland for MIFF Gibney disagrees with the view from nowhere the idea that journalists can be objective Objectivity is dead There s no such thing as objectivity When you re making a film a film can t be objective 8 Gibney s frequent documentary mode is the expository style akin to Ken Burns in which the filmmaker relies on testimony from subjects involved in the subject matter and voice over narration 9 Gibney s Taxi to the Dark Side premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival where it won Best Documentary The film probes the killing of a taxi driver named Dilawar at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan 10 Gibney is president of Jigsaw Productions which produces independent films documentaries and television series On June 16 2020 Imagine Entertainment a film television and documentary production company run by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard invested in and acquired an ownership stake in the company 11 Gibney has been honored by the Yale Film Studies program for his contributions to film culture In 2010 Utne Reader listed him as one of 25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World 12 His 2013 film We Steal Secrets The Story of WikiLeaks is a comprehensive look at WikiLeaks Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning The Wikileaks organization itself has objected to the way Gibney portrayed it and has posted a line by line rebuttal to the entire film 13 Gibney posted a rebuttal 14 In 2015 Gibney received the inaugural Hitchens Prize awarded in honor of the late writer Christopher Hitchens 15 Gibney had previously collaborated with Hitchens on a documentary film adaption of Hitchens s book The Trial of Henry Kissinger Gibney s most recent projects include work on The Armstrong Lie about Lance Armstrong Catching Hell a contribution to ESPN s 30 for 30 series which looks at The Inning in Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series Going Clear a documentary about Scientology Dirty Money doc series that explores corporate greed and corruption The Looming Tower fiction series based on the book by Lawrence Wright of which he directed the pilot and The Inventor Out for Blood in Silicon Valley which premiered at Sundance 2019 In 2023 Gibney showed the first part of two part documentary at the Berlin film festival called Boom Boom The World Vs Boris Becker concerning the life of troubled German tennis star Boris Becker 16 In March 2023 he announced that he was several months into a documentary film called Musk about entrepreneur Elon Musk 17 Gibney writes for The Atlantic and has written for Huffington Post and other publications 18 He has been a resident of Summit New Jersey 19 Lawsuit EditOn June 19 2008 Gibney s company filed for arbitration arguing that THINKFilm failed to properly distribute and promote his film Taxi to the Dark Side 20 21 He sued for over a million dollars in damages and stated that the film has grossed only 280 000 Filmography as director EditThe Ruling Classroom 1980 Manufacturing Miracles 1988 Inside Japan Inc 1992 The Fifties 1997 television mini series documentary AFI s 100 Years 100 Movies Love Crazy 1998 TV special documentary The Sexual Century Sexual Explorers 1999 TV movie The Sexual Century The Sexual Revolution 1999 TV movie Jimi Hendrix and the Blues 2001 Enron The Smartest Guys in the Room 2005 documentary 3 Doors Down Away from the Sun Live from Houston Texas 2005 Behind Those Eyes 2005 documentary Time Piece segment Empire of the Pushcarts 2006 documentary The Human Behavior Experiments 2006 TV movie documentary Taxi to the Dark Side 2007 documentary Gonzo The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson 2008 documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money 2010 documentary My Trip to Al Qaeda 2010 documentary Freakonomics segment Pure Corruption 2010 documentary Client 9 The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer 2010 documentary Magic Trip Ken Kesey s Search for a Kool Place 2011 documentary Catching Hell 2011 ESPN Films documentary The Last Gladiators 2011 Mea Maxima Culpa Silence in the House of God 2012 documentary Park Avenue Money Power and the American Dream 2012 documentary We Steal Secrets The Story of WikiLeaks 2013 documentary The Armstrong Lie 2013 documentary Finding Fela 2014 documentary Ceasefire Massacre 2014 ESPN 30 for 30 Soccer Stories Fields of Fear 2014 ESPN 30 for 30 Short Mr Dynamite The Rise of James Brown 2014 documentary Going Clear Scientology and the Prison of Belief 2015 documentary Steve Jobs The Man in the Machine 2015 documentary Sinatra All or Nothing at All 2015 TV mini series documentary Zero Days 2016 documentary Cooked 2016 miniseries episode Fire Billions 2017 TV series episode Optimal Play No Stone Unturned 2017 documentary Rolling Stone Stories From The Edge 2017 documentary Dirty Money 2018 TV series documentary episode Hard Nox The Looming Tower 2018 TV mini series episode Now it Begins Enemies The President Justice and the FBI 2018 TV series documentary episode You re Fired The Inventor Out for Blood in Silicon Valley 2019 documentary Citizen K 2019 documentary Crazy Not Insane 2020 documentary Agents of Chaos 2020 documentary Totally Under Control 2020 documentary 22 The Crime of the Century 2021 documentary The Forever Prisoner 2021 documentary 23 Boom Boom The World Vs Boris Becker 2023 two part documentary 24 References Edit Alex Gibney Movie Documentaries by Alex Gibney Esquire April 23 2010 Archived from the original on November 1 2012 Retrieved March 1 2013 Taxi to the Dark Side Wins Documentary Feature 2008 Oscars YouTube Archived from the original on December 2 2019 Retrieved November 24 2019 2008 Oscars org Archived from the original on April 19 2018 Retrieved November 24 2019 Goldman Andrew Jones November 22 2013 Mensjournal com Mensjournal com Archived from the original on March 5 2016 Retrieved March 20 2017 Taxi to the Dark Side 2007 Archived October 3 2020 at the Wayback Machine at IMDb CBS News CBS News September 20 2015 Archived from the original on October 23 2015 Retrieved March 20 2017 Gibney Alex Interview by Robert K Elder The Film That Changed My Life By Robert K Elder Chicago Chicago Review Press 2011 N p95 Print Gibney Alex DP 30 Alex Gibney on We Steal Secrets The Story of Wikileaks LA Edition Online video clip DP 30 The Oral History of Hollywood YouTube 29 Oct 2013 Web Nichols Bill 1942 December 7 2010 Introduction to documentary Second ed Bloomington ISBN 978 0 253 00487 1 OCLC 695998458 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Cole Williams February 2008 How We Torture Alex Gibney in conversation with Williams Cole The Brooklyn Rail Archived from the original on January 17 2012 Retrieved June 8 2012 Fleming Mike Jr June 16 2020 Imagine Entertainment Makes Substantial Investment In Jigsaw Productions As Alex Gibney Becomes Cornerstone Filmmaker In Documentary Growth Plans Deadline Hollywood Archived from the original on September 14 2020 Retrieved August 22 2020 Alex Gibney The Smartest Guy in the Room Archived from the original on October 23 2010 Retrieved October 19 2010 Annotated Transcript of We Steal Secrets by Alex Gibney Wikileaks org May 23 2013 Archived from the original on April 11 2019 Retrieved May 26 2013 Greg Kilday November 19 2013 Alex Gibney Fires Back at Julian Assange People Are Finally Seeing the Darker Side Hollywood Reporter Retrieved November 26 2021 2015 Prize Alex Gibney The Dennis amp Victoria Ross Foundation Archived from the original on July 29 2020 Retrieved May 18 2020 Berlin 2023 Screen s guide to the Special Forum and Generation titles Screen Daily February 14 2023 Retrieved February 19 2023 Vinson Joshua March 7 2023 Elon Musk Documentary Will Be Hit Piece Billionaire Claims How Would You Know Director Fires Back The Wrap Retrieved March 8 2023 Alex Gibney Jigsaw Productions Archived May 22 2013 at the Wayback Machine Bio Tsai Martin Alex Gibney s latest documentary corners Eliot Spitzer Archived October 15 2018 at the Wayback Machine The Star Ledger November 10 2010 Accessed October 14 2018 Even though Alex Gibney has an Oscar an Emmy a Peabody and a Grammy sitting on his mantel his life seems pretty much that of an ordinary Jersey guy He commutes daily from Summit to his Manhattan office via the Lincoln Tunnel Christine Kearney June 26 2008 US documentary maker seeks damages over Oscar film Reuters Archived from the original on October 3 2020 Retrieved June 26 2008 Charles Lyons June 26 2008 Filmmaker Says Distributor Failed Him The New York Times Archived from the original on April 19 2012 Retrieved July 21 2008 Ramos Dino Ray September 10 2020 Totally Under Control Neon To Release Alex Gibney Docu About White House s Failed Response To Pandemic Deadline Archived from the original on September 13 2020 Retrieved October 2 2020 It s soul crushing the shocking story of Guantanamo Bay s forever prisoner The Guardian December 7 2021 Boom Boom The World vs Boris Becker Berlinale de Retrieved February 19 2023 External links EditAlex Gibney at IMDb Appearances on C SPAN Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Alex Gibney amp oldid 1143519591, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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