Alex Gibney: The Cinematic Documentary

In the past few years, Alex Gibney has become the most prolific and successful director of theatrical documentaries in the United States. His 2006 Oscar-nominated feature Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room was investigative journalism into a corporate crime made vital and cinematic. Taxi to the Dark Side won the Oscar for best documentary and, again, gave its devastating research into the Iraq War fiasco a galvanizing force through its masterful filming and editing.

In the past year, the Gibney documentary onslaught has been accelerating. Casino Jack and the United States of Money premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June. My Trip to Al-Qaeda, Gibney’s film adaptation of Lawrence Wright’s one-man stage performance about his Al-Qaeda investigations, followed in September. Magnolia Pictures is releasing Gibney’s newest feature, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, in November. Soon to follow in 2011 will be Magic Bus, Gibney’s recounting of Ken Kesey’s famous electric Kool-Aid road trip, and a film about the champion biker Lance Armstrong. With the Kesey project, Gibney is exploring, as he did with his feature Gonzo on Hunter Thompson, the history of the American counter-culture.

Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions was established in 1982, and has a long and successful track record that precedes the theatrical films of recent years. Jigsaw’s productions include Martin Scorsese’s multi-part TV series, The Blues and David Halberstam’s The Fifties, for which Gibney was the writer, director and producer.

Gibney is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and has written for Newsweek, The LA Times, Newsday, New Republic and other publications.