I spent a lot of time on the idea of auditing because it's a kind of talking cure, so the beginning of the film, people talk their way in. By the end, they talk their way out. Speaking out has become their way of not only leaving the church but helping others who might be suffering under the abuses. The idea of speaking out is fundamental to the film.

Alex Gibney

Categorized in : U.S.

In many ways, I'm a big admirer still of Julian Assange. He had balls to do what he did and his motivations in terms of holding the powerful to account are tremendously inspiring to me.

Alex Gibney

balls motivation powerful

I feel that Julian Assange came to be both paranoid and self-regarding in ways that ultimately undermined his own mission.

Alex Gibney

assange self way

What a terrible world it would be if we only did films that were poster boards for political causes.

Alex Gibney

boards political would-be

The internet connects us all and provides this fabulous fact-checking mechanism, and yet at the same time, the power of lies is conveyed much more efficiently now because they're accepted so fast.

Alex Gibney

fabulous lying facts

In a busy world, even as information is moving so rapidly, we have to learn who to trust in that regard even as we ourselves have to become more critical of the people who we want to trust. It's a weird situation.

Alex Gibney

people world moving

I don't think Steve [Jobs] started Apple as a scam. But he understood early on the power of marketing. The idea of the computer as a bicycle for the human mind - I think that was something he believed.

Alex Gibney

apples jobs thinking

Steve Jobs did not start started Apple as a scam. But he understood early on the power of marketing. The idea of the computer as a bicycle for the human mind - I think that was something he believed. He believed in making people comfortable with these machines, which is why he spent so much time thinking about how to design them a certain way, how to make them so user-friendly and interactive, and why he spent so much time studying the Zeitgeist.

Alex Gibney

jobs ideas thinking

Jobs would have ever have asserted that Bill Gates was not serious about technology. He was a huge pioneer in that world, albeit doing something quite different in approach from what Steve did. He was dismissive of Gates' foundation work as something he did to make himself feel better.

Alex Gibney

technology feel-better jobs

Whether or not he came to believe it - so many people, when they have a mission, come to believe something in a way that may have started out as a slogan. You know, L. Ron Hubbard, not to make a random comparison, started Scientology as a scam.

Alex Gibney

scams believe people

As the power of governments wanes, corporations become ever more powerful. Sometimes they do things that aren't so good. We should pay attention. Steve Jobs was saying, "Don't pay attention to all that stuff. Pay attention to the product you've got in your hand."

Alex Gibney

pay attention hands

As the power of governments wanes, corporations become ever more powerful. Sometimes they do things that aren't so good. We should pay attention.

Alex Gibney

government powerful attention

What made so many people so upset when Steve Jobs died was that he was a kind of combination of daddy - in this relationship between the machine and ourselves - and also he was our guide. He was the one who led us to look into the mirror. He created these devices that became extensions of ourselves. Suddenly, he wasn't going to hold our hand as we went from product to product, which became increasingly about who we were.

Alex Gibney

mirrors jobs hands

I think many articles in the New Yorker have a strong point of view, but they are so rigorously fact-checked. I wouldn't call them objective, but they feel fair.

Alex Gibney

strong views thinking

I come from a filmmaking tradition and a storytelling background. So somehow I've emerged like a mutant who can straddle both worlds.

Alex Gibney

mutants tradition world

The stuff about film being a collaborative medium is no joke.

Alex Gibney

mediums film stuff

What's great about the Sundance Film Festival is the festival takes over that town as it's intended to do. But, it's very focused on a lot of other filmmakers and distributors so it almost feels like, while they're a lot of so-called civilians there, it's an opportunity that you have to see, to show your stuff to the other folks, your peers really, and to get that reaction.

Alex Gibney

peers festivals opportunity

Fundamental problem in American democracy is that we are allowing congressmen and senators to be bought and sold like sneakers.

Alex Gibney

sneakers democracy fundamentals

It's easy to get armchair analysts to talk, but to get people on the inside to talk is very, very hard.

Alex Gibney

analysts easy people

I think a lot of these people who over promise and imagine that they can do things well beyond what anybody else has done so far, they are possessed of a certain delusional quality — a certain kind of narcissistic belief in their own powers, that's become, in a way, kind of my stock and trade : to examine those characters,'cause there's something glorious about that.

Alex Gibney

technology

We were able to find a number of people who leaked us footage from inside the company ; footage that was owned by Theranos, that was Theranos as Theranos wanted to present itself.

Alex Gibney

technology