The message films that try to be message films always fail. Likewise with documentaries. The documentaries that work best are the ones that eschew a simple message for an odd angle. I found that one of the most spectacular films about the Middle East was 'Waltz With Bashir,' or 'The Gatekeepers,' or '5 Broken Cameras.'

Alex Gibney

Categorized in : Best Work Simple Broken

With every project I start out on, there's no footage. It's always a big slog to find the footage.

Alex Gibney

projects bigs

As a filmmaker, I always took my inspiration from a filmmaker named Marcel Ophüls, who said, "I always have a point of view, but the trick is showing how hard it is to come to that point of view."

Alex Gibney

inspiration views said

No one likes documentaries.

Alex Gibney

documentaries likes

The Barack Obama Administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined. That's a staggering record. And it comes from a president who said that he's going to have one of the most transparent administrations ever.

Alex Gibney

barack president

I think one of things that Steve Jobs, in his own funny way, encouraged us to remember with those "Think different" posters of Gandhi and Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King was, "How do you make the world a better place?"

Alex Gibney

kings jobs thinking

You see the natural progression of what happens when the executive gets power and then a new executive comes in. The new executive doesn't say, "Oh, man. The president has just got too much power. We're going to dial that back." No, they expand the power. It's like, "He didn't use it well, so I'm going to take more power and use it better because I'm a better guy and my values are better." Then you suddenly realize that the very people who were attacking Guantánamo prior to getting into office are now the people expanding an assassination program overseas.

Alex Gibney

office men people

Long ago I had a professor who told me, 'Embrace the contradictions.' I think that is what is most interesting about people like Jobs.

Alex Gibney

long-ago jobs thinking

Steve Jobs was one of the first people to understand that the computer wasn't just a tool, but that it could be an extension of ourselves, and he positioned Apple that way. The iPod was this revolutionary device with the idea of 1,000 songs in your pocket, and then that machine represents who you are.

Alex Gibney

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If people are portrayed as monsters, we become disconnected from them, and to me that is not remotely interesting.

Alex Gibney

monsters people interesting

Many people, including myself, thought of Jobs as an inventor, an Edison-like figure, but he wasn't. I did a documentary on James Brown recently; and, oddly, I found a lot in common between Jobs and Brown. Jobs was also a fantastic performer, put on an extraordinary live show at his product launches, but he could also be ruthless, cruel and totally self-aggrandizing. And just as Brown surrounded himself with the very best musicians, Jobs understood the importance of hiring the absolutely most talented people and knew how crucial they were to the success of what he was trying to do.

Alex Gibney

self jobs people

Jobs' incredible skill was as a storyteller, a salesman. He could captivate our imaginations and reel us in. He was more P.T. Barnum than Thomas Edison.

Alex Gibney

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I'm still an Apple person, but let's just say the magic aura is gone. In a way that was a sad thing to lose, but I feel better for it. It's just a machine now, not linked with any greater mission or mystique.

Alex Gibney

apples magic feel-better

Suicides aren't heroic in my opinion. And I don't think anybody ever really knows why somebody commits suicide.

Alex Gibney

opinion suicide thinking

You can't expect the institution to learn, if it doesn't accept any sense of justice.

Alex Gibney

institutions accepting justice

The funny thing about being Catholic, and I was raised Catholic, is that you identify with the Church, just as part of your character. Nevermind what you believe, it's just who you are.

Alex Gibney

funny-things character believe

In the case of the Catholic Church, it's hard to understand how they so willfully sacrifice the children.

Alex Gibney

sacrifice catholic children

The Church must be all-powerful. You discover these horrors within institutions because predators find ways of hiding in plain sight.

Alex Gibney

powerful church sight

The sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is the result of what police call "noble cause corruption," the belief that because you are dedicated to doing good, you can do no wrong.

Alex Gibney

police catholic sex

One of the things about Steve Jobs is that he gives us an opportunity to look at the disjuncture between that world and the world he claimed that Apple represented, the "Think different" world of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and Gandhi.

Alex Gibney

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Bill Gates, who is the classic computer nerd, as opposed to Steve who is, like the coolest guy in the world. And who is really doing things to make the world a better place?

Alex Gibney

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