Moment of Truth: Alex Gibney on Casino Jack (and the Rest of His Documentary Binge)

Even when your films deal with institutional failures, they seem to be personal stories.

I think that's essential. At the end of the day, I don't think it's appealing to make films about a theme -- a broad lecture about a certain fundamental problem. You make films about people and their stories. Out of those may grow some larger understanding of how things work, and I am interested in the big ideas. But I learn it over and over again: Every time I stray too far from the story, it always causes a problem for the film. We showed a longer version of this film at Sundance, and even my editor -- who's always ruthless with me -- concluded that we had cut it to the bone. It was over two hours; we showed it to an audience at Sundance who were like, "No. It's way too long." That's because there was a portion of the film that veered too far away from our central character, Jack Abra
moff. We pulled it out. It was a heartbreaker for me, because it was a great section. We'll probably release it on the Web. But it taught me a lesson: It's about the story.

So how did My Trip to Al-Qaeda come about?

You know, it was kind of a companion piece to Taxi [to the Dark Side]. It was one of thing where while Taxi was about us, My Trip to Al-Qaeda is about the enemy -- even though it ends up being a lot about us, also. I went and saw Larry's play, and I was impressed because it seemed a very personal journey to the Middle East. And by being such a personal journey, it would allow access to a lot of people who wouldn't read the more dense, scholarly material on that topic. It would be like going on a tour bus -- with Larry Wright as the guide.

But it's not a traditional documentary in the Alex Gibney mode, right?

No. At it's center is a dramatic conceit. It's a play, and we shot the play as a play. And that was fun for me, because that give me a spine but also gave me a structure. And there was the dramatic conceit at the heart of it. But in the middle of his set was a TV screen. That was in the play. We made the TV screen a little bit bigger for the movie; we made it widescreen. But that became a kind of magic portal, which meant we could travel freely through time and space -- in and out of the drama -- to create some kind of tension. I think one of the things I miss from the play is that tangible evidence of being in the Middle East. He was talking about it a lot, but I wasn't going there. It's not so hard! You get the photographs or the archival footage or, in this case, I went to Cairo with Larry. Or London. You can go there! And that's what people want to see. That's what documentarians do: You go and get the sh*t and show it. So that seemed like an opportunity to mix. And I give a lot of credit to one of the producers and the editor on the film, Allison Ellwood, who really worked that material pretty hard.

And of course there's Freakonomics. It's so strange: In this doom-and-gloom nonfiction climate, here is a movie by the unofficial documentarian dream team. How did you sign on?

They asked me. I knew about the book, and I read the book, and it seemed like fun, but I have to be honest and say there was one particular angle in the story, just because of who I am and because of who I am and because I wanted to have fun with it.

Which was...?

The Sumo episode. I grew up in Japan; I love Sumo wrestling. I love it visually, as a filmmaker, and I'm really interested in the idea of corruption -- cheating. So, great! Bring it on! Sounds like fun. And the idea of doing something shorter really appealed to me. Now, mind you, mine is the longest, but...

How long is "long"?

24 minutes. An eternity.

Indeed. How involved were you with the other filmmakers?

Not at all. I haven't seen the finished film. I've seen my film -- my portion. I haven't seen the finished film with all the contributions. But I think that was by intent. I've been there. I produced The Blues with Scorsese, and that's what we did there, too: Every filmmaker for himself. And then you go off and do it.

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