WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1081 - Alex Gibney

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney is always trying to understand why things are the way they are. He’s done so with Enron, Scientology, the War on Terror, Donald Trump and other topics where he often finds people believing that the ends justify the means. That’s true of his new documentary Citizen K about Russian oligarchs and Vladimir Putin. Alex also talks with Marc about his path to becoming a filmmaker and how the Blues opened him up to the possibilities of the documentary medium. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace and SimpliSafe. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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How's everybody? How's everybody heading into the holiday season? My guest today is Alex Gibney. He's a documentary filmmaker, and I'm sure you've seen some of his stuff. He did Enron, The Smartest Guys in the Room. He did Going Clear, Scientology and the Prison of Belief. smartest guys in the room. He did Going Clear, Scientology and the Prison of Belief. He did We Steal Secrets, the story of WikiLeaks. He did The Inventor, Out for Blood in Silicon Valley. And he's got a new one. It's called Citizen K. And it's really about Russia, about Russia at the time where they opened it up to experiment with free market capitalism and then it shut back down with Putin. And it sort of moves through the arc of that, of what happened and, you know, Putin's rise and where the oligarchs come from. There's a lot, you know, we read constantly about Russia and, about Russia and we hear about Russia. But structurally, I don't know historically what happened or how it worked or what the oligarchs really are and were and where they came from and how that happened and what happened to the sort of brief experiment with capitalism in Russia and how that broke the thing down and sort of left a vacuum where Putin could come in.

It's and it's all done through the story of this oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. And, you know, it's really it's it's stuff you don't know. And it deepens your understanding of both America, both Russia and the dynamics that are sort of in play as we speak. sort of in play as we speak. As I talk right now, given that this is the day before, I imagine by today the President of the United States will have been impeached by the House of Representatives, deservedly so, and the kind of fight over that, the framing of that, the spin on that,

will sort of further dictate or or add flame to the fire of whether you know we turn into a a functioning sort of authoritarian country with the uh facade of democracy or uh or some form of uh democracy in the people's will will persevere it's really we are really uh on the beam with this. And I know a lot of you, some of you are like, come on, man. It's, you know, just relax. You know, the elections, whatever, man, whatever. You can read your tea leaves. I'll read mine. It's weird. I'm up on the 16th floor of this hotel and there's actually leaves kind of floating in the air right out my window. Just, I've seen two or three of them. I don't know if it's the wind coming up the building, but it's weird how pieces of garbage or

leaves or little light things just take flight. I don't know. It seems kind of spontaneous. I'm not reading anything into it. It's just sort of interesting how things will just float sometimes. So let's, let's lean into this somehow. It's it's something you know when I talk about my life and I talk to you guys about it it's really all I got you know I'm not you know commenting on things that happen necessarily in the world or in the news and I'm very I'm very happy that so many people were able to relate and connect to my reflection about my cat passing. I got an amazing amount of emails of support and people sharing their stories. And I sat here in my hotel room and wept with some of the other stories. And it really helped me, as I may have helped you, to process or revisit

a very real sort of grief and loss. But the depth of that feeling for anybody, no matter what it's about, is a profoundly human thing, a profoundly human space, a profoundly human feeling. And I would imagine that, you know, most of us, if you are relatively sensitive to what's happening in the world or, you know, kind of engaged with it, either are in a kind of mild chronic state of PTSD or at the very least a sort amount of release of that grief or that sadness, or the sadness in general, if it has any context that is something that is finite, like say the death of an animal or revisiting the sort of memories of a loved one that has passed, that the experience of at least releasing some of that grief and experiencing some of those feelings has got to be profound and cathartic, because I'm sure that for a lot of us, it sort of taps into the kind of the type of grief and sadness and anxiety that we really can't tap into on a day-to-day basis because there is no lid to it. There is no context to it. It's ongoing. And the fear of just sort of kind of basically emotionally losing your mind is always possible. So those moments where we can feel the grief

in a contextualized way that is finite and already has closure is good for the heart because it's almost impossible to live in the grief of current existence for a lot of us. And I'm glad that it still connects to so many of you. So let's talk to, we're not talking to anybody. I would like to talk about my dates. I do have tour dates coming up. The freezing my ass part of the, hey, there's more tour. I've been screwing up a couple of the dates, so let me just go through it. On Thursday, January 30th, I will be in Cleveland, Ohio at the Agora Theater. On Friday, January 31st, I will be in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the Fountain Street Church.

On Saturday, February 1st, I'll be in Milwaukee Rapids, Michigan at the Fountain Street Church. On Saturday, February 1st, I'll be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Turner Hall Ballroom. Friday, February 14th, I'll be in Orlando, Florida at Hard Rock Live. Saturday, February 15th, I'll be in Tampa, Florida at the Straz Center. Thursday, February 20th, Portland Main State Theater. Friday, February 21st, in Providence, Rhode Island, at the Columbus Theater. Saturday, February 22nd, in New Haven, Connecticut, at the College Street Music Hall. And Sunday, February 23rd, in Huntington, New York, at the Paramount. You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour for links to all the venues. Now, I got a lot of emails, as I said, in response to what I was going through with putting my cat down. But one came before that, that was sort of a poem, and though he

spelled my name wrong, I'm going to let it go, because I liked where it went on a spiritual, mystical level, poetic level, the subject line, Cats and Gods. Dear Mark, here are my best wishes to you and the choice you must make in how to best alleviate your feline friend's discomfort. Regardless of your decision, the life La Fonda lived has been made immeasurably better by your presence. By design, it seems these struggles with mortality lead us directly to wrestle with our individual understandings of God, us directly to wrestle with our individual understandings of God, which if we trace it goes back ages to the ancient Egyptians, whose history I understand can be a soft spot for some, yet still it should be stated that they did do us all a service by domesticating cats, or were they themselves domesticated under the watchful eye of Lafonda's ancestors. Having said that, though, on your own ancestors' shoulders, Mark,

fell an even heavier burden. The domestication of society, helping people reach into a realm of the self, reflected back to us out of that unwavering stare of the unknowable vessel that we refer to as the cat. If what made lions into cats, wolves into dogs, and artists out of apes isn't God, then I don't know what is. Whichever way you look at it, if you can be there with her when she passes on, or the roller coaster comes to a halt while she is around other loving humans, remembering that La Fonda was there at the beginning and played a part in all of this should hopefully ease the pain. The first time I listened to WTF, you read the old Hebrew prose, if I am not for myself, who will be?

If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? Trying comedy over these recent years has felt to me like learning to fly. Here's to the nine lives we live. Thank you for all you do. Boomer lives. Thank you, Patrick. That was pretty stunning. I liked it. And it is food for thought, my friend. I don't know where God goes, but I do know there's a leaf floating upward outside my window. That's

probably just wind, but there are moments, you know, in the crisp fall weather. It was kind of cold here, but it's kind of clear here in Atlanta, which I'm still here in Atlanta. I got here Friday. I was supposed to shoot on Monday. That got bumped up to Wednesday night, which is tonight. So I've been just sitting around, man. I'll tell you, you go, it's not really a stir crazy thing but because of the nature of my work right now it's really I'm just waiting and studying my lines and thinking about things and freaking out about other things and trying to maintain a decent diet trying to get a little exercise trying to get out into the city to experience a little bit catching

up with some uh got a couple old friends here but the process of being on the road with nothing to do um he is uh you know it's a challenge but it's part of the gig man and i've gotten out i went down to the vortex down to the laughing skull and did a few comedy sets don l rollins was in town talked to him a bit he's he was at the club did i mention the uh the birthday cake fiasco i mean jesus man so the first day i go to set you know i'm there all fucking day and they're shooting a scene of a kid's birthday party and they got this beautiful like old it's a period piece so they they got these old-fashioned birthday cakes and they only used like a few slices so there was two and a half of these chocolate birthday cakes just at the craft services table that they didn't use just beautiful old-timey moist chocolate cake with the white icing and yeah I don't know what the fuck happened the

first couple of days I was here man I think it was coming out of losing La Fonda eating cookies and I swear to God I think I ate half half one of those cakes and it just didn't stop but the other night man so i'm going through all this shit emotionally i'm away from home now i'm you know uh disproportionately worried about my other cats so i decide to watch marriage story oh my god yeah i whatever you know it just triggers all that divorce shit. Where's the trigger warning on that shit that it's going to reopen the horrendous anger and hurt of anybody who's been through that process. I don't even have kids. And my divorce was one of the most traumatic fucked up times of my life. And boy brought all that shit right back. But that feeling of wanting to go into something, you know, in good faith.

And then lawyers are hired and it turns into just a destructive clusterfuck. I definitely related to. But so to recover from that, I decided on some urgings from people who listened to my talk with Jay Roach to watch Chernobyl. So I burned through that. I binged Chernobyl. So that's just radiation poison and governmental cover-up and lies. That was leveling. So needless to say, waking up this morning, a little grim, just happy it wasn't raining.

But I'm okay so so alex gibney is um he's a pretty pretty engaged and and great documentary filmmaker i i've you know remember talking to him years ago when i was at air america and uh and and now kind of reconnecting with him uh about his latest documentary called Citizen K. It's now playing in Los Angeles and will open in other cities in the new year. You can go to citizenkfilm.com for more info. And this is me and Alex Gibney back at the house. Are you self-employed? Don't think you need business insurance?

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To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. have you had to put a cat down alex no they kept getting run over oh really yeah that was our problem there was just the blood splattered all over oh my god the here we got coyotes so yeah i remember i used to live in Glendale. You did? Up in the Montrose area. Oh, yeah? And I remember one.

I mean, there was a famous incident where we used to have guinea pigs. We had a little shed in the backyard. And there was this huge racket. Yeah. And I went out there in my boxers. You know, what the hell's going on? Yeah. And there were these three coyotes desperately trying to get into the thing the guinea pigs yeah at the guinea pigs and they

shot past me and there would always be the the you know the detritus of cats who had been ripped apart because up it's high up there right i know yeah so you'd see a lot that's where they bring them right now you're saying yeah that's terrible, I think I lost one to a coyote. I'd like to think he just went and found someone he'd rather live with. Right. Well, let's hope that's true. Yeah, that's the reality I've created. That's the myth.

That's the belief system I put in place around that cat. You're welcome to it. So I watched the new movie. I've seen many of the movies. I watched the new movie, and I got to be honest with you, I knew nothing about the structure of contemporary Russia. Yeah. And I guess it's sort of a lot of people don't. I mean, a lot of people don't.

That's why I did the movie. I didn't know that much about it either. Yeah, I didn't know what, I know what oligarchs are, but I didn't know what that meant necessarily, right? Right. Or what the relationship was or what created it. Right. And so that was your impetus. Like, yeah, I'm going to learn about this.

Well, after 2016, something happened. I thought, well, maybe we should know a little bit more about Russia. Yeah, we should learn a little bit more about the new bosses. Right. Now that we have a president that seems to be a functioning oligarch. Yes, that's right. Of the Russian regime.

Of the Putin school. I'm not sure that he's taking orders, but I think they, you know, they subscribe to the same school. But I mean, that's interesting though, because, you know, I remember the movie, the Enron movie you made, The Smartest Guy in the Room, and you did the scientology film and you know you

sort of kind of penetrate these uh these uh i don't know what they i guess their systems their structures their belief systems and their uh bureaucracies built on lies right what do you think is going on what in the whole russia story i mean just with uh with just and then this is like off there's an opinion thing yeah i mean what do you think trump is really in relation to this is he a self-centered self-serving businessman that just wants his hands on that russian money well i think he's a self-centered self-serving businessman right that's what he's all about right and and of course he's a narcissist which makes him a perfect politician but i i think if you see everything that trump has done within that sense of self-centeredness and this idea

that it's just all about him yeah it makes a lot more sense and you know because because i think that was one of the interesting things about the the russia story in that way too, is that the Putin system is how you rig capitalism and the government for your own benefit. I get, well, the story of what's his name, Khodorkovsky? Yeah, Khodorkovsky. Well, I mean, I see that on one level, but thankfully on some, and also not so much, is that there's a willingness for Americans to be stupid without having to take people out and kill them. Right.

There just seems to be like this sort of infrastructure of distraction and consumerism. Yes. That, you know, it's a lot easier to dupe Americans. Yeah. Though I think the body count is higher than we think, but it's not done with a whack, you know, in the middle of the night by some agent it's uh done through negligence well yeah or or or or this the the pursuit of profit like the opioid crime let's not call it a crisis let's call it a crime right which kind of leads back to the malignancy of consumerism on some level right need and desire and exploitation but i mean it seems to me because i can't keep quite

wrap my brain around it until you see this like a movie like yours and also i get the information that i get is that there seems to be just billions of dollars in russia that there's a lot of people around the world you know and business people in america that want it i mean i i think that you know there's a lot of money everywhere. It's not just in Russia. And I think the moral of the story here is what happens when you become so rapacious about wanting to get that money wherever it is that everything else pales in comparison. You don't care about anything else. Trump was attracted to Russia for a while because he thought he was going to get his name on a big Trump tower. And make a couple hundred million dollars.

Yeah. He might have already made it. By the way, the price went up as soon as he became a candidate for president. It went way up. Because suddenly the name, for a long time, the name didn't mean that much in Russia. fascinating about the movie about the doc and what i learned was that uh you know during um gorbachev and then onward into uh what was yeltsin yeltsin that you know where they tried to experiment with something some rudimentary democracy and and capitalism essentially you know freeing the market up a bit is just uh you know, what that looked like and what, you know, the smarter, more

sort of ambitious and kind of ruthless business people were able, you know, with that small opening of capitalism to literally take over the country. Yes. And I think what you see, and it's kind of an interesting, it's one of the reasons I think it's interesting to look at, you see what pure free market capitalism with no rules looks like. It looks like 10 guys. It looks like Al Capone's Chicago. Yeah, that's right.

But it's like it comes down to like these- Well, these seven guys ended up controlling 50% of the Russian economy by the end of the 90s. Right. And those were the original oligarchs. That's right. of the 90s right and those were the original oligarchs that's right and then i guess once it started once capitalism did what it does to to the sort of bottom line into people's uh uh ability to survive or or make a living it diminished right so the class the the sort of clash the lower class became completely impoverished well the problem was you had a system before that the

communist right where everybody was sort of equally poor right but taken care of but taken care of that's right you didn't have to worry about starving well suddenly you had to worry about starving i mean literally starving because there was no safety blanket there was no safety net and and so um but you had an opportunity to make a lot of money because there were no real rules. And so the people who knew how to play the game, and it was kind of like a game with no rules or where you could buy the refs at a moment's notice, they became fabulously wealthy. And then a lot of other people, you know, were starving. So you sort of center the entire through line or the narrative on Mikhail, is that how you say it? Michael? Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Khodorkovsky, who was an oil magnate, an oil oligarch. He became that. He started by selling black market blue jeans and computers, and he worked his way up to owning a bank. And then there's this very crooked moment in Russia where Yeltsin wants to get reelected in 1996, but he's got no money. His approval rating was about 3% and wages and pensions weren't being paid. So he made this unholy deal that was called loans for shares, where he basically got millions, billions of dollars from the oligarchs

in exchange for giving them shares in Russia's biggest public companies. And so, you know, the oligarchs kind of divide the Russian economy amongst themselves. A couple of them get TV networks. Hotakovsky gets a huge oil company called Yukos, and they come out after the election. Yeltsin wins. He comes roaring back. He wins. But the oligarchs come out owning 50% of the Russian economy. Right.

And there's like seven of them. That's right. Now, what I guess was sort of like I need to get an explanation of, it seems to me that another thing I didn't know about Putin was he was was sort of a loser he was a bureaucrat as a petty bureaucrat but he was one of those guys one of those go-to guys you wanted to get a little something done yeah you call vlad and um but like i didn't realize like you you know you get this mythology about him that he was this demonic kgb operative but no he looked like a lackey. He was kind of a lackey. I mean, if you go back to the kind of stuff he did, he did fix it stuff, but it was kind of behind the scenes fix it stuff. It wasn't James Bond stuff. He didn't become James Bond until he

became president. And then he used the power of television to sort of create this image of him as this kind of larger than life figure. but i also thought what was interesting is that it really illustrates they were both you know that he had a similar kind of disposition as trump in that you know trump was this kind of like uh he seemed like kind of a loser in a way i mean no matter how much trump like presents himself as a winner there's a core to him that he's sort of a schlepper and it seemed like putin certainly early on when he was that we worked for that governor, he just looked like one of those guys who's like, someday I'll show them. That guy. Yeah.

The difference between them was Trump was always kind of a self-promoter. I mean, he was the world's worst businessman. Let's just say it. He was the world's worst businessman. But he always promoted himself like he was the world's greatest businessman. But he was a buffoon. He was a world's worst businessman, but he always promoted himself like he was the world's greatest businessman. But he was a buffoon. He was a buffoon. But Putin was very much a behind-the-counter kind of guy.

I get it. But I guess when I just look at him, he just looks like that guy. But in terms of, you're right in one sense, and it's like that someday, I'm going to be somebody someday. Yeah, he looked like that, just like a nobody. Right. Like a guy that was sort of- He had ambition. Yeah, down on his luck, had no friends, and was just like, you know, festering.

But he was doing favors for people, and then he was highly regarded by one of the oligarchs, a guy named Boris Berezovsky, who's in the film. The TV guy. Yeah, and then Yeltsin. And they kind of moved him in because he first comes into power not by being elected, but Yeltsin appoints him president on Y2K in 2000. Right. Yeltsin at that point was drinking so much and his brain was so addled he could barely be understood. Oh, really?

And then Putin takes over. But then once he takes over, he begins to burnish his reputation and becomes the Putin we know today. Right. By taking over the – I mean, whatever he's doing up there, he's reinstating authoritarianism, right? Yes. I don't know if it's the original communist system, but it's certainly an authoritarianism. Well, it's kind of like a crony capitalist system or a gangster capitalist system. I mean, because it's not communism. It's not state control. It's capitalism, but with all these crisscrossing favors being done with the state. during the sort of outward capitalistic experiment, what is the quality of life now? Do they feel that he's some sort of benevolent ruler that reminds them of the old days?

And are there basic needs being met? I think Putin did bring stability to Russia. And he was aided in great measure by the fact that oil prices started to soar. You know, Russia had a lot of oil. And that's where Khodorkovsky was. He was in the oil business. So suddenly oil prices started to soar. A lot of money started moving into Russia. And so people's, you know, quality of life did begin to rise. And not only that, but it seemed to be more stable. So I think a lot of people in Russia give Putin a lot of credit for bringing greater stability. stability but then yeah but then there's the great mind fuck you know that he he takes over the tv stations which and in russia it's not like they they can't stop all the internet as you made a point of seeing and there is some some resistance you know some of it illegitimate but some

legitimate resistance to him some that he allows in order it'd be like fox cubed it'd be like you know if trump owned msnNBC and CNN and Fox. No, I get it. I get it. We're half an authoritarian state here. We're slouching in that direction. Right. You know, and it's just but the interesting thing about seeing what you what you were capturing is that there was a willingness on behalf of i don't even know if that's the right word is that the brain fuck was was all in on everybody and here you can see it's half the people were a little less than half and there's still a great number of people who are like what happened to my cousin right what happened to my uncle that's because like they volunteer for

this brain fucking that they're not going to recover from right but i don't know who wins i don't know either i mean it seems like the trend globally is to to strong man bullshit yes it is and and it's a it's not surprising look you know it happened in previous years too when things get uncertain people want a strong man yeah usually a man who's going to make the trains run on time but what was so uncertain the fact that you that men can marry men and women can marry women, and there's a certain amount of people that were sort of like, now everything's upside down. Right.

But it's so embarrassing and shallow. I mean, there are Scandinavian countries and other countries in the world that don't even get preoccupied with this crap. That's right. Now, the struggle of Khodorkovsky in the movie is that you know once he once well but putin says he he basically putin says to all the oligarchs look make all your money that's fine i'm not going to take back the money that you guys got for that deal you made with yeltsin but stay out of politics and khodorkovsky doesn't stay out of politics he starts to buy he

believes in capitalism well he believes in capitalism. Well, he believes in capitalism. He believes, and he's trying to bring a kind of rule of law capitalism. Because that's the other big thing that was missing in Russia. Weirdly, during the 90s, there was a huge amount of freedom in the press. And even Yeltsin allowed himself to be criticized rather openly by the press. But what was missing was a rule of law, right? The courts were feeble. And the sense of law undergirding the system wasn't there. So, Hotikovsky becomes interested because he's interested in doing a big deal with ExxonMobil in a more-

Tillerson, right? Yeah. In a more transparent way. So, you have to have rule of law for that. You have to have a system that you can believe in so that your property won't get taken away at a moment's notice by some guy who doesn't like you. Right. So then that upset Putin. It did. And the fact that Khodorkovsky was angling for political influence upset him. And also, Khodorkovsky is a pretty powerful guy.

He's got a lot of money. And he seems to be buying influence in the duma the you know representative body in russia and so but does he or does he not have gangsters well harakoski during this period and you know that's the other thing we didn't talk about i mean not only was it a crazy time for people you know who had always been kind of guaranteed a living now you know you know, they could starve, they might be successful. Right. But it was also a terribly violent time because, you know, and so, you know,

Khodorkovsky had kind of like a private army. If you, you know, people told me if you walked into his offices, the offices of Yukos, the oil company, you know, you'd see these guys with long leather jackets with Kalashnikov sticking out of them. You know, it was a rough and tumble time. Because in the movie, you know, he's sort of, you know, presented as a noble character, a flawed noble character that's trying to, you know, that's fighting a good fight. But you realize that, you know, with the case of the assassination of that, was it a mayor?

The mayor. mayor like they were trying to hang it on him but but there is a window there where you start when you watch the thing we realize in order to hold on to or accumulate that much power he must have he must have had his thugs he did yeah he did have his thugs and i think it was a that's why you know one of the guys in the film this guy derek sauer who was uh who ran the who ran the Moscow Times, he came to Khodorkovsky because he knew as a rising upcoming businessman, he was going to be extorted by thugs. Right. And so he needed a roof, protection. Yeah.

And so he came to Khodorkovsky for protection because Khodorkovsky had muscle. So that was it. All these oligarchs were, it was almost tribalism in that they each all had their private- It was Al Capone Chicago. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, given that they were in different businesses, there was sort of,

there must've been a detente among them for the most part. There was. And that's why you call them oligarchs in a way because it was a system that they were kind of feeling that they were in control of. You know,

that they were able to manipulate the levers of government in their interest. So then when Putin runs them all out, takes over the business. He doesn't run them all out, but he basically says, like, he runs the two TV guys out so that they can take over TV. Some of the other oligarchs are like, okay, we'll play ball. We'll do whatever you say. Just let us keep making money. They're still up there? Some of them.

we'll play ball, we'll do whatever you say, just let us keep making money. They're still up there? Some of them. And then Khodorkovsky is like, well, I've got other plans, and I want a different kind of Russia than the kind of Russian that you want. And there's a famous exchange between them. It's actually televised, live television. It was a big program on corruption. And Khodorkovsky calls out Putin publicly for corruption.

Yeah. And a few months later, Khodorkovsky was in prison on his way to the Gulag in Siberia. And he spent like seven years there? Ten. Ten years. Ten years. Hard time near a uranium mine in the Mongolian-Chinese border. And then he came back.

He came back. He was pardoned. And so he didn't really come back. I mean, part of the deal was that he would leave because I think during prison, something happened because look, Hotikovsky was a ruthless businessman during the 90s, particularly during the 90s. You know, he took advantage. And a lot of people think he's a terrible guy for what he did and the degree to which he took advantage. But in prison, I think he took a good hard look at the system and also at himself. And he became a kind of character who was inspirational for people. He would write these letters. He would write articles. And it was all about how Russia can become a more inspirational democratic country that doesn't transgress on the civil rights of its people. And he became kind of a heroic figure. So the fact that he was in prison looked bad for Putin. And a lot of foreign leaders were like, you've got to let this guy, Khodorkovsky, out.

The pressure was too great. Putin saw the Sochi Olympics coming up. So he thought, I know what I'll do. I'll let him out, make sure to get him out of the country. And he let him out on the same day and as part of the same order with Pussy Riot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Okay.

And then he's in exile. He's in exile. He lives in London, where things aren't always so safe for Russian exiles. No, they seem to be they're dropping like flies radioactive uh waste yeah that's right so but when was the murder charge hung on him so the murder was back in 98 and back then you know it seemed like two chechen gangsters had done it i mean mean, they literally sprayed this guy with gunfire. Hotikovsky got a call saying his brains had spilled out of his skull. The Chechen gangsters were arrested, they were briefly let go, and then they were murdered. And that's kind of where the

story sat. But then when Hotikovsky was arrested five years later, 2003. Suddenly, it's like the government discovers a whole new set of possible perps. And they start laying the groundwork for the idea that it may have been Yukos that had done it. And over time, it gets closer and closer and closer to Hadakovsky until after Hadakovsky is pardoned and he leaves the country. Finally, they literally charge Hadakovsky with murder. Is thatki is pardoned and he leaves the country finally they literally charge hotakoski with murder is that a way to keep them out of the country yes okay and and why why would it have been yukos i can't remember what the connection of the mayor was to the well you know there was a big this was it shows you how freewheeling it was i mean um you know the mayor of this town neptu gans was a big oil town yeah and he was complaining that

you know yucos wasn't paying its fair share of taxes horakoski was saying look we pay you taxes but basically you're doing what you're doing with our money is you're giving it in bribes these chechen gangsters yeah so there was one famous time where Khodorkovsky flew into town with big bags of cash and was paying nurses and doctors and civil servants directly. And so there was a huge conflict between the mayor and Khodorkovsky. I get it. So there was no doubt that there was ill will between them. But it's not the same ill will as if he doesn't make his payment on time to the mobsters. Well, you know, that's what people speculated about because it was such a rough and tumble time.

And by the way, he was killed on Khodorkovsky's birthday. And there's a tradition like this journalist Anna Polakovskaya was killed on Putin's birthday. And the way it works, people say, is that lower down functionaries decide this is a way to please the boss. Right? So it's a sign of respect. Oh, okay. Right? Happy birthday.

Happy birthday. And so there was some question as to whether that was going on. But the thing that argues against that is that the mayor was killed just a few days after Hotikovsky and the mayor had come to a deal. Right. So they finally, after all of this conflict, they'd come to a deal right so they finally after all of this conflict they'd come to a deal so it's a funny time to kill somebody so he was most likely railroaded right and and i think the what the film tries to show uh you know without knowing exactly who killed

the mayor is that when you have tv that is doing your you, when you own the TV stations, you can slowly but surely construct fictions that become reality. And for everybody today in Neftugans, they only believe one thing, that Khodorkovsky killed the mayor because Putin's, you know, propaganda campaign was, you know, ruthlessly effective. It's in. And so that was the impetus for telling this story now? I think the impetus for telling this story now was twofold.

One was to find out about Russia. Like, how did Russia, how does power in Russia work? Right. Right? And in so doing,

you can see Khodorkovsky, but also it tells us a lot about Putin. But the other one was, it was kind of a cautionary tale for us. Like, you can look at this film and you can see, here's what pure free market capitalism looks like. Here's what happens when politicians really get control of the media. Here's what happens when

the truth doesn't matter anymore. Here's what happens when the judiciary is weak. All those things, if we're watching a film like this should give us pause like hmm you know are we sliding in this direction yeah well i mean the truth uh is becoming nebulous and and and this like i i still i i just i think what we're finding is that civic duty understanding you know what what makes this country function and work and great and and just sort of uh you know how politics works most people don't know and they don't give a fuck right and and there's this idea of like america this america that america is great but most people paying lip service to most things around america even intelligent people that you and i know they

they don't really know what the fuck they're talking about and they don't know you know what's at stake and so when you hear bits and pieces of of hearsay or quick bait or whatever and then all of a sudden you're going i don't know it's like at some point there has to be a barometer of fact right and and and institutions uh you know the fifth estate or whatever that you believe that's right uh but like now I think what's happening more than just propaganda is that the dissemination of information in general is allowing people to get to kind of get untethered. It becomes overwhelming, the volume of information and the volume of clickbait information. That's, I think, one of, you know, a serious problem, too.

And that's, I think, a serious problem, too. It's like this stuff comes – there's such pressure to generate stuff so quickly without taking a beat and saying, well, wait a minute. What really happened here? Maybe we should take a few days to actually figure that out. Or even just read the whole article. Right. I think that most people just take in these moments and it's enough to throw a switch in their brain to go like, yeah, I heard that thing was not this or that. Well, and that is a human problem that we all have, you know, that confirmation bias thing where we're kind of hardwired to kind of, you know, like Pavlovian terms to try to make you, you know, hate the other side and believe your side is good. Right.

It's just it's meant to be sort of emotional food. Right. Sure. For our worst impulses. Right. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For our worst impulses. Right, right. This need for, it's just a very odd thing that people think that things are so compartmentalized and things that, you know, like with conspiracy theories, that things like, you know, like just because you can put these pieces together and get the answer that you want, that they

could actually happen that way. Well, they make us feel comfortable because they give us a sense of certainty it's like it's a it's almost like religious dogma yeah that's right in a way it is like religion i mean and it's uh you know i as you you know i did a film about that and the subtitle was the prison of belief you know once you get locked in the prison of belief you know then things are a problem well what did you learn because i saw that you know a while back that the scientology film now when when you went into that you know outside of you know just the the same curiosity we all have you know i i i'm not fundamentally uh able to suspend disbelief the the hardly at all let alone what's necessary to believe bullshit right you know i mean i believe my own bullshit but the whole god thing and yeah like because when on

the outside when you look at you know fox news or scientology it's similar uh in some ways in terms of the brain fucking it'll give you sure you know when you're not the kind of person that can suspend your disbelief you're like how the hell does that happen? Well, and that's what I was interested in. I was interested because and I found a group of people who agreed to be interviewed, including, you know, the director, Paul Haggis. Oh, yeah, sure. The actor, I'm trying to remember his name now, wonderful actor who's on the Chicago police show. Is he out or in? No, he's out now.

Yeah. police show um is he out or in no he's out now yeah uh but all these people were um uh what was interesting to me was to find out how they got in because they were all smart people right right and the answer is a little bit at a time you know that because when scientology first comes at you they don't say look here's the secret papers that tell you about TGAC, the foreign planet, and the overlord who blows shit up in volcanoes. No. You don't get any of that stuff. You just get – you sit down with this machine. Yeah, yeah.

And somebody talks to you like a therapist talks to you. It's a self-help racket. It's a self-help kind of thing. And you feel better. Like you talk yourself out. You tell a few of your problems. And it's simple. Get clear. It's a self-help. It's a self-help kind of thing. And you feel better. Like you talk yourself out, you tell a few of your problems. And it's simple. Get clear. And it's simple. You get, well, even before that, it's just like, just talk some problems out. You're thinking, gee, that felt good. Maybe I'll go back. Yeah, right. And slowly but surely you get indoctrinated

into a series of belief systems, but also a you know, a different kind of a language. I talked to Scientologists who were on the verge of getting out. In fact, I talked to Leah Remini just as she had gotten out. And it was almost hard to understand her because the degree of jargon was so intense. Like I was there with a researcher who had been in the Scientology subject for so long, she was like translating for me, like I was talking to Hotikovsky or something. Right. But it's that slow immersion process that takes you there. And then you find yourself years later, if you want to get out because you realize all sorts of human rights abuses are going on, you realize, well, I've been a fool.

But how do I now admit to myself that i've allowed myself to be fooled that's a very hard thing to do well that's why we're fucked as a country right i mean that's that's that's exactly you know like because i know there's a lot of people that now a good percentage of their anger is is is uh is at themselves themselves, and they can't accept that, that their pride won't allow them to accept that they were wrong, so they're going to double down. That's right, and that's a huge problem. It's scary, dude.

Yeah, it is scary. And you found that with Scientologists as well? Big time. I mean, I think that's what was so tough, and that's why it's so hard for people to leave, because they have to admit. Shame. Yeah, and it's as though they have to leave because they have to admit. Shame. Yeah. And it's as though they have to admit that they've been lying to themselves for these

years, that they've wasted their lives. And that's a very hard thing to do. Now, I don't think they wasted their lives. And the way they ultimately get out is by saying, look, it's a long journey I'm on. And those few years I may have been fooled, but I'm a good person and I'm coming out the other side, all that. But it's a very hard thing to admit that you were wrong. It's interesting because that happens in personal relationships as well.

All the time. It happens in politics. It happens in personal relationships. We're hardwired to believe in some ways, even though we have the capacity to check those beliefs with a kind of rational understanding of what's going on. The belief thing is some sort of mutation of some kind of survival instinct. So you're not existentially isolated and terrified all the time. Right. And sometimes it's useful. I mean, we're imbued with snap judgment so that when it's dark

and you hear a sound that's loud you know you jump and you look around you know rather than just it's also useful and even like just in a sort of like you know keeping your shit together on a day-to-day basis you have to assume that there's something it's some sort of faith to believe that life is worth living. Yes. It can be vague. Yeah. But that vague faith, I'm okay with that. I'm down with that.

Yeah. But I mean, did you, like, what drives you towards, you know, and even the Enron thing. Well, that was sort of straight up, you know, like, let's get inside this racket. Well, it was. But what was interesting to me and the part that was hard to get at was the culture of Enron. And the culture of Enron did turn people into something different. Because, I mean, we're here in California and like the worst of Enron was that period when these electricity traders were shipping electricity out of the state. Yeah. Waiting for prices to rise, and then shipping

them back in. And that was a period where they were causing brownouts all over the state, blackouts, all that stuff. And the funny thing was, as I began to do research into some of these traders, particularly the ones who were caught and charged, in some cases convicted, you would have thought, okay, they must have been the worst kind of people. But you look at who they were in their communities, like they were the people who were always beating the drum for charitable contributions.

They were doing help at the fire department. They were extraordinarily civic-minded people in their private lives. You know, there are extraordinarily civic minded people in their private lives. But they had become convinced that that Enron was this avatar of pure capitalism and that you had to be a shark. Right. Well, I think that's again, that's the wave of that is still kind of happening, that there's this idea, and now it's different in terms of what's happening politically, where the construction or the tenets of democracy are becoming seen as archaic in the face of sort of like, well, why shouldn't he be able to fucking do whatever is necessary? Right. He's the president. What else?

What good is being president if you can't do what you want? Right. But anybody, the number of shameless small-time fucking grifters that this guy's attracted to government, which has always been a Republican thing, put somebody at the head of the agency, that'll collapse a thing. That's right. That's the way they want to deconstruct the state. Right. But the sort of shamelessness on behalf of regular people

and lack of tolerance and just sort of like, you know, these Republicans in Congress, they're insulated to the point where they, it's not that they really believe what they're saying, but they're like, who gives a fuck? We're going to win. Well, and at the end of the day, it's all about winning, but you've got to wonder, like, winning for what?

You know, because I've talked to some- But wasn't that the same with Enron? Yeah. Yeah. You've talked to who? I talked to some Republican congressmen. And they're like, this is really bad, but we can't say anything. So keep up the pressure.

Uh-huh. It's on you, journalist. It's on you. Right. You're doing a good job. We need you. Yeah. Keep going. And then they will turn around and go, fake news. Exactly. In on you. Right. You're doing a good job. We need you. Yeah. Keep going.

And then they'll turn around and go, fake news. Exactly. In the building. Exactly. Fuck it, man. No, but Enron, the people were imbued with this sense that only by being the most rapacious bastard could you make the market work. Right. And that was the the view right yeah

and everybody got into that culture until of course it collapsed because it led to rank criminality which it which it will and i i don't and i have to assume that they know that they knew and they didn't know i mean, I think that's where you get into this vibe where in order to lie effectively, you have to lie to yourself, right? And that's belief. That's belief. And it's a variation. You know, there's something – if one thing has turned my head around in terms of doing documentaries these last 15 years, it's the idea the end justifies the means. Yeah.

I used to actually believe that was a good idea. Like, if you have a noble end, okay, you have to get your hands dirty. Yeah. I now see how dangerous that is. Because once you go down that road. Slippery slope. It's a very slippery slope. The police call it noble cause corruption.

You start planting heroin in people's pockets and stuff like that because you can't get them for murder. Right. And the next thing you know, everybody's bad and you're entitled to be corrupt because you're the good guy and they're the bad guys. Yeah. You've created your own moral universe. That's right. And then you become the monster cop. That's right.

Yeah. So, like, when did you, what compelled you to, I seem to be using the word compel a lot because I did not. Yeah. My wife was compelling me to work is what was happening. It was like, dude, we need some money. But wait, but did you, was it always journalism? I mean, where did you start? Where'd you grow up? I grew up in, on the East Coast. I grew up kind of in the Boston area and then- Oh, yeah.

What part? Cambridge. Oh, you were in Cambridge? Yeah. That's fancy. Well, it was. Were your parents academics? Well, my mom and dad got divorced when my dad was a journalist.

My mom and dad got divorced when I was three. He stayed in New York and my mom went to Cambridge and she worked for Children's Hospital. She was the director of health education. She actually had a part. Do you ever read Curious George Goes to the Hospital? Yeah, I think so. I'm not sure I remember it. Anyway, she had a part in helping to put that book together. Oh, yeah. That's nice. So anyway, so I grew up in Cambridge and then she married the chaplain at Yale and I moved to New Haven for the last two years of high school. And who was

that? He was a famous guy. William Sloan Coffin. I mean, he was like an interesting figure, right? He was an interesting kind of civil rights figure and then very much anti-war activist. But wasn't he one of those guys, like, you know, I didn't do a lot of research, but I knew the name and I was kind of poking around. Wasn't he a guy that was on the other side and then had some sort of come to Jesus moment? Well, way back in the day, he was OSS, which was the precursor to the CIA. Yeah. But then he had a lot of, I mean, he wanted to be a concert pianist for a while and then he entered Divinity School. At Harvard?

No. Yale? I believe it was Yale. Yeah. And was he a believer? oh yeah he was a believer and this is the guy used to say there's a great expression which i'm not a believer but i like the idea of it even for non-believers he used to say i love the i love the recklessness of faith first you jump and then you grow wings you hope you hope well yeah that's what faith is all about right or else the worst the worst First you jump, and then you grow wings. You hope. You hope.

Well, yeah, that's what faith is all about, right. The worst case scenario, you fall flat on your face. Exactly. And it knocks you so stupid that you go ahead believing anyways. Or it's Wile E. Coyote, and there's a long way down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you just become the chip on your shoulder. Right. Oh, man.

Wait, wasn't there a wasn't a famous uh christian philosopher at yale what was that guy's name newbor newbor newbor yeah i think i read some of that stuff wasn't he a progressive yes christian philosopher yes was he and he was very much i mean it's interesting now because uh in the 60s in particular there were a lot of sort of socially conscious liberal. Yeah. Clergymen. Clergymen. Yeah.

A lot more seemingly than today. Sure. They were on the front lines with the Jews and the civil rights movement. That's right. Yeah. Jews and Christians used to have a lot of soul when it came to doing the right thing. That's right. And so you grew up with that guy.

Indeed. But you maintain a relationship with your father i did i did what kind of journalist was he he worked for time life newsweek you know he had and um uh and then ended up uh he was one of those guys who uh he's he sucked down and kicked up so he got fired from a lot of jobs, but ended up at Encyclopedia Britannica, which caused him to live in Japan for a lot of his life. Wow. So did he give up? No, he didn't give up.

I mean, he went over there to do a job, which was to translate the Encyclopedia Britannica or supervise the translation of the Britannica into Japanese. Oh, my God. Encyclopedia Britannica or supervised the translation of the Britannica into Japanese. Oh, my God. Because he had learned Japanese during the war as a whole generation of Japanologists did. He was an interrogator during World War II, yeah. Uh-huh. Interesting.

So what got him fired? Was he like- He would just mouth off to his superiors. I mean, he was a good journalist. He did one sort of muckraking book called The Operators, you know, all about bad businessmen. Oh, yeah? And then he did a famous book that was famous for kind of putting Japan on the map called Five Gentlemen of Japan. But he was a good journalist, but he didn't get along with his bosses very well.

I think that's the simplest way to put it. get along with his bosses very well. So it sounds like, you know, as two male role models, it makes sense where you are. Yeah. And you have kids? I do. I've got three kids. You're nice to them? You have to ask them. I think I am.

So that's what you got from your mom. Right. Exactly. Now, was this always the idea was to go into journalism? Where'd you go to college? I went to Yale. Oh, that's fancy the idea, was to go into journalism? Where did you go to college? I went to Yale. Oh, that's fancy. Yeah, I was.

And then I went to UCLA Film School. Oh, so what was the intent? I mean, I wanted to be a filmmaker. My dad wanted me to go with the family business, which was print journalism. But I really caught the movie bug in college. Like what in particular? You know, the two that I remember being floored by, one was a doc and one was a fiction film.

The doc was Gimme Shelter by the Maisels Brothers. I was just talking to a guy yesterday about that. It's such a great film. And it's structured like a murder mystery. That's the cool thing about it. But, of course, it's the Stones and it's this cinema verite thing that the Maisels did. And then there was a film by a Spanish filmmaker, Louis Bunuel, called The Exterminating Angel. Yeah.

Which is a great film. Very dark, very funny. I remember those. I mean, I think I remember when Shannon DeLue, what was that one? Oh, that's the one where they're cutting up the eyeball. Yeah. I remember seeing Exterminating Angel. He did that with Salvador Dali.

Right. Wasn't Exterminating Angel, was that? It's about a bunch of fancy people who go to a dinner party, and then all the servants are like, we got to get the fuck out of here. And then for reasons that nobody can explain, they can't leave the room. And they end up, you know, society breaks down. They end up trying to kill each other. They try to fuck each other. Yeah. You know, society breaks down. They end up trying to kill each other. They try to fuck each other. Yeah.

You know, everything breaks down. So these are like, I think those seem to make sense. Yeah. What you became. Exactly. But you never wanted to do fictional features? I did. I mean, right out of UCLA film school,

got a job with the Samuel Goldwyn Company. And I was interested in fiction features and I wanted to be an editor. I cut some exploitation trailers. I was the second editor on this film that they did. And then I got frustrated because being an editor, if you're not on a good picture, is a tough job. Yeah. being an editor if you're not on a good picture it's a tough job yeah so i kind of hung out a shingle as a documentarian yeah which didn't work out very well for about 10 years well how'd you start like what how what is that like what what were what were the first sort of forays into it

so when did you graduate what year so i never graduated from the film school oh um you know i left because i got a job with goldwyn yeah um but i thought that was the ticket i thought that was the ticket man yeah exactly i'm on the way yeah and that would have been like in the early 80s yeah um but then you know i did a couple of films uh i did this one film called battle for eastern airlines about a big strike uh-huh but i was scuffling yeah and i was doing a lot of freelance writing i i wasn't really getting as far as i thought i should uh-huh yeah it wasn't it wasn't really um i didn't really get started until i i went to new york which was not until like the late 90s yeah and what and what were the what was. And what was the one that you consider the one that kind of puts you on the map?

There were two. You know, I was involved with Eugene Jarecki. I did this thing called The Trials of Henry Kissinger, about the dark side of Henry Kissinger. I kind of remember that. But did you direct that? No. I wrote and produced it. And Eugene directed it.

And then I did Enron. Right. The big thing that kind of changed my head about how to do it all was the blues. I was part of this series, The Blues, that Martin Scorsese produced. Yeah. It's a series of docs with fiction filmmakers. Marty did one. Clint Eastwood did one.

Wim Wenders did one. Antoine Fuqua did one. And Mike Figgis. So I got to be there. I was the producer. And so I got to watch sort of men at work, right? And what sort of struck you about that? What struck me about it was that

they had tremendous respect for the real stuff, like the blues and what it was and this documentary material. Were you a blues fan? I was a blues fan, but I also have to say I didn't know that much about it until I really dug in. But then it was their ability to kind of find a personal way in and to make it a kind of artistic statement that is on the one hand was personal to them in terms of what they wanted to say, but had great respect for the documentary material itself. So that tension was really interesting. So the films were wildly different and I realized,

oh, you know, there's no rule book here. You can do anything you want. So what struck you was that there was still sort of an auteur sensibility to capturing the facts. Yes, that's right. In documentary, a point of view is not only possible, but essential and can go as far as you want it. I think that's right. And there are some people that sort of impose themselves too much. I agree. I mean, but, you know, it's all a matter of taste. It's choices. But I think the great thing is, and what led to kind of this golden age of documentary, was breaking free from the rule book of the big three network documentary, the old white papers.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, what's interesting also is that like you know there there is there i i used to do a joke about that it's sort of like about like enough docs right you know just i mean i was told don't say the word documentary when you're going in for a job just because you have a cell phone and a dying cat doesn't make you a filmmaker yeah so right hey i go like i'm gonna call it one of nine but uh but i did it because there are a lot of docs. And then now in this age, because they're cheaper to make, and you can approach it however you want to approach it.

That's right. And you can insert yourself as much as you want. But what is, if you're going to kind of assess, this is an interesting thing I'm just thinking of now, that there was a time where people you know, where people were able to buy cameras, instant cameras. Yeah. Right.

So then you had sort of like this struggle within the community of art historians. How do we establish photography as an art form? You have documentary photography and you have art photography, but you have every asshole in the world's got a camera. That's right. So that sort of clouds the water and who gets what? It's sort of like the idea of the pencil. I mean, anybody can use a pencil.

That's an easier idea. Right. But because when I was coming up, you know, it was a harder barrier to entry because it was 16 millimeter film. 16 millimeter film was expensive. Right. And to rent a camera, that was expensive. Now the barrier is much lower. I mean, you can shoot something on your Samsung or your iPhone or whatever.

And then, you know, even if you borrow somebody's computer, you add it together and bingo, you got a movie. You know, so the barrier to entry is lower. But, you know, like any medium, it's what does the artist do with the material. Right. But also, the sad thing is, not unlike clickbait or any sort of information outlet, is that, yeah, I mean, we can still have the standard, but the market's going to be flooded with content, is what they call it now. It is. It's flooded with content. But I think the good stuff does rise to the top.

You know, people – and the interesting things about docs, particularly in this moment, you know, where we're dominated by clickbait and social media. Yeah. You know, in a period of 90 minutes to two hours or take some of the, you know, doc miniseries like the Jinx. You immerse yourself in a world, and the world, at least for my money, the worlds that are more complicated, that you walk out of it thinking, I'm not sure what I think, but I'm thinking about it. That seems to be the agenda of a good doc. When you walk out like, I don't know if he killed him. Right.

Or maybe I know he killed him, but was that a good thing or a bad thing? Yeah. Is he a bad person because of it? Right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So all those things, because if you don't think about it after you left, then it feels like it's not a good documentary.

But that aspect is what we so desperately need, it seems to me. The thinking. The thinking part. Yeah. You know, rather than ready, fire, aim. Right. Yeah. And it doesn't serve to convolute the truth in such a kind of, in a way that people who are trying to hide something do. Well, and that was like in the movie, the Citizen K movie. Yeah.

You know, that's what interested me about the murder, right? Right. For a long time, the murder was gray. It was complicated. You didn't know exactly what it was like. Right. But the goal of the Putin regime was to try to make it as simple as possible. So the gray separates into pools of black and white.

You've got a guy with a white hat. You've got a guy with a black hat. Simple. Right. Well, here what you have, it seems what's happening in our authoritarian experiment is that it's not a white hat and a gray hat. It's sort of like, well, you know, what they're saying is too simple. This one seems a little more elaborate and complicated and crazy, but that makes it more true. Yeah.

Like when you look at conspiracy theories and the logic in them yeah you know you can take anything it's but the thing about conspiracy theories though is they do fit together at some point it's like no but it's all retroactively right yes it's a it's a way that stupid people feel smart that's right you know who don't like you necessarily put a context on anything just line up a bunch of, not even necessarily in a chronological order. Well, and ascribe to them a kind of intention that may have been pure circumstance. And I think there's a romanticization of it that something could be that devious. It just plays into their sense of-

Intrigue. Yes. Yeah. And who the bad guys are. But so that disrupts the truth because they can't accept. Sometimes it's just mundane. Right. They refuse to think that history just kind of plays out in sort of a strange bureaucratic way.

And people aren't as organized as they attribute them to be. I think that's always the case. Yeah. But. as they attribute them to be. I think that's always the case. Yeah. But anytime you think that Sauron and the Black Tower has planned it all, you know, you probably got it wrong.

I mean, look, just as an old school kind of like aggravated lefty thinker, I'm disappointed in the deep state if they do exist. You would have expected more from them. Yeah, I thought they would have nipped this thing in the butt if they were as good as we thought they were. Turns out they don't exist at all. It turns out they're all fucking hacks and just like sloppy.

We're smiley. Yeah. Yeah. So what was this, the Hunter S. Thompson doc you did? Gonzo. Was he alive when he did it? No. Oh.

My first day on the job was to photograph his funeral the johnny depp version uh-huh where they blew his ashes oh yeah in the rocket yeah yeah and i got into it after that what would you do that because i see on on the resume there's a couple uh sort of like uh kind of like boomer heroes you know and my heroes too but ken kesey and and and hunter both those guys were heroes to me and for kind of similar reasons. I mean, Hunter, I thought one of the great political books of all time was his Campaign 72 book. Sure. It was just great.

Yeah. And it mixed the rigor of a journalist with a kind of artistic ambitions of the novelist. Right. Right? Yeah. You know, all that stuff. You become the story. Yeah.

You become the story yeah you become the story but also you can you want to riff on something go for it you see musky he looks you know heavy-lidded and and and dark and so you imagine that he's you know uh addicted to the strange congolese hallucinogen eba game yeah why not yeah why not yeah um you know nixon he imagines as a werewolf you know know, dripping with blood. Sure. Leaving the White House. Why not?

So I was really interested in that. But the difference between him then and that now is there are people on the right who would think, like, he is addicted to Ibogaine. Right. That's clearly why. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, Hunter knew it was a joke.

He could turn a phrase dude yeah he he was really a masterful writer funny and so yeah so he had a liberty he had a freedom to do that that's right and that's what i loved about him so i thought i will let me explore let me get into it i was also interested too i mean he had a kind of personal tragedy which is that he i mean it was the drugs but really the alcohol. But then he became, it's like the great lesson for artists. It's like, don't believe the clippings. Yeah. He became a kind of caricature of himself.

Yeah. Where people counted on him to be Hunter. And then he kind of thought, well, what would Hunter do? Meaning some fictional version of who I am. Well, yeah. And he held court and he had these like, you know, acolytes who were, you know, pushing him too far. Right. And he was never able to, at least seemingly never able to self-assess enough

to kind of manage his life. That's right. And also, you know, when you're young and you're self-medicating with all those drugs and alcohol, you can manage it. Yeah, no, he kind of wet-brained himself. Yeah, that's right. He did. I think he actually fucked his brain up. Yeah, he did.

You could see it. I saw these guys did the last interview with Hunter, and they started it, and then Hunter said, look, I got to go. I'll be back. And Hunter, when they started it, Hunter was sweet. He was cool. He was great. Well, he went off to the bar and had a bunch of drinks.

And we came back. He was completely out of control. He was howling with anger. You know, he was incoherent. You know, and you could see it there. So the shtick wasn't working anymore. It was just sad. It was just sad.

He was writing about sports towards the end, right? He wrote about sports, though. He had these moments of lucidity. We talk about one in the film, right after 9-11. He wrote a piece, and he wrote it for ESPN, because that's who he was writing for at the time. But he wrote a piece that kind of laid out the whole war on terror, where this was all going to go. It was a brilliant piece. We started the film with that.

Yeah. And was he right? He was dead on, dead on. It was a brilliant piece. We started the film with that. Yeah. And was he right? He was dead on.

Dead on. Well, I mean, and you won an Oscar for a movie you did about the sort of downside of the war on terror. The dark side. Taxi to the dark side. Yeah. Yeah. attempted authoritarian takeover of the system where you have Trump as his president who is thinking he's going to embolden the military by enabling them to commit war crimes without any kind of punishment. A movie like Taxi to the Dark Side is an indicator of that should be you know not not not a question right and it's interesting taxi to the dark side which is all about torture and how the bush administration basically um enabled a culture of torture um you know that film when it was completed ended up being

a required viewing at the army jag school you know, and it was taught frequently at West Point. Because the real military code knows that there has to be, you know, you're being, it's like the sheriff in the Wild West. You have a license to kill. But there were laws in war. Yeah. You know, you were laws in war. Yeah. You know, you have to play by the rules. And if you don't play by the rules, discipline breaks down and you're no longer, you're playing that game of the end justifies the means. It's just a pure power game.

And yeah, and Trump himself also, you remember on the campaign trail, said, yeah, we got to bring back torture. Yeah. Yeah. remember on the campaign trail said yeah we got to bring back torture yeah yeah i mean he you know he's really doing his best to this is our this is a a real struggle for the system you know this is an authoritarian leader that we're dealing with yes and you know whether the system he's testing our systems you know he's testing all of it our's testing our institutions. Buckling all of it. Our institutions. They're buckling. Yeah. They haven't broken yet, but they're buckling.

Fuck, man. So what'd you learn about Kesey? Kesey, I was such a huge fan of his growing up. Interesting, right? The output was interesting. He had these two fucking amazing moments of clarity in fiction. That's right. And then it kind of happened.

Well, you know. He's just up there. He was up there. In the hills. But yeah, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and then Sometimes a Great Notion. Those two novels are just. Real poet, that guy. He was.

But I also like, for Kesey, I like the whole idea of play and magic. Sure. Because for him, there's a famous moment where the pranksters rode in on a big anti-war demonstration in San Francisco. On the bus. Yeah. Neil was driving. Undoubtedly. Yeah. And for my money, it was a great moment because they saw that in the demonstration, it was a peace demonstration, but they had kind of been imbued with a sort of militaristic form of the demonstration itself.

Of protest. Of protest. So you're playing the rules. You're playing according to their rules, not the rules that we should be investing in, which are the rules of creativity and play and all of that, which I found really interesting. His whole life, he was engaged in that idea, which I really like. But the film came about because we discovered that there had been this 16mm film that Kesey shot. Oh, really? Of the famous bus trip. Yeah. And nobody had really put it all together. Across country?

Yeah, both going and then coming back. I love that. I thought that Tom Wolfe did a great book. He did. He did do a great book, though we got into and we realized how much he had access to some of the audio tapes clearly who wolf did yeah yeah which i didn't really realize i mean it was a completely hair being scheme they didn't have anybody who knew how to operate the cameras or they hated the bus yeah or hated the idea of experts right they hired a sound man for one day in new york yeah at the

world's fair and he quit because he was so like you guys are fucked you know i yeah you're all high and it's crazy right you know and and so but it's magnificent in its way so we went down the road we my editor and co-director allison elwood and i went down the road of trying to reassemble this footage that had been cut to cut apart by kisi and the pranksters to see if we could put something back together yeah that would get into that zone. Oh, I got to watch that. Yeah. Did it come out good?

I thought so. Yeah. You tell me. But it's, yeah, Magic Trip. It turned out, I think, really well. And most of the film is just their footage and their audio, you know, kind of telling the story

as they're moving across the country and then on the way back. It's kind of an epic journey. Yeah, when I finally read Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, I just- It's a great book. It's great because there's that moment where Kesey shows up at Millbrook and looking for acid. And Leary is so uptight.

Well, that's it. The two schools of acid. Two schools of acid. I love that moment where he's just like, they're up there meditating at some rich lady's house because Leary was a fucking hustler. Right. You know, so he's got the, you know, they're all meditating and wearing robes.

Yeah, we have that scene in the film. You do? Because they photographed it. Oh. It's kind of great. It's hilarious. Because aren't they all dressed in their clown outfits? Yes, and they're playing instruments, which they really can't play, but, you know, and they couldn't take it.

So they beat it off to the local waterfall where they were all, you know. Doing the dance? Yeah, doing the dance. And fucking Neil Cassidy was still in it? Well, and now, Neil wasn't on the bus on the way back, which made a little,

made the character of it a lot different, but he was definitely driving the bus on the way across, and it's fascinating to hear him, because we've got a lot of his raps on tape. way across and it's fascinating to hear him because we've got a lot of his raps on tape oh yeah so you can hear him um talk and he talked incessantly it was like he was the motor yeah it was almost like he was almost like scat singing really yeah so he was really that guy really that's really that character how like is the story about him just dying walking down a railroad track true?

Apparently. You have to ask Robert Stone, who sadly I think is no longer with us. He wrote the book, which is a great film. I really liked it. It wasn't that much seen, but it was based on his book, Dog Soldiers, called Who'll Stop the Rain? Yeah, with Nick Nolte. Yeah. And Nick Nolte, you know, that's the last scene he's he's

like walking down that train track i was sort of obsessed with those guys i mean you're a little older than me so it's probably a little closer for you like uh how old are you 66 yeah you're 10 years my memory's going so i had to think for a second but you're 10 years on me so you were actually in it right i i was like the i just eked out a boomer'm just like the last sliver of boomers, but you were like in it. Yeah. I mean, I was 15 and 68, so I wasn't quite like on top of it, but I saw it. Yeah, yeah. And it was like mind-blowing.

It was mind-blowing. So where does this movie go now? So it's having a little theatrical run here and around the country and then ultimately end up on amazon uh-huh and what's the next thing what do you what's the next fight man what are we doing i don't know i don't know well there'll always be something i i'm doing a quirky film in the meantime all about um why we kill i i got interested in this psychiatrist named Dorothy Lewis. Can you break it down? To a couple reasons?

I know one of them is over money and one of them is over pussy. What's the third one? Yeah, exactly. No, it's more of a serial killer thing. So this is a woman who's examined more serial killers than just about anybody. And what are you finding out it out well what's interesting you're not going to spoil anything no i don't want to spoil anything but i mean you know it all goes back to childhood let's just say that

really yeah it does with those guys yeah everything goes back to childhood of course that's the but you mean they found their their you know through each of their stories. If you dig in, you find some kind of brain damage and just a record of horrific abuse, either sexual or physical abuse. Oh, really? Yeah. And do you do other stuff? Do you do non-documentary stuff? Yeah, I did. I mean, I did this series called The Looming Tower.

Oh, yeah, I remember that. Which was based on the Lawrence Wright book, Pulitzer Prize winning book. And it was all about the battle between the FBI and the CIA and the run up to 9-11 and how the CIA kind of hit the ball. Why? That's the big question. I mean, one of the guesses is that they, you know, because there were two members of Al-Qaeda that entered the country that the CIA knew about 18 months prior to 9-11. Pilots? Well, they ended up being pilots. I mean, they came and studied how to fly a plane in San Diego. And the thinking is that maybe the CIA wanted to flip them.

But they lost track of them. And then the next thing they knew... Oops. Oops. What the fuck? Exactly. You know, it's like, I guess that's the way... See, that's one of those things,

like where's the conspiracy theory there? It's just like they just made a bad call. Yeah, and they won't cop to it. I mean, that's the... And they get very angry, this idea that they would do something like that. But there's been no explanation over it. I mean, they had this information 18 months prior, and at least 50 people knew about these guys.

And they knew. They had followed them from a terror summit in Malaysia. So they knew all about them. But they didn't say anything to the FBI. them from a terror summit in Malaysia. So they knew all about them. But they didn't say anything to the FBI. And then it comes down to funding and it comes down to politics and it comes down to why they insulate themselves like that.

They don't want to, because they have to appear like they know exactly what they're doing all the time, right? Did you see this new Adam Driver movie? I did. The report. Scott Burns. It's a good film. I thought it was an informational film. I thought that it burns yes good film i thought it was informational film yeah uh i i thought that it was a good learning experience and it was well acted it got a little slow but it was because it had a lot to you had to get up to speed on that stuff yeah no i i i

mean i know a lot of the players in that ollie soufan plays a role dan jones i know the guy adam driver plays that's right. committee and most of those you know a lot of what's in that um report is still classified so the great body of that is still hidden from the american public uh and part of it is like it really kind of revealed in taxi to the dark side your movie i mean that's what was going on that's right that's right but like i didn't even realize until i saw this new movie it just the scope of it yeah i mean it was a lot. It spread. I mean, you know, the CIA likes to say, well, there were only certain people who were authorized for waterboarding. No, it spread.

It spread throughout the system. And I talked to guys, you know, low-level military police and interrogators in Bagram. Yeah. And, you know, the waterboarding thing had so infected the system that it became routine. So whenever they'd get a prisoner, they'd indoctrinate them or they'd induct them. They'd put a bag on their head and they'd cover it with water to make it hard for them to breathe. So it was like mini waterboarding for everybody. So the system, it migrated like a very virulent virus throughout the system.

It was terrible. How the fuck, how does that happen? Like, this is that area that you're kind of dwelling in. There's that, you know, the area- The end justifies the means. It gets back to that. I mean, they felt that they had an obligation to prevent that next attack. And so they were going to go.

And that's the other thing that I find incredible to, you know, really hard to understand is the CIA had already gone through a cycle where they had tried and experimented with some of these techniques and found them wanting. Basically, they found that what they deliver is they deliver what the interrogator wants to hear, not what the truth is. That takes skill. Yeah. And they apologized to Congress and so forth and so on. Then mysteriously in the wake of 9-11, all these techniques come back and they do it all over again and they get it wrong. But in this case, because they had such high level buy in and it migrates over to the armed forces via Rumsfeld. And the next thing you know, it throughout the system and that's how you got abu grabe right and they like but the but that's the thing is like when it gets down to that level where the people who are administering it uh you know longer it's no longer an ends to a means it's just that they can do it they can do it there's a thing they talk about called forced drift and they what's that well Well, the idea that when you're interrogating somebody, he's not giving you the information that you want.

You have a tendency to amp up the pressure and the violence. And also it comes from this idea that you've been given permission to go there. So then you naturally you start to feel this anger builds up and you're unconstrained by any sense of, you know, morality or ethics. So you go there. That's the concerning part of the human animal. Yeah. That part. Well, and that's why, you know, good military leaders would say you need an ethical code. You need rules.

Yeah. Or these guys are going to act like animals. Yeah. Because you're placing people in stressful situations where their buddies are being killed yeah and they're going to just you know cut loose right like an animalistic kind of like you know fuck you it's not even animalistic it's actually more human right it's payback it's payback right yeah yeah i guess that's the impulse and that's what makes it see that's what makes it sort of like interesting fodder for people who are tribalistic and racist.

It's like, well, fuck them. Well, and that is, you know, we did this series. I was executive producer along with Steven Spielberg that came out recently on Discovery called Why We Hate. And it was trying to get to the science of why we hate. How did that evolve? And interestingly, if you really do a deep dive, and they've done some at Yale, as a matter of fact, they've done some wonderful studies in terms of sort of infant study. It all starts with a sense of justice and injustice, that we're hardwired to get very upset if something's wrong. There's a kind of ethical code we have.

That mutates over time into a sense of perceived injustices, particularly as you get associated with a tribe. So you're trying to protect yourself against somebody else. It's like they've been unjust. We're just. And now we're good and they're bad. And the next thing you know, all bets are off. So it starts as something relatively good. it starts with a sense of you know uh if you're finding a spiritual hole in your life we can fill that with love and and a sense of uh kinship you know where where we can reach to a higher place

and so so it's a sense of belonging a sense of higher ideals that's the entry point right and then it gets turned yeah you know same thing scientology you know suddenly you start to abuse human rights i'm not saying scientology is as bad as isis i'm just saying that's how it gets turned but it always starts with the appeal to the goodness right it's like we all want to feel that we're good so that even when we're doing bad you know we're right we're good guys an appeal to truth too right yeah it's all the same fox news isis yeah it's all the religion you know right yeah the whole shebang yeah yeah the only thing that's not like that is like i just want to buy some pie what's kind of you know i mean it's fleeting it's the most harmless belief system is

what kind of pie exactly well the good kind where it's got the best pie? Right. I don't know, man. It's scary, dude. It is scary. But you know what? The good news is that they're always, you know, interesting, engaged, particularly young people who are fighting back. And that's always the hope. Good. I hope you're right. Me too.

It was good talking to you. It's great talking to you, Mark. There you go. Learn a few things. Get a deeper, broader understanding of perhaps the government that will be partnering with our government in the future of America. consolidation and governmental structures that will maybe dominate the next decade or two will be some sort of alignment between Russia and America if we continue moving along this path away from democracy. It's helpful to know what the new rulers look like and how their system works. So Citizen K is now playing in Los Angeles and will open in other cities in the new year.

You can go to citizenkfilm.com for more info. It was great talking to Alex, and we'll stick with this for the time being. La Fonda lives! It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead

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