Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with our main man Capone who conducted an interview with the director of the well known documentary ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM, Mr. Alex Gibney. It's fitting that Capone, being so involved in the world of crime as he is... in Chicago, no less... talk to Mr. Gibney about his documentary about a group of sleazy criminals! Enjoy the chat!
Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago, one of the big DVD releases last week is ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM (based on the book by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind), not only a lock on getting an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary in 2005, but probably also the front-runner to win, if the last couple of years’ winners are any indication. I got a chance to briefly interview the director of ENRON, Alex Gibney, a couple of days ago, and rather than focus on the making of the film (although we touch on that, for sure), I wanted to talk about some of the fascinating and shocking DVD bonus features and a bit about the reaction to the film since it’s initial release last year. Enjoy.
Capone: I rewatched the film yesterday, and not surprisingly, it still stings a bit. The one aspect you may not even be aware of is seeing [former Enron CEO] Jeff Skilling before he reinvents his look with the weight loss and Lasik surgery. He has a brother, Tom Skilling, who is probably the most popular weatherman in Chicago. In fact, Nicolas Cage hung out with Tom quite a bit before he made his film THE WEATHERMAN. But prior to Jeff’s transformation, he looks a lot like our local weather-dude.
Alex Gibney: There are definitely physical echoes of his brother.
Capone: For sure. So, does it make you smile a bit to see the citizens of California rebelling against their current governor a bit? You don’t shy away from painting Arnold Schwarzenegger as a pawn of the power companies in your film.
A.G.: I think this film was an eye-opener for the citizens of California. I have to tell you, when we showed this film in California, where I live, there was a much different reaction than there was in the rest of the country.
Capone: How would you categorize that reaction?
A.G.: Raw outrage, and rightfully so. I don’t think a lot of Californians realized that when these rolling blackouts were happening, what was going on behind the scenes.
Nobody had access to the audio tapes of the energy traders. They didn’t come out until well after Enron’s bankruptcy. Nobody had any idea just how much fun people were having at their expense, and how brutal and complete this conspiracy was to drive up California energy prices for fun and profit.
Capone: You certainly portray Gray Davis as a governor who, at least initially, was trying to save his state from getting fleeced, extortion. I’m sure some California residents had other issues with him too, but it was really this energy “crisis” that drove them to vote him out.
A.G.: This film certainly does cast him in a much more sympathetic light. I think sometimes as a politician, he was his own worst enemy, because he always seemed to be talking from a distance. But in retrospect, he was truly a victim of circumstances beyond his control. Some people feel he could have done other things, acted more forcefully, but I think when people understand just how pernicious those forces were, they have a lot more compassion for Gray Davis and what he was going through.
Capone: Interesting to me was one of the deleted scenes on the DVD, in which someone criticizes—or perhaps “theorizes” is a better word—Davis for his ultimate decision to pay Enron these outrageous dollar amounts because he was afraid of angering Wall Street, which he would need in his corner if he decided to run for president.
A.G.: That was a speculation by one of the interview subjects. Davis really was looking toward a possible presidential bid, and I think here was a story that really did have to do with the big financial houses. And there were a lot of conservative businessmen who were saying to Davis, “Don’t take on Big Business.” What’s that phrase that people so often use? “Don’t make this a class issue.” Gray Davis may have been cautious, because he was thinking about the money he would have to raise for his presidential bid. He may have been too cautious.
Capone: After the film’s release, was there any positive or negative feedback from unexpected sources?
A.G.: One of the things that really surprised and delighted me…the film got a lot of praise from all portions of the political spectrum. Strictly speaking, this wasn’t a film about left-wing or right-wing, it was about a crime that was being perpetrated. So that was interesting. A lot of people on the street came to me and said that the film forced them to look long and hard at themselves and their respective industry and their role in this Enron scandal. It’s really a morality tale above all else. One of the reactions that gratified me was when we premiered the film in Houston and a lot of former Enron employees were very complimentary about what we’d done.
Capone: Did you ever actually meet Skilling or Ken Lay or Andy Fastow, the three major players you focus on in the film?
A.G.: No, I tried very hard to get to Skilling, Lay, and Fastow. Fastow was locked away by the Department of Justice, and there was a brief period when I thought Skilling would talk to me. I talked extensively to Lay’s lawyer and to his publicist, but they never agreed to come onboard. Lay has come out publicly to be intereviewed, but always with people he feels are his friends.
Capone: At the end of the film, Lay’s press conference at the Double Tree…
A.G.: They tried to keep me out of that press conference. I filmed them trying to keep me out, but ultimately decided not to include it in the film.
Capone: And the extended version of the press conference in the deleted scenes shows how pathetic and rambling Lay had become at that point. Every word out of his mouth is an exercise in covering his ass and painting himself as a victim.
A.G.: What I found most interesting about that press conference was that he was talking to people as if they were all deeply sympathetic to his plight, explaining some things about his life. That staggering statement that is in the film, “Linda and I are down to our last $20 million.” Among the people at that press conference, there weren’t a lot of people taking out their checkbooks.
Capone: That statement certainly summarizes his attitude toward what he’d been a part of.
A.G.: It’s delusional, and it shows the extent to which Lay thinks that he’s a victim. And that is the greatest fraud of all.
Capone: You mention in the documentary on the making of the film that, of the three major players, he was the one that ticked you off the most.
A.G.: He was the one who made me the angriest.
Capone: While we’re still talking about deleted scenes, my favorite is probably the very long look at the press circus that gathered when the indictments were announced. One of the on-camera reporters described to his viewers how the arresting FBI agents deliberately parked at the far end of the parking lot so they could march Ken Lay across the parking lot for the cameras. It’s a great inside look at the theatrics of justice. The scene was something out of the O.J. trial.
A.G.: Prosecutors love to do that. It become theatre for everybody; the legal process really is theatrical. I’m not necessarily in favor of that. But look who they chose, a very sexy, young female FBI agent to escort Lay. It had a sort of S&M quality to it with those handcuffs. Where’s the whip?
Capone: But in a way, it’s helped the case and your self-proclaimed “film about accounting,” get the attention they deserved.
A.G.: This is the epic story that people think about. This is the one that represents all the others, this story of excess that we all lived through.
Capone: Maybe the most shocking of all the extras on the DVD is you reading excerpts of the scripts of the skits that the company put on for its employees. Practically every evil-doing is chronicled, albeit jokingly, in those skits.
A.G.: Aren’t those unbelievable?
Capone: Have you actually seen those skits, because I know they were filmed?
A.G.: No. The Department of Justice has them, and I tried to get them but they wouldn’t cooperate with me. But I was able to obtain copies of the scripts.
Capone: The one that takes your breath away is the one set in the courtroom…the absolute arrogance on display is shocking. It’s like a confession.
A.G.: It’s unbelievable! I wrote an article about this for the Landmark Theatres magazine, and I ended the article by saying, “Boy, these guys sure could write.” They were dramatists of the first order.
Capone: Was there ever a theory put forth as to why they would produce something that damning?
A.G.: The editor of the “Harvard Business Review” had a theory, which I do subscribe to. These skits were a kind of moral venting mechanism for these people, I think unconsciously. But when you’re doing a lot of stuff that’s morally off the reservation, you have to find a way of reckoning it, and I think one of the ways they found was to produce these skits. These skits at Enron were part of the culture, part of what you did at the end of every quarter.
Capone: Looking ahead, I’ve read about your involvement in a couple interesting-sounding projects. Are you still working on documentaries on Herbie Hancock and Hunter S. Thompson?
A.G.: The one on Herbie Hancock is one I produced, I did not direct. That’s just about done and will be released in April. The one on Hunter S. Thompson is one I’m directing, which is going to be a blast, and will be finished sometime this year, maybe for release theatrically in 2007.
Capone
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