Review: 4-hour Musk documentary feels like two different films
Alex Gibney's provocative film is compelling but overlong, and there's not much new here for Ars readers.
Elon Musk, a prominent figure in the technology industry, is the subject of Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney's latest biographical documentary titled Musk. The film delves into Musk's well-known life and challenges the image of him as a visionary tech titan. Gibney portrays Musk as more of a Gilded Age confidence man, a stock manipulator who dazzles investors and the public with visions of a high-tech utopian future.
The documentary is likely to evoke strong reactions from both Musk supporters and critics, reflecting the era of social media-driven outrage. Gibney has been creating documentaries since the 1980s, covering a wide range of topics including Jimi Hendrix, Hunter S. Thompson, Scientology, Steve Jobs, Elizabeth Holmes, Boris Becker, David Chase, Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, the opioid epidemic, and cyclist Lance Armstrong.
He received his first Oscar nomination for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) and won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature two years later for Taxi to the Dark Side (2007).
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