Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney is used to wading into potential tinderboxes. Among his dozens of nonfiction films is the 2005 Oscar-nominated Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, which unravels how faulty and corrupt business practices led to one of the most spectacular collapses of a corporation in recent times. In 2008 he won the Academy Award for Best Documentary for Taxi to the Dark Side, an in-depth look at the use of torture by the U.S. in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo Bay via an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed in 2002.
More recently, Gibney turned his camera on the Roman Catholic Church for Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, an investigation into sex abuse in the church and its cover-up. His latest film, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, which opened at the Film Society this weekend via HBO Documentary Films (and will air on HBO beginning March 29), is a look at another religious institution, based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright.
Gibney profiles eight former members of the Church of Scientology, whose most prominent adherents include A-list Hollywood celebrities, shining a light on how the church cultivates true believers, detailing their experiences and what they are willing to do in the name of religion.
Going Clear looks back at the church’s origins, from its roots in the mind of founder L. Ron Hubbard to its rise in popularity in Hollywood and beyond. The heart of the film is a series of shocking revelations by former insiders, including high-ranking and recognizable members, such as acclaimed screenwriter Paul Haggis (Crash), as they describe the systematic history of abuse and betrayal by church officials, including the current leadership of the church. The Church of Scientology has refuted aspects of the film, and has been vocal in its dismay even before the film had its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
FilmLinc spoke with Gibney recently about the film, attacks through newspaper ads and other methods by the church, how the “prison of belief” suspends rationality, and some rather shocking reveals about some of the church’s high-profile celebrity followers.
FilmLinc: The Church of Scientology clearly had taken notice of Going Clear even before its premiere. They greeted its pending debut at Sundance with some newspaper ads. You sure caught their attention quickly, were you surprised by the pace of it?
Alex Gibney: A little bit, though what surprised me is how frontal it's been. In the past with their critics, Scientology would smear them behind the scenes, taking on anonymous websites, getting lawyers [involved], and so forth. But this was very much out front with full-page ads in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Anyone who follows me on Twitter or who Googles me gets their ads. I've been encouraging people to see the documentaries they have on their website so they can decide for themselves.
FL: To go back, there was the book by Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, which laid out part of the template you used for the film. When you first read the book, what about it in particular grabbed your attention enough to make a film?
AG: I was interested in it because it wasn't just an exposé. It was a deep dive into the psychology of belief and blind faith more properly—maybe that's the best way to say it… it was a deep dive into the psychology of blind faith. It certainly helped to explain Scientology, but it also put in perspective more broadly what is going on today, whether it be Isis or whether it be people's unyielding belief in politicians or religions. So it was that idea—blind faith and the prison of belief—which motivated me to want to make the film.
FL: I think some people are confuse Scientology as being a “church” or a “religion” as opposed to a self-help organization akin to LifeSpring or the like. What do you think?
AG: I think it's fair to call it a [church]. Look, it's not a religion in the classic sense since it was created very recently. It was created by a science-fiction writer who clearly took some of the concepts out of his books. Also, as we learned from his second wife, [L. Ron Hubbard] clearly saw religion as a way of making a buck without having to pay taxes. That was one of the original motivations. That being said, he ended his life a true believer.
There are a lot of people who are raised to believe some strange things. I was raised to believe Christ was born from a Virgin and the Holy Trinity included a flighty bird and someone who rose up from the dead and ascended into Heaven. You know, people can believe what they want, so I'm reluctant to be critical of what they believe. It's up to people to believe what they want to believe, but it's the abuses that go along with the belief that becomes the interesting part. Organizations can take beliefs and twist and turn them into destructive directions to protect the institution that has been built up, and at the end of the day has very little to do with the beliefs themselves.
I did this film right after I did a film on the Catholic Church called Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, about the pedophilia scandal that engulfed the church. For those inside the church it became rationalized. Some said, “We do so much good, so what if we protect priests who rape children.” It's that rationalization [often referred to as] “noble cause corruption,” that is at stake here in this film. I'm not really interested in focusing on what is or is not a religion. Hubbard created it, but became to believe it in the end.
FL: How do people who are in Scientology, or even used to be involved, respond when it is brought up that L. Ron Hubbard said religion is a great way to make money tax-free?
AG: I think the people who are in it now believe that his second wife, Sara Northrup [who revealed that], was a liar. I think that by looking at Hubbard's history, you can see that's where it started… But for many of them who came out, they just couldn't afford it anymore. It poses an staggering financial burden on people, so you can't help at some point to view it as a business and a rather ruthless one at that.
FL: Even before seeing this film, I've heard stories about harassment or even incarceration, which is actually illegal. Why doesn't the government doesn't investigate this sort of thing?
AG: I think the government has investigated it. I refer in the film to an FBI investigation, and many [people] in the film were questioned by the FBI. I'm not defending the FBI, but I do think they faced a problem because I think if they showed up at the door of the prison and opened the doors wide open and said, “You're free to go,” many of them would say, “No thank you, we're here for our own good.” That's why part of the title of this film is “The Prison of Belief.”
Now there are some things that I think are far more pernicious and one of them is how the church treats children. It coerces children by having them sign a billion-year contract. For some of these things, I don't know why there aren't more prosecutions. The other thing that the church has going for it is, because its a religion and however cruel some of their practices may be, like disconnection, which rips families apart, are protected by the First Amendment. It's hard to speak out against it because they will also respond so harshly. But still, the First Amendment protects much of what they do. Even in law suits, the church relies a lot on the First Amendment.
FL: The Church of Scientology hierarchy seems to covet its celebrity members and uses the fact that some very big names in Hollywood are a part of the church to bolster their appeal to potential “converts.” The celebrity factor is a main part of their marketing campaign, would you say that is a fair characterization?
AG: In terms of the celebrity factor, there is no doubt they use that as a main pitch for their religion. If you ask anyone on the street what Scientology is, they'll say, “Oh, isn't that that Tom Cruise religion?” Tom Cruise and John Travolta have a responsibility to call out these abuses because so many people have joined Scientology because of them. They won't even talk about them. From the perspective of the Scientology mind, though, anything bad said about Scientology must be untrue. But as more and more testimony comes through, one has to hold them to account because people are getting hurt here.
FL: You show a clip of John Travolta speaking about the religion in which he called it—I'm paraphrasing here—a group that stands for peace and the advancement of humanity, and he said it in such a sincere way. I can understand how that could be seductive.
AG: Sure. And so long as you give yourself over to belief and don't allow for doubt or apply critical thinking, you can just believe it. Many who had since left said that they were in it for the most idealistic reasons. They thought they were saving the world.
FL: Paul Haggis's story was originally in the book and in an earlier New Yorker article. You also have people like Sara Goldberg and many others who have also left Scientology. Were they gung ho to do this film?
AG: I wouldn't say they were gung ho. I'd say it took a certain amount of work to get some people to appear. It's one thing to be in a book, but when your face is out there, you become a much more public figure. And frankly, the film will reach many more people than the book did. So there was pause. I think there was also pause because they knew what kind of abuse they would be in for, and now I've seen it. A lot of the people in the film have received physical threats and people either representing the church or claiming to represent the church have threatened to take away their homes. Private eyes tail them. So it's a process of intimidation that's intense. This is another thing that I can't believe isn't illegal. They knew it was coming, but they did it anyway, but it did take a little convincing.
FL: The whole portion of the film that centers on the wiretapping of Nicole Kidman was just unbelievable…
AG: It was, and that was something not in Larry's book. It is something [the church’s former second-highest-ranking official Mark “Marty” Rathbun] told me about in the interview. Marty told me that Tom Cruise asked him to tap Nicole Kidman's phone. Cruise denies it, but Marty says it's absolutely what happened and [Church of Scientology leader David] Miscavige told him to do it. There is no doubt that the church worked very hard to turn Nicole's kids against her and to turn Tom against her. It was unbelievable.
FL: When speaking to people who have left the fold of the church, do you find that they still hold some of its spiritual or philosophical beliefs?
AG: Some do, some don't. One of the most interesting things is how deep the mark was. It took years for the folks who left to fully process where they had been and where they were going. At first a kind of despair sets in, like, “I've wasted my entire life.” Obviously they got something out of it, or they wouldn't have been in it in the first place. But over time they reckon with how much they've been fooled and that they've fooled themselves. The process takes a long time and it takes a lot of self-reflection.
FL: As I was watching it, I couldn't help but think that this organization may just implode. What do you think?
AG: It's possible. You're talking about a person—David Miscavige—who at one time or another has imprisoned nearly every person in the upper echelon of his organization. It reminded me of Mao during the Cultural Revolution, in which he tried to gain more and more power through destabilization. The other thing the church has is money, and when you have money, you have power. You can hire lawyers, bankers, private investigators, etc. Even though the church is very much under the rule of one individual, and one would wonder whether that is even permissible under the 5013c guidelines, so long as it has money it has staying power. They have $3 billion or something like that, nobody knows exactly… But their labor costs are very low and they have enormous assets and it's all tax-free. It's a great business plan.
