http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/11/10/client-9-director-gibney-on-e...

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney turns his lens to former Wall Street sheriff Eliot Spitzer in “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer”.

Gibney, who is known for documentaries about Enron and lobbyist Jack Abramoff, dug up some new bombshells about the New York governor-turned-staple of the gossip rags. In part, Gibney says famed Spitzer paramour Ashley Dupré wasn’t his main escort of choice at the Emperors Club. That woman, whom his film identifies as “Angelina,” has made the unusual career shift to commodities trader.

Gibney also describes how former targets of Spitzer’s prosecutions were “only too happy to dance on Spitzer’s grave” for the documentary.

Deal Journal caught up with the director to talk about the behind-the-scenes action of the film, which opened in theaters last weekend.

Deal Journal: You’re clearly no stranger to financial films, but what drew you to Spitzer specifically?

Gibney: To be honest, I was approached to do it right after the scandal happened. I wasn’t sure I should do it. I thought about it for a couple of days, then it just made sense. The timing seemed so odd. Wall Street was starting to meltdown as the former sheriff of Wall Street went down, too.

DJ: What impact do you think that timing – that Spitzer resigned in March 2008 and financial crisis smacked only a few months later – had on how we view Spitzer?

Gibney: I hope the movie reminds people of that timing. I think we forget about it. I can’t say there was any dastardly intersection between the outing of Spitzer and that particular moment in time. It just seemed ironic. I went back and discovered that Spitzer had written an op-ed in the Washington Post about predatory lending, right around the time he was with Ashley Dupré. He thought it was going to be a big deal. He was really on to a lot of stuff. (WSJ note: The meeting between “Client 9” and Dupré occurred on February 13, 2008, according to court documents. The WaPo op-ed is dated February 14.)

…I think a lot of people also forget the rise of Spitzer. I spent a lot of time on that. There’s audio in the film that hadn’t been released before from AIG. It’s interesting to literally hear a crime being committed as part of the company’s culture far before the meltdown. It’s always been [Former AIG CEO Maurice “Hank” Greenberg’s] contention that Spitzer helped start the meltdown because Spitzer took him down. There’s something about that –- Spitzer uncovered the crimes, then he himself ends up committing a crime.

DJ: What was Spitzer’s reaction when you said you wanted to make a film about him?

Gibney: It took him a while to get comfortable. He was not going to talk to anyone while he was under criminal investigation. That didn’t end until a couple days after the November election, another ironic timing issue. That’s when the federal government said they weren’t pressing any charges. After that, [co-producer] Peter Elkind and I began to meet with his PR people, then him. Our view is that in order to go forward, you have to reckon with the past.

DJ: A lot of key players on Wall Street are interviewed in the film. What was that side of the story like? Who talked?

Gibney: While we were waiting for Spitzer, I went after his enemies. The day I announced I was doing the project, Greenberg’s office called….Finally we were able to schedule an interview.

I interviewed John Whitehead and had a good experience. [Former New York Senate Majority Leader] Joe Bruno was one of our first interviews. We also spoke with [Home Depot backer and former New York Stock Exchange director] Ken Langone. These guys were only too happy to dance on Spitzer’s grave…You do the movie and you follow where the story takes you.

DJ: I was surprised that even though Ashley Dupré gets all the press, she wasn’t the main woman allegedly involved with Spitzer through the Emperors Club. You mention an escort named “Angelina,” who is interviewed, but portrayed by an actress in the film, as having repeated meetings with Spitzer. Dupré is referred to as not much more than a one-night stand. How did you find that out?

Gibney: I had no clue about Angelina going into the film. I was convinced it was Ashley. I wanted to do a lengthy interview and I think [Dupré] was nervous about that. Her trainer said they wanted editorial control over her story and I said no. (WSJ note: Dupré now pens a column for the New York Post, which is published by WSJ parent company News Corp.)

The day negotiations [to interview Dupré for the film] broke down, I thought ‘What am I going to do now?’ One of the main characters was refusing to appear. But sometimes, misfortune turns out to be a boon. It led me to dig deeper and I was able to get Cecil Suwall [then CEO of Emperors Club]. And I was able to find Angelina, who was a much more important character.

What was interesting about Angelina was she tells us a lot about Spitzer as a character and the escort trade. I didn’t expect that she would tell us as much as she did about the federal investigation.

DJ: And now Angelina is a commodities trader?

Gibney: Yes. She had a lot of very powerful clients and I guess they were able to teach her things about the way the market worked.

DJ: Speaking of the investigation, the film goes into a lot of detail about who some of the alleged key players were on the Street. What role do you think Spitzer’s political and Wall Street enemies played in the investigation and overall takedown?

Gibney: Yes. Langone says that he has a friend who was in the post office and paid $2,800 for a money order to send to the hooker. That’s the day Spitzer was outed. Langone denies that it was anything more than a friend, but it is a bizarre detail. That Ken Langone has a friend who is in a post office? And he’s so close that they can make out the money order number and know that it was from Spitzer to the Emperors Club?

Spitzer had very powerful enemies and they were very angry at him. Greenberg hired a PR agency to take him down. Langone hired a private eye he says to look into his political doings. And we discovered that [opposition research specialist] Roger Stone was hired by Joe Bruno. When Stone gets fired by Bruno, he gets hired by wealthy Republicans. It just seemed like there was a lot of activity.

The part we don’t know about is whether there was any cross talk between private figures and federal investigators. We just don’t know. We show the smoke and we couldn’t find the fire.

(WSJ note: Bruno declined to comment through a spokeswoman. Langone and Greenberg did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)

DJ: Who did you want to interview, but couldn’t?

Gibney: Silda Spitzer declined. And Michael Garcia, the district attorney [who prosecuted Spitzer] declined.

DJ: What did Spitzer and the Wall Street guys in the movie think?

I haven’t heard from Langone or Greenberg.

Spitzer has said he thought it was reasonably fair. Not fair vs. good or poor, but fair in terms of reasonable. He joked that he wished the ending were different – his ending, that is, not the movie’s.