Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer

This is not a movie about a client of prostitution, the title notwithstanding. Obviously the title was chosen to "sell" the documentary, and my guess is that it has failed in its purpose. This is a truly terrific film about power politics. If you don't know much about the inner workings of government at the highest levels, this movie will go a long way to educate you. If you do know, this will likely confirm your experience. It is also hugely instructive about the brilliant Eliot Spitzer who was and is clearly dedicated to furthering the public good. The loss of his public service is a huge loss for American consumers. His responses to questions about his foolish indiscretions are forthright; that doesn't mean he fully understands why he did what he did-- who can? People are imperfect. They goof up at the worst possible times. The important questions that the film raises and that go unanswered have to do with how, in a country that processes millions of checks and money orders each month, were his (for $10,000 or maybe less) "singled out" for investigation? =

Film manages to maintain interest without seeming overtly like a propaganda piece which is what i honestly thought it would be going in. *honestly why else would the ex governor have even participated if it wasn't for the opportunity to rehabilitate his image went my logic--an idea i'm sure many other people have thought when wondering if they should bother checking this one out. I can't really say whether you should check it out or not---it will help if you have a tolerance for smirking, and self justification (and yet somehow Spitzer doesn't indulge in the latter--remaining completely on point that he had no one to blame but himself for his own actions...what can i say? i was hoping for someone who sees conspiracy theories everywhere.)

Can't help but wonder how this is going to hold up in the coming decade or two. Will it hold together as a film? will it hold as a narrative that years from now people whom have never heard of Spitzer will be able to watch this and have interest in it?, sadly i think it probably will to a certain extent---not so much because of Spitzer's fall from grace (that will inevitably repeat itself in another high ranking politician and this will if anything just seem like business as usual.) but because of the various people--wall streeters, and gov. officials interviewed throughout who take delight in seeing Spitzer smeared. Its all kinds of creepy to see these guys and gals taking such glee in being interviewed about Spitzer as well as defending themselves from Spitzer's previous accusations against them when he was a crusading governor/state attorney---you kind of start to wonder what kind of documentary these guys thought they were being interviewed for exactly.

I mean in what capacity did these guys rationalize themselves into being interviewed for this doc? Was it this same rationality that led to Spitzer thinking he could continue seeing these prostitutes indefinitely without any ramifications? Why do such high ranking guys of both the governmental kind and the wall street kind think they can rationalize every action they take away as if they had a perfectly logical reason for doing what they do?) If anything can be taken away from this documentary, its not that you should be careful how you conduct yourself, its not that you should be careful whose feathers you ruffle (in the metaphorical sense of course), its not even that you shouldn't have sex with prostitutes if you're a government official (you especially shouldn't have sex with prostitutes who recognize you from the news)---its that very successful high ranking people of all professions can sell themselves on anything, especially when they really shouldn't. Throughout the film the director keeps coming back to an interview with the giggling young woman who ran the prostitution ring in the first place...and she still so obviously thinks that she did nothing wrong running such a business and making a lot of money doing so. Perhaps that's even why these people are so successful in the first place. That they're such good salesmen, that they can even fool themselves into thinking they can do anything and get away with anything because they'll always be able to rationalize it away. That they're such good salesmen that even after getting caught, they can still feel like they didn't do anything wrong at all. Overconfidence kills. (also a potential question---why are all the super successful people in this movie all seem to be sociopaths as well? and what is that supposed to mean?)

It's a weird doc. If you remember the 2010's you will remember this creepy personal style being super popular. Digital cameras made it possible to record everything you saw and it made many creative people try this extremely personal style where close up shots of people were normal.

Alex Gibney is a documentary maker who makes 2 kind of docs: anti-Republican and pro-Democrat. This one is both of course which makes it so much more weird. In his many anti-Trump docs you at least understand what he is complaining about. Most of the complaints are very overblown and often unfair, but you see where Trump screwed up or didn't take charge. There is a logic to the claims made.

Here Alex Gibney has his usual left-wing bias with Eliot Spitzer the Democrat being the hero. Hopefully the first Jewish president ever! A New York hero who was fighting corruption while the evil GOPs tried to stop him at every step. That's the main issue with the doc. I'm kinda sold on some of these points and do feel it can be true in some way. Unfortunately for Alex Gibney Eliot Spitzer is not quite the hero he thinks he is. He looks and sounds sleazy even in this doc. Every time someone besides himself has to describe him he is clearly made out to be sleazy, aggressive, sex addicted, creepy. The doc tries to present a witch hunt on a heroic Democrat. Instead it presents a witch hunt on a giant creep who cheated on his wife.

It reminds me of another Jewish Democrat New York politician who was supposed to become president too, Anthony Weiner. There is an interesting doc about him too. He too was "fighting corruption" and "being a good guy". But to me, as someone who hates both parties, he too is just an arrogant power-hungry, sex addict creep.

Understand what you get here. All Alex Gibney docs are very anti-Republican. In this one this biased message is forced so you may feel it's too eerie a doc trying to manipulate you. True enough, but to me it's just still a fun doc. Alex Gibney may not be smart or fair. But he is damn good at entertaining viewers. This is a ton of fun even though you do feel like the doc is taking you for a fool.

This two hour depiction of the rise and sudden fall of a dedicated public servant is built around two interviews: one with Eliot Spitzer himself, post-resignation, the other with a young actress playing the part of one "Angelina", a high class prostitute. Angelina claims to have had many "appointments" with Gov. Spitzer in many cities, while it was a mere one night stand with "Kristin" who got all the publicity.

Here we see the first of several, perhaps unavoidable, flaws in the documentary: reliance on weak sources whose statements cannot be independently verified. As no one is talking, not the FBI, the federal prosecutors nor Spitzer himself, you cannot know if "Angelina" is making the whole story up. However, her account does not defame the ex-Governor, paint him as sexually perverted or even ungentlemanly. She also voices harsh skepticism of "Kristin" and other girls in the life who claim victimhood currently or in the past.

The format is the standard Talking Heads with some news footage thrown in. Documentarian Gibney cannot resist resorting to lurid shots of scantily dressed women and a hip hop soundtrack when exploring the half-world of high end prostitution. Guess he felt he needed to sex it up in order to sell the film but to me this seemed cheap and frivolous.

With its evident bias in favor of its subject, the film mentions only in passing how Elliott Spitzer's own self-righteousness and abrasive behavior during his year as Governor may have left him without a friend in Albany when he badly needed friends. Admittedly, the State capital was a sinkhole of corruption and waste, but Spitzer's demeanor, like Christ come to cleanse the Temple, was probably the wrong way to go about reforming it.

There is an ample cast of villains -- though why these agreed to be interviewed for this documentary remains a mystery -- including former chairman and c.e.o. of insurance giant A.I.G., Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, Joseph Bruno, former Majority Leader of the New York State Senate (later convicted on federal corruption charges) and even a few words from Wall Street mega-millionaires Ralph Langone and Richard Grasso, bitter and powerful enemies from when Spitzer as Attorney General tried to rein in their insatiable GREED.

The film implies that the current fiscal crisis might have been averted had former Sheriff of Wall Street Spitzer remained in the Governor's mansion. This is doubtful, as doubtful as the claim by Hank Greenberg that A.I.G. would be a solvent company today instead of in federal receivership had he not been kicked out by his own board of directors following revelations by Attorney General Spitzer of accounting irregularities. The abuses Spitzer went after, such as executive compensation and price fixing, were not what caused the fiscal crisis of 2008. That was a result of risky loans and overvalued real estate which, ironically, was what the Spitzer family money was based on.

The ex-governor is shown to be repentant, chastened, fit to return to public service even if the White House now is out of reach. His vices, the documentary seems to say, are only those natural to a man. That Eliot Spitzer can be arraigned for hypocrisy, having himself prosecuted prostitution rings, gets perhaps twenty words in the whole film.

This shows everything that's wrong with America today - and it was filmed 12 years ago.

Nothing changes.

There's no point in pointing out the crooked business men (It's worth nothing now, $100 MILLION. YOU FOUL OLD MAN!). Sorry. But that lip-less old fart pissed me off the second he came on the screen.

What saddened me about Spitzer is that his need to be with girls his daughters' ages, cost him (and us) all the good that he did do originally! And he has three daughters!! That's disgusting.

This was a very depressing documentary. On sooooooo many levels.

It's a cautionary tail.