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THE ARMSTRONG LIE
THE ARMSTRONG LIE
Run time: 124mins
Director: Alex Gibney
Cast: Lance Armstrong
Synopsis: In 2008, Academy Award® winning filmmaker Alex Gibney set out to make a documentary about Lance Armstrong’s comeback to the world of competitive cycling. An unprecedented scandal, however, would rewrite both the Armstrong legend and Gibney’s film
This documentary is from distinguished documentary maker Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, We steal Secrets) It is about Lance Armstrong’s now infamous fall from grace, though it began as an uplifting documentary about his 2009 comeback in the Tour de France.
Gibney was granted complete access to the cyclist’s inner circle and filmed telling interviews with everyone from Armstrong to his ‘doping doctor’, Michele Ferrari. Combined with fresh interviews in the aftermath of the scandal, the footage reveals how many people were willing to turn a blind eye to signs of foul play to preserve the Armstrong myth.
An engrossing documentary about the biggest deception in the history of sport.
Cyclist Lance Armstrong was raised by a single mother in Texas, managed to beat cancer and went on to win the Tour de France seven consecutive times between 1999 and 2005.
In 2009, he attempted a comeback while fighting off claims that he had used performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions. When Armstrong subsequently admitted to doping during a high-profile Oprah Winfrey interview, Gibney realised that his subject had been lying to his face throughout. Now his documentary took a different turn. Featuring an extraordinary new interview with Armstrong himself, it explores his immense hubris, his bullying personality, the huge amounts of money involved in the sport, and how his cheating went undetected for so long. His comeback was not to be a beginning but the beginning of the end – maintaining that he didn’t tell a lot of lies – just one big ‘beautiful lie’ and feeling that people are willing to be deceived.
Images courtesy of Sony Pictures
