Alex Gibney’s documentary makes gripping use of his access to Lance Armstrong, especially when self-assured denials meet accounts of intimidation. Repetition blunts the questioning, but the cycling footage and uncomfortable scrutiny of the filmmaker’s own involvement make it worth watching.
The Armstrong Lie is a good documentary with an awkward advantage: its director was already close to the story he needed to reconsider. Alex Gibney had filmed Lance Armstrong’s 2009 comeback for what began as a celebration. That earlier purpose matters, because the footage lets us see the attraction of a sporting story built around one commanding personality. We recommend it for that access and for its account of how deception is defended. The questioning does become repetitive.
Maryse Alberti’s cinematography gives the cycling footage an immediacy that explains some of the filmmaker’s enthusiasm. Those passages are exciting to watch, even within a film asking us to reconsider our admiration for its subject. The physical achievement remains visible, which is important: simply making him look ridiculous would spare us the harder business of understanding why people wanted to believe him. The race footage also gives the film a welcome break from interviews about what was said and what was concealed.
The archive interview with Oprah Winfrey is particularly uncomfortable: Lance Armstrong remains a commanding presence even while his account is being examined. In the earlier footage of his denials, he looks like someone who expects his confidence to settle the matter. We were angry at the accounts of intimidation directed towards people who challenged him. Set beside that composure, their experiences make the deception feel nastier than a breach of sporting rules. Alex Gibney is persuasive when he keeps attention on the damage done to other people.
Andy Grieve, Tim Squyres and Lindy Jankura have the difficult editing job of bringing earlier footage into an investigation that changes how we understand it. Their combination of interviews and cycling holds the attention, and the explanations of doping give the accusations useful substance. The account of the sport around him also prevents this from becoming a simple exercise in blaming one man for everything. Yet repeated evasions start to yield little further insight. At 124 minutes, the film gives us more opportunities to recognise his behaviour than we need.
Alex Gibney’s presence as narrator is necessary, because his own involvement needs examining. A filmmaker granted this sort of access has something to explain when the flattering account he began turns into an inquiry into dishonesty. We welcome his acknowledgement that he helped promote the comeback story, though the narration sometimes tells us what to make of material that has already made its point. There is room for more searching self-questioning here, particularly about the pleasures of getting close to a persuasive subject.
David Kahne’s music leaves little impression beside the interviews and the racing. It supplies accompaniment without making the difficult passages more affecting, and we would not miss much of it. More useful is the film’s willingness to put doping within the culture of professional cycling. A sporting documentary can settle for exposing a cheat; this one spends enough time on the surrounding pressures to make that explanation look inadequate.
None of this quite gets us inside Lance Armstrong’s thinking, and the film occasionally mistakes another encounter with him for another discovery. Still, access to someone so practised at defending himself has value when the footage gives us grounds to question what he says. The accounts of hostility towards his critics provide the strongest reason to stay with it. Watch it for those accounts and the race footage, with patience for questions that keep producing much the same response.
