Review: 4-hour Musk documentary feels like two different films

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Elon Musk is a very familiar figure to Ars readers, given his massive influence (for better and worse) on the technology sector over the last 20 years. Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney’s latest biographical documentary—simply titled Musk—covers a lot of well-known ground and challenges the carefully crafted public image of Musk as a visionary tech titan.

对于 Ars 的读者来说，埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）是一个非常熟悉的人物，因为他在过去 20 年里对科技行业产生了巨大的影响（无论好坏）。奥斯卡获奖导演亚历克斯·吉布尼（Alex Gibney）的最新传记纪录片——片名简单地定为《马斯克》（Musk）——涵盖了许多众所周知的内容，并挑战了马斯克作为远见卓识的科技巨头这一精心打造的公众形象。

Gibney’s documentary presents Musk as more of a Gilded Age confidence man, rejiggered for the 21st century: an investor cosplaying as an inventor whose real genius is pumping stocks and dazzling investors and the public alike with visions of a high-tech utopian future. The film is bound to push all the right outrage buttons, whether one is a Musk fan or a detractor—which makes it very much a product of the peculiar social media-driven era in which we live.

吉布尼的纪录片将马斯克描绘成一个 21 世纪版的“镀金时代”骗子：一个扮演发明家的投资者，其真正的天赋在于炒作股票，并用高科技乌托邦未来的愿景让投资者和公众眼花缭乱。无论观众是马斯克的粉丝还是批评者，这部电影注定会触动所有正确的愤怒点——这使其成为了我们所处的这个由社交媒体驱动的特殊时代的产物。

Gibney has been making documentaries since the 1980s, covering such varied subjects as Jimi Hendrix, Hunter S. Thompson and gonzo journalism, WikiLeaks, Scientology, Steve Jobs, Elizabeth Holmes, Boris Becker, The Sopranos creator David Chase, alleged Russian interference in the US 2016 presidential election, the opioid epidemic, and cyclist Lance Armstrong. He snagged his first Oscar nomination for 2005’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature two years later for Taxi to the Dark Side.

吉布尼自 20 世纪 80 年代以来一直从事纪录片制作，题材广泛，包括吉米·亨德里克斯（Jimi Hendrix）、亨特·S·汤普森（Hunter S. Thompson）与“刚佐新闻学”、维基解密、科学教派、史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）、伊丽莎白·霍姆斯（Elizabeth Holmes）、鲍里斯·贝克尔（Boris Becker）、《黑道家族》创作者大卫·蔡斯（David Chase）、所谓俄罗斯干预 2016 年美国总统大选、阿片类药物危机以及自行车手兰斯·阿姆斯特朗（Lance Armstrong）。他凭借 2005 年的《安然：房间里最聪明的人》（Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room）首次获得奥斯卡提名，并于两年后凭借《开往黑暗的出租车》（Taxi to the Dark Side）赢得了奥斯卡最佳纪录长片奖。

Tackling the subject of Elon Musk seems like a natural progression from those earlier works. Gibney has never been one to shy away from controversy, but even before Musk’s release, the film drew the ire of its subject and threats of a defamation lawsuit. There were even (as yet unfounded) rumors that Universal Pictures was getting cold feet about theatrically releasing the film in international markets.

处理埃隆·马斯克这个题材似乎是他早期作品的自然延伸。吉布尼从不回避争议，但即便在《马斯克》上映之前，这部电影就已经引起了当事人的愤怒，并招致了诽谤诉讼的威胁。甚至有传言（目前尚未证实）称，环球影业对在国际市场院线上映该片感到退缩。

There’s certainly no shortage of material for Gibney to work with and the film covers the most well-known aspects of Musk’s life: Tesla and the fatalities linked to its driver-assistance systems, SpaceX, Starlink, his purchase of Twitter, his shift from warning about the risks of AI to fully embracing it with Grok, his embrace of Trump, the creation of DOGE, his alleged drug use, and his 14 (possibly more) children.

吉布尼显然不缺素材，电影涵盖了马斯克生活中最广为人知的方面：特斯拉及其驾驶辅助系统相关的死亡事故、SpaceX、星链（Starlink）、他收购推特（Twitter）、从警告人工智能风险到通过 Grok 全面拥抱人工智能的转变、他对特朗普的支持、DOGE 的创建、他涉嫌吸毒以及他 14 个（可能更多）的孩子。

Those interviewed include ex-wife Justine Musk, Kara Swisher, Martin Eberhard, Geoffrey Hinton, former MAGA influencer Ashley St. Clair (who bore a child by Musk), Cory Doctorow, Adam Becker, and Sam Harris. David Byrne co-wrote and performed an original song for the soundtrack, “Let Me Sell You a Dream,” incorporating more of Musk’s words.

受访者包括前妻贾斯汀·马斯克（Justine Musk）、卡拉·斯威舍（Kara Swisher）、马丁·艾伯哈德（Martin Eberhard）、杰弗里·辛顿（Geoffrey Hinton）、前“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）网红阿什利·圣克莱尔（Ashley St. Clair，她为马斯克生了一个孩子）、科利·多克托罗（Cory Doctorow）、亚当·贝克尔（Adam Becker）和萨姆·哈里斯（Sam Harris）。大卫·伯恩（David Byrne）为原声带共同创作并演唱了一首原创歌曲《让我卖给你一个梦》（Let Me Sell You a Dream），其中融入了更多马斯克的言论。

Gibney is a gifted filmmaker and Musk is exceptionally well-done. But the documentary ends up feeling like two very different films. The first half focuses on the early entrepreneurial years, deftly incorporating archival footage with the usual talking heads. It reminds us of who Musk used to be—honestly, I miss that public version of Musk, even if it was carefully cultivated—and what little is known about his family background serves to humanize him a little.

吉布尼是一位天才电影制作人，《马斯克》制作得非常出色。但这部纪录片最终让人感觉像是两部截然不同的电影。前半部分聚焦于早期的创业岁月，巧妙地将档案素材与常规的访谈镜头结合在一起。它提醒我们马斯克曾经是什么样的人——老实说，我很怀念那个公众形象的马斯克，即使那是精心塑造的——而关于他家庭背景的少量信息也起到了一点让他人性化的作用。

The second half focuses on Musk after his purchase of Twitter and embrace of Trump. The notoriously thin-skinned Musk has accused Gibney of making a “hit piece.” It’s not, but the tone in the second half is markedly different and certainly more adversarial, leaving little doubt as to where Gibney stands. (The director is a staunch critic of the so-called journalistic “view from nowhere” and his documentaries typically have a strong point of view.)

后半部分聚焦于马斯克收购推特并拥抱特朗普之后的生活。以脸皮薄著称的马斯克指责吉布尼制作了一部“攻击性作品”。事实并非如此，但后半部分的基调明显不同，而且更具对抗性，让人对吉布尼的立场毫无疑问。（这位导演是所谓新闻界“无处不在的视角”的坚定批评者，他的纪录片通常具有强烈的个人观点。）

During a post-screening Q&A, Gibney revealed that he’d actually finished the documentary in 2024, but HBO asked him to keep going to document Musk’s “heel turn,” if you will. One assumes he recut the first half in the process, but perhaps that’s why Musk feels like two different documentary films smushed together. It’s also how the documentary ballooned to a nearly four-hour run time (with a 10-minute intermission).

在放映后的问答环节中，吉布尼透露他实际上在 2024 年就完成了这部纪录片，但 HBO 要求他继续拍摄，以记录马斯克的“反派转变”（如果可以这样称呼的话）。人们推测他在这个过程中重新剪辑了前半部分，但这也许就是为什么《马斯克》感觉像是两部不同的纪录片被强行拼凑在一起的原因。这也是这部纪录片时长膨胀到近四个小时（含 10 分钟中场休息）的原因。

Gibney joked during the Q&A that the real question should be, how did he limit himself to just four hours when it could easily been stretched to six? In that case, perhaps it might have worked better as a six-episode documentary miniseries. Musk declined to be interviewed for the film, so the director created an AI version of Musk uttering verbatim public quotes as a stand-in for a real interview.

吉布尼在问答环节开玩笑说，真正的问题应该是，当它很容易被拉长到六个小时时，他是如何将自己限制在四个小时内的？如果是那样的话，也许作为一部六集的纪录片迷你剧效果会更好。马斯克拒绝接受采访，因此导演创建了一个人工智能版本的马斯克，逐字逐句地引用他的公开言论，作为真实采访的替代品。

I get why Gibney decided to do this and it’s conceptually apt: this is the AI future that Musk and his ilk are working so hard to bring about, popular opinion be damned. So sure, give him the AI avatar treatment. But the execution is lacking; it’s creepy uncanny valley stuff. The AI Musk pales in comparison with the archival footage of the actual Musk, which is far more interesting precisely because it’s real.

我明白吉布尼为什么决定这样做，这在概念上是恰当的：这就是马斯克及其同类正努力实现的人工智能未来，不管公众舆论如何。所以当然，给他安排一个人工智能化身。但执行力不足；这是一种令人毛骨悚然的“恐怖谷”效应。与真实的马斯克的档案镜头相比，人工智能马斯克显得苍白无力，而真实的镜头之所以更有趣，恰恰是因为它是真实的。

Musk is a frequently compelling portrait of a complicated man but that portrait is incomplete in some crucial ways. Gibney’s portrayal is as much tragic anti-hero as con artist or flim-flam man—an idealistic dreamer ultimately corrupted by wealth and power, or what Gibney calls “noble cause corruption.” The first half of the documentary made me mourn who Musk once was, and wonder what kind of man he might have become had he made different choices at crucial points on his rise to the top.

《马斯克》是对一个复杂人物的引人入胜的刻画，但这个肖像在某些关键方面是不完整的。吉布尼的刻画既是一个悲剧性的反英雄，也是一个骗子或江湖郎中——一个最终被财富和权力腐蚀的理想主义梦想家，或者吉布尼所说的“崇高事业的腐败”。纪录片的前半部分让我为马斯克曾经的样子感到哀伤，并想知道如果他在崛起过程中的关键节点做出不同的选择，他会成为什么样的人。

But the film sheds little light on why he ended up on such a dark path. Would Musk agreeing to be interviewed have helped? I am not so sure. This is a man, as the film makes clear, who really isn’t capable of self-reflection or facing hard truths, and he has the wherewithal to keep his bubble intact. As his wealth and influence have increased, so has his detachment from reality.

但这部电影几乎没有解释他为何最终走上如此黑暗的道路。如果马斯克同意接受采访会有帮助吗？我不确定。正如电影所表明的那样，这是一个真正没有能力进行自我反省或面对残酷真相的人，而且他有足够的财力来维持自己的泡沫。随着他的财富和影响力的增加，他与现实的脱节也随之加深。