the armstrong lie
the armstrong lie
simply offers up the armstrong lie. sorry, but we' ve all already heard that one .
the armstrong lie is eye - opening and myth - shattering and more than a little depressing .
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“what’s more, he can use the story as his defence. that was the most astounding thing, when he looks down the lens he uses the fantastic nature of the lie to buttress it. how can i possibly be telling a lie because if i cheated i would put all this at risk? ”
for four years with the intent of chronicling his return to cycling after retirement as armstrong tried to win his eighth tour de france. unexpectedly, gibney was also there when armstrong admitted to doping, which resulted in the film being retitled from
the road back
to
the armstrong lie .
venice - - italy, oscar - winning documentary director alex gibney (taxi to the dark side) returns to a project he started over five years ago in the armstrong lie, which was initially envisaged as a film about champion cyclist lance armstrong ’s 2009 comeback and now includes material shot after the 2012 revelation that the athlete’s insistent denials of ever having used performance - enhancing drugs were a lie .
anyone can pull a con like armstrong’s. you just lie and keep on lying until someone catches you. it takes a master to keep the con going even after you’ve been caught .
the armstrong lie picks up in 2013 and presents a riveting, insider’s view of the unraveling of one of the most extraordinary stories in the history of sports. as lance armstrong himself says: “i didn’t live a lot of lies, but i lived one big one. ”
lance armstrong has confessed to using performance - enhancing drugs during all seven of his tour de france victories, saying :
i view this situation as one big lie .
8. when in doubt, he played the cancer card. gibney argues that the livestrong foundation and armstrong’s open discussion of his cancer offered a way to rationalize the lie to himself and ultimately provided an out if anyone questioned him .
as gibney admits, it wasn' t just the
armstrong lie
that drove him through the endurance - testing tour de france, but people' s desire to believe in that lie. armstrong comes across as both admirably resilient and frighteningly selfish, his treatment of those who crossed him (teammates with whom he doped, for example) tellingly callous, his refusal to be beaten bizarrely engaging .
armstrong was sporting a yellow livestrong band on his right wrist. the bracelets were worn by many people during his era of dominance, but recently many have been defaced to read' lie - strong' .
the armstrong lie has several insightful moments but is most interesting in how it shows us a filmmaker usually committed to finding the absolute truth in his subjects, suffering when he comes across a story where lies and truth constantly intertwine .
the armstrong lie
also presents a very close relationship between lance armstrong and the international cycling union, cycling' s governing board. the icu and armstrong had frequent conversations on the cyclist' s latest drug test, with the board representatives amicably warning armstrong how close he was to getting caught. gibney doesn' t elaborate on it and purposefully leaves it hanging, but he makes it seem not unfeasible that the whole controversy might have even involved the very head of the uci .
we learn far more about the man from alex gibney’s superb documentary the armstrong lie. the reason for making a drama, you would have thought, would be to speculate and examine in a way documentary never can. well, it does not happen here .
in 2009 alex gibney was hired to make a film about lance armstrong’s comeback to cycling. the project was shelved when the doping scandal erupted, and re - opened after armstrong’s confession. “the armstrong lie” picks up in 2013 and presents a riveting, insider’s view of the unraveling of one of the most extraordinary stories in the history of sports. as lance armstrong himself says: “i didn’t live a lot of lies, but i lived one big one. ”
subscribe to trailers: urltoken subscribe to coming soon: urltoken subscribe to indie & film festivals: urltoken like us on facebook: urltoken follow us on twitter: urltoken the armstrong lie official trailer 1 (2013) - lance armstrong documentary hd an exposition of cyclist lance armstrong as he trains for his eighth tour de france victory .
in 2009 alex gibney was hired to make a film about lance armstrong’s comeback to cycling. the project was shelved when the doping scandal erupted, and re - opened after armstrong’s confession. “the armstrong lie” picks up in 2013 and presents a riveting, insider' s view of the unraveling of one of the most extraordinary stories in the history of sports. as lance armstrong himself says: “i didn’t live a lot of lies, but i lived one big one. ”
that same month, hamilton was at armstrong’s villa in nice, and received a vial of epo from armstrong that had been stored in armstrong’s refrigerator, the report said .
the myth of the cancer survivor turned serial winner, which armstrong perpetuated, captivated millions .
the disgraced hero at the center of one of the most compelling rise - and - fall narratives in recent years gets exhaustive and penetrating documentary treatment in “the armstrong lie. ” focusing primarily on the past four years of lance armstrong’s life — from his 2009 post - retirement comeback bid to his recent admission that he had used performance - enhancing drugs, despite [ … ]
“the lie was way bigger than it needed to be, ” says gibney. “the fact is he could have gone through his career and kept his head down, just saying,' i’d never been tested positive’. that would have been the truth – well not quite, but almost. instead, he constructs this spectacular lie in line with this spectacular story he has of the cancer survivor coming back from near death to win the tour .
i view this situation as one big lie, that i repeated a lot of times. it wasn' t as if i just said no and i moved on .
we watch incredible acts, superhuman performance, staggering achievement and in the wake of the armstrong lie we now doubt them all. we have to consider the possibility that every one of our heroes might be powered by dope. it is not a bad position for the cynic, perhaps. but it is a hopeless one for the sporting romantic .
so faithful was the shoot, the story goes that ben foster, the lead actor, took epo to convey armstrong all the more authentically .
many of those who inflated the armstrong bubble will now capitalise on his confession .
armstrong insists he is willing to co - operate with the authorities in future .
at the race’s end, however, armstrong proclaimed his innocence. he won the tour six more times .
so where does the blame lie? the cycling press can, half - justifiably, blame their employers and their editors, who demanded the usual round of quotes, mini - scoops and interviews. the reporters could argue that they were simply following a narrow interpretation of their professional obligations .
when director alex gibney started working on his lance armstrong documentary in 2009, the cyclist occupied a very different position in the pop - athletic landscape. but as the film approached completion, allegations against armstrong became a lot more credible, and in 2010 gibney scrapped a bunch of the movie and wound up with a very different film. what was going to be the road back is now the armstrong lie, and here' s the movie' s first trailer .
i certainly was very confident that i would never be caught ,
armstrong says in a clip. yeah, no kidding .
still, the armstrong lie feels more often like a possibility for the director to revive an abandoned passion project and try to turn it into something of a (cosmetically more appealing) frankenstein’s monster, using interview and some impressive tour footage from the original film and some newly shot material to make what would finally turn out to be a quite absorbing but never riveting or revelatory overview of armstrong’s career and testy personality .
armstrong' s drug use began in the
mid - 90s
, he said .
the problem with armstrong was the way he aggressively chased down and sued (or threatened to sue) people who may have flagged up any alternative to the armstrong - imposed narrative. there was plenty of evidence, but no one dared stand up to la armstrong, the ultimate diva of pro cycling .
in 2009 alex gibney was hired to make a film about lance armstrong’s comeback to cycling. the project was shelved when the doping scandal erupted, and re - opened after armstrong’s confession .
the evidence that armstrong used epo in the 1999 race was overwhelming, the report said, adding, “no other conclusion is even plausible. ”
the armstrong story is fascinating. that someone could get away with such a huge lie in plain sight is terrifying. it' s a bit like the jimmy savile mess in the uk in that, to put it simply, people must have known! and some brave people did know and try to talk about it, but if one thing came out of the armstrong debacle, it' s the knowledge that telling the truth is one thing; finding someone to listen to you is quite another .
still yet to get a release date in the u. s. , director stephen frears had made no bones admitting that he wasn’t looking to tell lance armstrong’s life story with the program, calling it instead a “crime story about a man who stole the tour de france seven times. ” in the meantime, alex gibney’s 2013 documentary, the armstrong lie, offers an unprecedented look into the cyclist’s fall from grace. originally titled the road back, the project began filming before the 2012 doping investigation and was meant to be a tale of a cycling great returning to the sport he loved. the ensuing scandal changed the plot significantly. the end of the doc even features a sit - down with armstrong done by gibney just hours after he recorded his infamous oprah interview .
when o’reilly, the masseuse, asked armstrong how he would optimize his performance, the report said that he responded, “what everybody does. ” o’reilly understood this to mean armstrong would use epo, the report said .
9. returning to the scene of the crime. the film makes a clear case that armstrong would have gotten away with it all if he hadn’t returned to the tour in 2009. why armstrong made that decision is film’s most intriguing question .
6. don’t ever, ever think about crossing lance... armstrong is an expert at discounting anyone who tries to speak out against him; in many ways, the war against his detractors was worse than the doping itself. the film highlights the guts of longtime friend betsy andreu, the wife of a former armstrong teammate, who was the one of the first people to say armstrong used performance - enhancing drugs .
according to the report, armstrong told o’reilly, the masseuse, “now, emma, you know enough to bring me down. ”
while armstrong has long protested his innocence, retroactive testing found epo in six of armstrong’s urine samples from the 1999 race, according to the report. in addition, the report said, five fellow riders on armstrong’s 1999 united states postal service team — george hincapie, frankie andreu, tyler hamilton, jonathan vaughters and christian vande velde — provided affidavits testifying to firsthand knowledge that armstrong violated antidoping rules, the report said .
the story of disgraced cyclist lance armstrong gets exhaustive and penetrating documentary treatment in alex gibney' s latest .
armstrong' s defence long relied on the fact he had never tested positive - a stance he maintains .
normally when i leave the cinema what i want is a pizza. or maybe, if it is a particularly draining comedy involving robert de niro and sylvester stallone, a stiff drink. after watching alex gibney’s brilliant new documentary the armstrong lie, however, i felt in urgent need of something i had never before associated with the movies: a shower. knowing what we know now, watching lance armstrong in all his calculating, self - righteous mendacity up on the big screen is an experience that puts you in urgent search of the soap .
the result is a film that neatly counterbalances the reality we now know with the fantasy the rider steadfastly maintained. at the heart of the complex, sophisticated lie armstrong constructed was his own ability to fib to camera. time and again during that 2009 tour he looks into gibney’s lens and tells him he has never, will never and could never embrace performance - enhancing assistance. at the time, gibney says, he believed him: he certainly saw no evidence during that tour to suggest anything else. to watch now, knowing what we do, armstrong’s lying is breathtaking in its scale, its skill, its audacity .
armstrong also used testosterone, which builds muscle and aids recovery from exertion, during the 1999 tour, the report said. he mixed it with olive oil in a concoction that was taken orally. after one stage, the report said, armstrong squirted the “oil” in hamilton’s mouth .
he said he would have called his family, mother, sponsors and the lance armstrong foundation (livestrong) .
the real losers in this game are the clean riders and the writers who contradict the mood of the moment, those who spoke out against doping at the time. there is a market for the truth but it is a very fickle one. we’ve all got some thinking to do about the rise and fall of lance armstrong .
at this point, however, the armstrong story becomes more uncomfortable: because the editors, of course, were trying to anticipate and satiate the appetites of their readers. in the great journalistic trade - off, the very beginning of the story, the first domino, is the public’s credulous demand for meaningless quotes and soft interviews .
according to a doping investigation, armstrong cursed and said, “that’s not good. ”
an irish sports journalist becomes convinced that lance armstrong' s performances during the tour de france victories are fueled by banned substances. with this conviction, he starts hunting for evidence that will expose armstrong .
in 2009 alex gibney was hired to make a film about lance armstrong' s comeback to cycling. the project was shelved when the doping scandal erupted, and re - opened after armstrong' s confession. (c) sony classics
lance armstrong, left to right, with frankie andreu, george hincapie and pascal derame after winning the 1999 tour .
even if you dislike sport, hate celebrity confessions and distrust oprah winfrey, you should follow the story of lance armstrong. it is a morality tale of huge implications. beneath the surface, armstrong’s story is about the power of celebrity and the complicity of the media. it is a depressing tale but a deeply salutary one .
because security was tight, the epo was smuggled to the postal service team by a personal assistant and handyman for armstrong, the report said. he was a motorcycle enthusiast who followed the tour on his motorcycle, and the riders who knew his purpose gave him the nickname motoman .
and gibney knows what he is talking about. he experienced the armstrong fibbing technique at first hand, witnessed it at close quarters as it poured down his lens. indeed, the lie came close to undermining his entire credibility as a documentary maker. back in 2009, he had been invited by armstrong to film the inside story of his comeback to the tour de france. after the most fleeting of retirements, the seven - time winner was remounting his bike, back pounding up alps, threading through the fields of sunflowers, rattling over the cobbles. and he wanted a record for posterity, to mark his place in the pantheon. so he sought out america’s most renowned, fiercely forensic, independent documentary maker to shoot him in action .
for now, let’s leave to one side the disgraceful negligence, perhaps even co - operation, of the cycling authorities. consider the role of the mainstream media in the great armstrong deception. most cycling journalists knew it was highly unlikely that armstrong could have raced at that level without drugs. not only did the vast majority remain silent, they actively froze out the few writers – such as david walsh and paul kimmage – who were brave enough to fight the armstrong conspiracy. cyclists were brutal in cutting down whistle - blowers inside the peloton; they called it “pissing in the soup”. the journalistic mainstream mirrored the peloton: they closed ranks against reporters who challenged the comfortable status quo .
on october 22, 2012 lance armstrong was stripped of the 7 tour de france titles he won from 1999 - 2005 .
an intimate but explosive portrait of the man behind the greatest fraud in sporting history. lance armstrong enriched himself by cheating his fans, his sport, and the truth. but the former... see full summary »
but this is the tale of lance armstrong, the most successful rider in the history of the tour de france and sport’s most significant doper. and there are so many drugs involved, one observer who attended a preview screening suggested the producers had given their film the wrong title. it should be called the iv crowd .
the effect of these details is to expose the surprising degree to which armstrong was able to calculate his own narrative, belying the against - the - odds inspirationalism that has generally accompanied its telling. “this is not a story about doping; it’s a story about power, ” one interviewee shrewdly notes, and “ the armstrong lie ” zeroes in on the cynical realities of a sport where victory falls to those with the best medical and financial resources, and where the lure of sponsorships, massive publicity and millions of dollars in cancer - fighting research can encourage even the head of the intl. cycling union to look the other way. the film also taps into the warped mentality of a professional sport where everyone of consequence is assumed to be doping under a code of collective silence, making it easy enough for a cheater to convince himself he isn’t gaining an unfair advantage so much as staying competitive .
a quite absorbing but never riveting or revelatory overview of armstrong’s career and testy personality. twitter
a documentary chronicling sports legend lance armstrong' s improbable rise and ultimate fall from grace .
3. alberto contador is a badass. gibney includes captivating footage of armstrong’s feud with teammate alberto contador, who raced alongside the texan in 2009 and didn’t let him win that year’s tour. instead, contador took home the win and armstrong finished third .
stephen frears' cautious study of lance armstrong' s fall from grace doesn' t crack the cyclist' s implacable veneer .
the latest documentary from oscar winner alex gibney looks at lance armstrong' s comeback attempt in 2009 and the subsequent discovery of his use of performance - enhancing drugs .
certainly, gibney was not expecting much empathy when he informed armstrong of the title of the film. and when he invited him to a screening, armstrong did not attend, sending instead a representative. gibney has not yet heard what he thought of it .
armstrong announced his refusal to co - operate with the usada investigation last august and was punished by cycling' s world governing body, the uci, in late october .
twin venice and toronto premieres, gibney’s reputation and the high profile of the armstrong doping case should nonetheless help put bums in seats for sony pictures classics when it releases the title stateside, nov. 8 .
during the first two weeks of the tour, armstrong, hamilton and livingston used epo every third or fourth day in their camper or hotel rooms, the report said. armstrong, hamilton and livingston traveled in a newer, bigger camper during that tour, while other postal service riders shoehorned into a smaller, older vehicle. hamilton and livingston also shared a hotel room so they could speak openly with armstrong about doping, the report said .
with the interview as his film’s centrepiece, gibney then revisited the footage he had shot in 2009 using it to shed some light on the armstrong methodology, the way he had used it to keep one step ahead of detection for so long .
the disgraced hero at the center of one of the most compelling rise - and - fall narratives in recent years gets exhaustive and penetrating documentary treatment in “ the armstrong lie. ” focusing primarily on the past four years of lance armstrong ’s life — from his 2009 post - retirement comeback bid to his recent admission that he had used performance - enhancing drugs, despite vehement denials over the course of his extraordinary career — director alex gibney delivers not just a detailed, full - access account of his subject, in all his defiance, hubris and tentative self - reckoning, but also a layered inquiry into the culture of competitiveness, celebrity, moral relativism and hypocrisy that helped enable and sustain his deception. although unlikely to match the tv audience for armstrong’s revelatory interview with oprah winfrey in january, this authoritative and well - timed sony classics release should easily become one of gibney’s more widely seen efforts .
armstrong denied usada chief executive travis tygart' s claims that the united states postal service team' s doping programme was the leading one of its kind, believing the east german regime to be' better' .
a new team director, johan bruyneel, and team doctor, luis garcia del moral, were hired that year for the postal service team. armstrong called the team the bad news bears. he wanted a new team, according to the affidavit by vaughters, his teammate, because the outgoing doctor, pedro celaya, “had not been aggressive enough for armstrong in providing banned products. ”
i suppose earlier in my career there was cortisone and then the epo generation began ,
said armstrong, who won the world road race title aged 21 in 1993 .
links / site map / privacy policy / photo credits / © luxstowe vets. website by hudson armstrong
that may have been the most famous of his lies, but it was hardly the first. clinton was well known as a liar — an “unusually good” one, according to bob kerrey, the former senator — long before he ever reached the white house. as early as 1992, the question posed by his candidacy, as defined by michael kinsley, was not is he a liar, ‘‘but is he too much of a liar? ” by the end the lies and abuses of power had piled up so high that christopher hitchens was forced to title his scathing account of the clinton presidency no one left to lie to .
a public weigh - in of the riders was to be attended by the news media. a team masseuse found some makeup, and armstrong’s bruise, and the doping that investigators assert caused it, was ultimately concealed .
just before the 1999 tour de france, a teammate pointed out that lance armstrong had a bruise on his upper arm caused by a syringe .
the point of making a drama about armstrong would be, you assume, to do the things non - fiction cannot. but the creative effort of the program appears to have been expended on replicating material that already exists. the director stephen frears has so lovingly recreated the world of the tour, with his sweeping views of bikes swishing past the arc de triomphe and labouring up mont ventoux, that his footage could easily be mistaken for the genuine article .
gibney became involved when armstrong defiantly decided to have another crack at the tour de france in 2009, submitting to the fierce anti - doping inspections and achieving a very creditable third place .
indeed, this is the ultimate point of the film. the cyclist wanted to use gibney to seal his place in sporting legend. by deconstructing his deception, gibney has done just that. after watching the film you realise what the true lance armstrong legacy entails: he has tarnished the relationship between every sports star and their plausibility beyond repair .
cycle of falsehood … the tissue of lies surrounding disgraced cyclist lance armstrong did film - maker alex gibney no favours. photograph: olivier hoslet / epa
asked whether he felt it was possible to win the tour seven times in succession without doping, armstrong said :
not in my opinion .
one of gibney’s key questions - - why stage a comeback that would prove fatal and, in the long run, reveal and ruin everything? - - is never forcefully addressed and there’s no satisfactory, in - depth answer that explains why armstrong chose to use the performance - enhancing drugs and lie about it until very recently, when federal investigations were underway (they' ve since been halted). the filmmaker does hint at the possibility that armstrong - - who continues to claim he was “clean” during the 2009 tour (in which he placed third) and its disastrous 2010 follow - up (23rd place) - - is trying to influence his own narrative even in front of oprah and gibney’s cameras. it can' t be a good sign if your subject seems to have the last word .
the 1999 racing season began, the report said, with an unlikely goal for armstrong, a cancer survivor: to win the tour de france. he would skip many of the buildup races to concentrate on his sport’s major event. and for fuel, the report said, he would rely on banned substances .
the tale behind armstrong’s first tour triumph, an achievement that made him an instant celebrity, is laid out in the investigative report in almost novelistic fashion. it involves a man on a motorcycle who delivered drugs to armstrong’s team, an italian doctor who was famous for helping riders dope, a training regimen designed to avoid drug testing, and the active complicity of the team masseuse .
because armstrong did not have medical authorization to use corticosteroids, the report said, a story was fabricated to backdate a prescription for cortisone cream and claim that the medication had been prescribed to treat a saddle sore, the report said .
the question of what armstrong isn’t is more easily answered here than that of what, or who, he is. drawn principally from walsh’s book “seven deadly sins: my pursuit of lance armstrong, ” hodge’s script largely avoids speculative drama, veering tactfully away from its subject’s personal and domestic lives. armstrong’s former wife, kristin richard, first appears in a snappy meet - cute; they’re married in the next scene, whereupon she exits the film entirely .
on june 10, 1999, less than a month before the tour began, armstrong’s hematocrit level — the percentage by volume of oxygen - carrying red blood cells in whole blood — hovered at 41 percent, below the allowable race limit of 50 percent, the report said .
the film is a lesson in the perils of getting caught in the middle of a story – and creating and believing in a
story
in the first place. armstrong was spinning us a simple tale of innocence. gibney was preparing to spin something more complicated. the spokes got tangled up. gibney extricates himself from the wreckage, but only just .
armstrong' s decisions were based on a
ruthless desire to win
and, he said, did not feel wrong to him at the time .
after relinquishing the yellow jersey, armstrong reclaimed first place in a time trial, then rode to a dominant mountaintop finish in sestriere, the italian ski village. he was not then known as a great climber, and christophe bassons, a french rider, noted in a newspaper column that the peloton had been “shocked” by armstrong’s ride up to sestriere .
the housewives go to cannes but, unsurprisingly, drama follows them across the ocean .
the documentary includes footage from larry king live, the daily show and the south park episode
a scause for applause
.
the three riders would “inject quickly and then put the syringes in a bag or coke can and dr. del moral would get the syringe out of the camper as quickly as possible, ” the report said .
i didn' t invent the culture, but i didn' t try to stop the culture. the sport is now paying the price because of that .
the 1999 tour was supposed to be one of renewal after a doping scandal engulfed the 1998 race. instead, armstrong won his first of his seven tours by using the prohibited blood - boosting agent epo and the steroid hormone testosterone, according to a 200 - page report released wednesday by the united states anti - doping agency .
alex gibney was obliged to reshape his portrait of lance armstrong in response to the cyclist' s drug disgrace. he salvaged a watchable film – but only just
it is an indictment of so - called expertise. the writers who were supposed to know more about cycling than anyone else in the world were unable to write what they must have known to be the truth. was doping really that obvious, even back then? yes. even if journalists ignored the persistent rumours and armstrong’s association with dr michele ferrari, a master of doping, simple maths should have been enough. the 1998 tour de france was a drug - fuelled shambles in which the leading team got busted for epic substance abuse. the 1999 tour, the first “armstrong” tour, was billed as the “renewal tour”, a clean season free from doping, a fresh start. yet armstrong was soon clocking speeds that were simply unheard of .
asked about the 2001 tour of switzerland and reports he paid off the uci to cover up a positive test, armstrong said :
that story isn' t true. there was no positive test. there was no paying off of the lab .
working at a businesslike pace, hodge and frears glide through armstrong’s early rise through the ranks of the circuit, identifying the many key players with talking - head - style subtitles. his 1996 testicular cancer diagnosis disrupts proceedings in as transient a fashion as it seemingly did armstrong’s own life, as foster’s already remote take on the character recedes into a brittle, intriguingly self - styled facade: “you meet yourself along the way, ” he says of the cancer battle, though he appears to estrange himself from others in the process. he’s no patsy, though the film does position armstrong as a kind of inhuman test subject — “no longer confined to physiology” — for michele ferrari (played with slithery elan by guillaume canet), the italian physician and coach who designed the doping program undertaken by the u. s. postal service team .
this documentary follows cyclist lance armstrong from his 2009 comeback effort through his shocking 2012 confession of performance - enhancing drug use .
how exactly had gibney imagined his film working out initially? he may well have thought that, as the armstrong story was effectively over, with no more surprises to come, he was free to make a subtly neutral film, which wouldn' t need to question armstrong directly about drugs. despite gibney' s rueful admission that he' d found himself rooting for armstrong, i wonder if, in his heart of hearts, he might have been counting on armstrong to do heartbreakingly badly, having been forced to race clean (apparently); secretly hoping that this would tell its own story about the earlier wins, thus making the filmed record a poignant piece of bittersweet natural justice. but of course, armstrong was up to all the old sophisticated tricks in 2009, and his smugly successful comeback was what finally brought out the whistleblowers .
indeed, sportsman he may be, but gibney feels armstrong fits neatly into the pattern of his documentary subjects. from enron to assange, what fascinates him is power .
this is far from being armstrong' s movie debut. that came in 2004, with his cameo in the comedy dodgeball, in which vince vaughn plays an idle gym owner managing a dodgeball team of lovable underdogs. just as vaughn is about to quit on his loyal band, he encounters armstrong, who shames him into staying the course. it is worth remembering just how embedded in us pop culture armstrong had become – in this case, a comically obvious symbol of honesty and courage. (gibney doesn' t mention the dodgeball cameo, but shows satirist jon stewart admitting to being taken in by armstrong' s lies. )
using the winfrey interview to set the stage, gibney pulls back to recount armstrong’s astounding story, from the testicular cancer that left him with a less - than - 50% chance of survival in 1996, to the seven consecutive tour de france victories (1999 - 2005) that cemented his standing as one of the world’s greatest athletes. one of the key ironies here is that armstrong’s secret might never have been publicly exposed had he been content to stay retired: it was his second grab at the spotlight that re - energized his critics and angered the numerous cyclists who had themselves been busted for doping, many of them former teammates who had firsthand knowledge of armstrong’s own use of epo, testosterone, human growth hormone, cortisone and blood transfusions to boost his performance over the years .
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armstrong’s confession is just the latest and most high - profile in a line of confessions of convenience. tyler hamilton, armstrong’s former team - mate and ex - doper, won last year’s william hill sports book award for his ghosted autobiography. it was a deeply seductive book and hamilton enjoyed a wonderful round of sympathetic interviews for his book tour. it was hard to open a newspaper without reading a quote from hamilton: “lance should tell the truth”, “the truth really will set you free”, “a weight off my shoulders”. the only way to get a better press than promoting lance armstrong before the fall was to dish the dirt on him after his disgrace .
gibney calls armstrong a master storyteller, a constructor of his own narrative. his was, moreover, a hugely lucrative yarn .
armstrong took a brown paper bag from marti, held it up and, according to andreu, called it “liquid gold. ”
alex gibney offers a thorough account of lance armstrong’s long brewing scandal – and the corrosive power of win - at - all - costs ambition. here are his film’s juiciest moments
for gibney, the unmasking of armstrong made him instantly a more fascinating subject for a documentary. he is, he reckons, on a par with the australian with whom he spectacularly fell out during filming of his acclaimed documentary we steal secrets: the story of wikileaks .
the tale is fascinating, not just for cycling enthusiasts, but connoisseurs of the human condition .
7... . because you don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. gibney points out that the tour de france presents such an absurd challenge to the human body that the concept of pain reduction, recovery and chemical enhancement is as old as the race itself, dating to the days when riders cured their wounds after each stage at the local bar. in the film, armstrong uses a similar everyone - was - doing - it defense to explain how the doping began – and why he didn’t stop .
in the interview with talk - show host winfrey, recorded on monday in his home city of austin, texas, armstrong was asked why he chose to confess his misdemeanours now .
indeed, gibney' s film shows that armstrong was part of a much bigger hypocrisy. the use of the banned red blood cell booster epo was not just widespread; it was almost universal. epo remained undetectable for years, and armstrong, many of his teammates as well as his opponents pumped their blood full of it, and enjoyed the occasional blood transfusion, also banned. the film implies that it would be hard to find anyone who was actually clean in the 1990 - 2005 period. so no one can actually point the finger too much .
rather, “the program” frames its narrative as something akin to a criminal chase, with walsh — an early skeptic regarding armstrong’s winning prowess — as the dogged investigator and audience proxy, and armstrong as his elusive quarry. on these terms, it makes sense to seal off the latter’s inner life, though imagined emotional access is what might have separated the film from previous reportage on the subject; for better or worse, we’re left to ponder what, if any, degree of psychological strain or moral conflict the champion felt over his infamously concealed doping habit .
in 2009 director alex gibney set out to film the road back, a documentary on cyclist lance armstrong' s comeback year after a four - year retirement from the sport. three years later, on october 2012, a doping investigation led to his lifetime ban from competition and the stripping of his seven tour de france titles, and the documentary was shelved. on january 14, 2013, three hours after his appearance on oprah, armstrong went back to gibney to set the record straight about his career .
the golden years, during which the recovered armstrong racked up seven tour titles and attained a - list celebrity status, are briskly covered. editor valerio bonelli’s multiple montages approximate the superficiality of sporting sizzle reels, perhaps reflecting the slick ease with which armstrong’s camp sold the world on a tale that was, for all the man’s natural prowess, a shade too good to be true. (“go out there and live the best life story you can, ” he says, and it’d be hard to argue that he didn’t .) “the program” doesn’t pass judgment on the misdeeds portrayed as explicitly as gibney did in his documentary, even via the character of walsh: as played by a typically disarming if oddly cast o’dowd, the irish journo appears to chase personal vindication as eagerly as he does ethical reform .
the film does an effective job of repackaging the armstrong brand in its opening reel. danny cohen’s camera indulges in the impatient, zooming moves and aggressive angles becoming of a brash young athlete; combined with a hot primary palette, the images recall nothing so seductive and deceptive as an energy - drink commercial. foster gets the sarsaparilla slide of armstrong’s texan accent just right as he’s introduced speaking in ready - made slogans: “my mom didn’t raise a quitter, ” he tells sunday times sportswriter david walsh (chris o’dowd) where the film begins, at the time of his first tour de france in 1993 .
armstrong retired after his 2005 tour win and believed his doping may never have been uncovered had he not made a comeback in 2009 .
, cycling’s governing board. armstrong says there were “hundreds” of conversations with uci officials where he was warned his drug tests were “flying too close to the sun. ” the film also implies there was a conspiracy involving uci head hein verbruggen that was designed to protect the famous racer .
basically the story of a man forced to finally see the injustice around him. riley’s movie is designed to do the same thing to you. …
another key figure granted significant screentime here is michele ferrari, the italian sports doctor whose obsession with pushing the human body to and beyond its physical limits led him to devise the most advanced and sophisticated performance - enhancing drugs available, using armstrong as guinea pig and the tour de france as a regular testing ground. one of the most essential aspects of gibney’s film — and what distinguishes it from the average primetime interview — is the scientific acuity of his research, explaining how epo increases endurance by stimulating red - blood cell production, an effect that can also be achieved through the more grisly route of a blood transfusion (which armstrong and ferrari also experimented with) .
so why did the press, with a few honourable exceptions, show so little appetite for the truth? because they craved access to the stars, especially armstrong. they relied on quotes from lance, a few scraps of celebrity gossip to pepper their copy with, perhaps a sit - down with the great man. and armstrong, like a brutal political spin doctor, was utterly ruthless about dividing the world into two camps – with me or against me, friend or enemy, soft touch or (in lancespeak) “troll”. some of david walsh’s oldest friends in journalism eventually refused to share a car with him because armstrong made a note of who travelled with the “troll” and cut them off accordingly .
the armstrong narrative arc runs absolutely counter to the standard trope of the sports movie. as brilliantly sent up by the comic adam riches in his recent edinburgh festival show coach coach, the convention is for the film’s hero to work himself into a position where redemption is at stake in a climactic moment of sporting jeopardy. score this goal, slam that dunk, hit your home run and all will be resolved, all will be well .
when armstrong failed to mark his return with anything more than third place, however, gibney’s original documentary was quietly forgotten about. given the subsequent revelations about doping, bullying and lying, the tsunami of evidence that led ultimately to the confession armstrong made to oprah winfrey that he used chemical assistance to achieve all seven of his tour wins, that he was the mastermind of systematic drug - cheating in his sport on an industrial scale, gibney shudders when he thinks of the effect a supportive film would have wrought on his credibility .
asked if it was hard to live up to that image, armstrong said :
impossible. the story is so bad and so toxic, a lot of it' s true .
those who eventually testified against armstrong (and are interviewed here) include george hincapie, his best friend and regular cycling domestique, and frankie andreu, who along with his wife, betsy, said they overheard armstrong disclose his use of performance - enhancing drugs to cancer doctors in 1996, a claim he still denies. apart from author dan coyle, who offers withering assessments of armstrong’s legacy, betsy andreu emerges as the film’s most forceful and outspoken presence, leading the charge against the most famous figure in a sport whose reputation and other participants were irreversibly damaged by his actions .
a fine actor ben foster may be, but he’s no helen mirren, and “the program” doesn’t cede itself to him in the same way; his armstrong, projecting a surface as glib and hard and wipe - clean as that of the man himself, can be a difficult figure to see even when he’s in the foreground. (in one moment of metatextual playfulness, a glory - era armstrong is asked to comment on the potential casting of matt damon in his biopic. it’s a sly allusion to just how far the cyclist’s public image has shifted over the years — damon is hardly an actor called to mind by foster’s wily translucency. )
this slightly disjointed aspect of the production makes certain individual scenes and moments stand out, yet they never quite come together. the lack of catharsis allows the viewer enough leeway to judge armstrong for themselves, and that particular aspect of gibney' s film is much more fascinating than the
arrogant - pillock - dopes - and - lies
story .
a further irony awaits. many of those who inflated the armstrong bubble will now capitalise on his confession. as i write this, armstrong is due to appear on us television in an interview with oprah winfrey, in which he would offer a carefully calibrated confession – just enough to hint at the truth, not so much that he faces ruinous legal challenges and a trial for perjury .
in may 1999, emma o’reilly, the team masseuse, made an 18 - hour round - trip drive from nice to spain to deliver a bottle of pills to armstrong that, according to the report, “she understood to be banned drugs. ”
the film falls roughly into two halves, with the first hour providing the backstory on armstrong’s career, with talking heads (armstrong, ex - colleagues such as frankie andreu and george hincapie and bicycling experts) and archive footage painting a picture of the cyclist as a head - strong and controlling leader who was just as much a fanatic on his bike as he was off it (“i was a bully, ” he would later say to oprah). after surviving cancer, he seems to have taken to heart the idea that “losing equals death. ”
i think it' s probably the most honest armstrong has been. a hugely informative and amazingly unbelievable documentary that just astounds me as to how he manage to get away with it for so long .
if anyone dared question him, the film shows, armstrong retaliated with almost biblical fury. armstrong personally went after anyone who even insinuated that something fishy might have been going on. he was a scary, intimidating, and cold man. his story is not a tragedy in the classical sense. it' s a cautionary tale with a very simple and obvious message: don' t be an sob.
the armstrong lie is a 2013 american documentary film directed by alex gibney about the cyclist lance armstrong . originally titled the road back , the film takes its name from " le mensonge armstrong " , the headline of the august 23 , 2005 issue of the french newspaper l'équipe . the film was screened out of competition at the 70th venice international film festival and in the special presentation section at the 2013 toronto international film festival . 
the armstrong lie is a 2013 american documentary film directed by alex gibney about the cyclist lance armstrong. originally titled the road back, the film takes its name from " le mensonge armstrong ", the headline of the august 23, 2005 issue of the french newspaper l'équipe. the film was screened out of competition at the 70th venice international film festival and in the special presentation section at the 2013 toronto international film festival.
the armstrong lie is a 2013 american documentary film directed by alex gibney about the cyclist lance armstrong. originally titled the road back, the film takes its name from " le mensonge armstrong ", the headline of the august 23, 2005 issue of the french newspaper l'équipe. the film was screened out of competition at the 70th venice international film festival and in the special presentation section at the 2013 toronto international film festival.