How Much Elon Musk Is Too Much? A Four-Hour Film Weighs In.

Before a nearly four-hour-long documentary by Alex Gibney about Elon Musk had its world premiere on Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival, prospective viewers could be forgiven for wondering: What could it possibly say that hasn't already been widely talked about? Ever since Tesla and SpaceX became household names — if not fodder for 'Saturday Night Live' — the world's first trillionaire has been the subject of perennial waves of news and images, as well as discussion on social media. Now, not even an Italian island has proved to be a place to escape from it. And isn't all publicity good publicity? Certainly the supposedly attention-hungry tech titan would love nothing more than an epic monument to his power, proof that both his admirers and his haters can't get enough of him. An Oscar- and Emmy-winning documentarian, Gibney is known for pulling the curtain back on the wizards of Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Washington. If most of what he presents here about Musk isn't particularly new, there is a fearsome power to the way the director brings it all together. Musk isn't just a pesky fixture in the news cycle. Gibney's mega-portrait asks us to look at the sum of his actions and take him seriously as a threat to democracy. 'So many incidents have happened; there are so many trees,' Gibney told a news conference on Tuesday. 'Sometimes its useful to see the forest and stitch together a narrative.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.