From KCRW in Santa Monica, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. You can also hear the show at KCRW.com. Documentary director Alex Gibney is chosen to focus on a unique area in his films.

He often looks at institutional behavior, as he did with his Oscar in 2007 film,

Taxed to the Dark Side, which is an American use of torture.

His film, Gonzo, the life and work of Dr. Hunteras Thompson,

showed how one man shook the institution of reporting.

2005's Enron, the smartest guys in the room, showed how power of an institution can corrupt,

taking this inside the corruption for major American business scandal.

His newest film, Client Nine, The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer, shows how one man abused

his power, even as he sought to fight corruption.

Alex, welcome back.

Great to be back, Elvis.

And that's what I find fascinating about this film, that it really is about a guy who,

and to quote the untouchables, became what he beheld.

That's right.

I mean, and I think you see that a lot with vice cops, too, don't you?

You know, the people who are in that world, sometimes they're in that world because they're

attracted to it. Sometimes it seduces them because they're close to it. But you do see it a lot,

but this was something that was unexpected for the Sheriff of Wall Street, the Dudley do right

of New York to do wrong. It's fascinating, though, because in looking at the other films getting ready for this,

I was struck by the level of self-awareness that Elliot Spitzer had,

unlike almost anybody else you talked to in the other films in Enron or Taxi to the Dark

...