“In his films, Gibbons’s charming countenance addresses the camera directly. Joe’s close-up is fundamentally conspiratorial: alternately self-aggrandizing (“I don’t need a job. I’m Joe Gibbons! I take what I need”), self-doubting (“I should’ve quit while I was ahead”), and self-afflicting, as when he documents his heroin use. He’s known to apostrophize nonverbal costars: in The Florist abusing roses for their smug vanity, in Confidential pleading that the camera quit its unflinching voyeurism, and in His Master’s Voice facing the hard truth that his dog, Woody, has no knack for foresight when a world-conquering plan goes awry. His films, with their diaristic approach, are filled with clichés and fantasies, like a self-help book with an unreliable narrator. Insidiously poignant, his work has the unsettling effect that returning home from a vacation does, when routines once ingrained become hideously apparent.”