At first, the title of Alex Gibney’s “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon” seems as if it could be a warning about the director’s approach in this supersized documentary. The film, its title seems to be saying, is about the music of Simon, not the life or the loves or the times of Simon. But it turns out that the music is a gateway to all those other things in this three-and-a-half hour film that covers most of what you’d want to know about the seminal singer-songwriter.
Partly, that’s because Gibney’s jumping off point is Simon’s new album, “Seven Psalms,” an uncommonly personal and soul-searching work for the man who’s been writing songs for seven decades.