[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7hP47HogmY]
Oscar winner Alex Gibney’s documentary about Steve Jobs. The film debuts at SXSW this month.
Sometimes I lose count of the movies about Steve Jobs but I’m pretty sure this one wasn’t on my radar until recently. Premiering at SXSW today is “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine”, a documentary funded by CNN and directed by Alex Gibney, who is just off releasing a controversial Scientology exposé “Going Clear”.
Alex Gibney is one of America’s pre-eminent filmmakers. He won an Oscar for Taxi to the Dark Side and was nominated for Enron:The Smartest Guys in the Room. Most recently Mea Maxima Culpa:Silence in the House of God won three Emmys and a Peabody. This spring Going Clear:Scientology and the Prison of Belief and a Sinatra doc miniseries airs on HBO.
Reading the Q&As at Variety and Hollywood Reporter, it appears that this isn’t going to be a love-fest like the new book. Still, given the subject matter and the brief clip above, I’m intrigued…
Update: notes from the film, which we can now confirm doesn’t cast a good light on the Apple founder follow. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Apple Employees who attended the film walked out:
Radio Silence From Jobs’ Widow, Apple
Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell agreed to be interviewed for the film before ultimately pulling out. Apple, whose board declined participation, saying, “We don’t have the resources to help you on this project.
Getting Tipsy at Those Apple Events
When the original iPhone presentation was over, Apple’s design group went on a celebratory “shit-show” bender through the streets of San Francisco.
The First Apple Computer Was Almost Called “Claire”
According to the film, Jobs had wanted to call his first computer “the Apple Claire,” and was hoping his daughter could take than name, too. When she ended up with the name Lisa, he changed his computer accordingly.
Jobs’ cruelty regarding Chrisann and Lisa is highlighted in the film. You learn that he had lied in a sworn testimony, falsely claiming Brennan had multiple sex partners and that he was sterile and could therefore not be Lisa’s father. Only after a paternity test proved that he was did he finally accept responsibility. And though Apple went public in 1980, increasing Jobs’ net worth from $20 million to $200 million, he agreed to pay Brennan just $500 per month in child support.
The High Price of Loyalty
The most emotional moment of the film comes when Bob Belleville, the director of engineering on Apple’s game-changing Macintosh from 1982 to 1985, breaks down on camera as he reads a note he wrote following Jobs’ death. Belleville has a complicated relationship with his former boss – part adulation, part deep-seated resentment – and blames the cutthroat culture at the company for destroying his marriage.
Gizmodo and the iPhone 4
The film spends a significant amount of time revisiting the time when Jobs went to war with Gizmodo, after the tech website had gotten its hands on a prototype of an iPhone 4 that an Apple employee had carelessly left at a bar. All the key figures are interviewed, including editor Jason Chen, whose home was forcibly entered and computers seized by Silicon Valley police, and Nick Denton, who approved a payment of $5,000 for the phone. Jobs, who pledged not to stop until Gizmodo’s editors were in jail, died one year later.
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Steve Jobs = Dean of the universe
Sounds like an interesting documentary to watch in due course (and Alex Ginny to me has stellar credentials, especially remember the Enron documentary).
However this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that Steve was no saint if they have actually read about some of the history of the Apple company (I recommend reading books Icon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business & also the Steve Wozniak book iWoz).
We ALL know Steve was pivotal in creating many great products that people loved (I’m typing this using an Apple Macbook Pro), nothing will diminish that.
…as opposed to a Samsung MacBook Pro? #departmentofredundancydepartment
Yes, as opposed to using a non-Apple product that Steve Jobs wasn’t involved in!
So yet again, the focus is on “He was an asshole when he was in his 20s,” (true of half the males on the planet), and that he was “Ruthless,” (the main trait of every successful business person on the planet).
So insightful, so meaningful.
When you’re doing a bio on a guy like Jobs it would make more sense to focus on the things that mad him *different* from everyone else, instead of these qualities which he shares with most everyone else.
I just realised this is the same guy who’s doing the Scientology expose. That’s sad.
I was looking forward to that film, but if this is an example of his work he is both a poor documentary maker and a poor researcher. Looks like he just likes to dig dirt I guess. I expect they will both be popular (and that’s not a compliment)
Too bad the crying guy with round glasses isn’t Eric Schmidt.
Whether the movie casts Steve Jobs as a villain or a hero, the question is this: IS IT TRUE?
Is the story presented backed up by witness accounts and verifiable stories? In other words, why can’t Jobs be BOTH an a-hole AND a genius? The reality is that people are complicated, and just because Jobs helped create “insanely great” products doesn’t mean we should ignore the price that was paid by many who had to put up with his eccentricities, self-centered attitude and anti-social behavior.
Plus one
Anything funded by CNN is garbage.
“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred in their bones…”
So let it be with Stephen Paul Jobs…
A genius and a full blown ego meniac( a -hole) .
Those who choose to see him only as a charming, charismatic hero .. Are being very selective in their assessment !
Looking forward to seeing this documentary!
I really don’t understand the fascination with Steve Jobs documentaries. I find the stories of him mesmerizing from a character standpoint, but I think we’re putting way too much emphasis on the extremes of his personality. Was he a complex figure? of course. So is EVERY HUMAN BEING EVER. Was Steve Jobs the new Jesus? No. Was he the Devil incarnate? No. He was human, and just as flawed as the rest of us. The fact that biographers seem intent on proving that he was either “not that bad a guy” or “a complete jerk” really is a moot point, since his effects on the tech industry are still universally apparent, even to those who abhor Apple products.
You know who else is probably not a saint? Bill Gates. Larry Page. Walt Disney. Stanley Kubrick. The Beatles. But they have all profoundly impacted our culture.
Oh, Steve’s widow DIDN’T want to be interviewed for a documentary intent on casting her late husband in a bad light? Wow. I’m surprised. She must be hiding something. Oh, Apple employees walked out of a screening that cast their late boss in a bad light? How could they do that? Didn’t they all hate him since he was such a jerk?
Guess what, not everybody hates Steve Jobs. He was frustrating and infuriating and condescending and pompous. But he was also intuitive, forward-thinking, and demanded a higher standard of excellence than the rest of us were willing to accept. And he got it, because, being a jerk, he refused to settle for anything less.
He revolutionized the music industry and helped usher in the era of digital content we enjoy today. And he did it all with a chip on his shoulder and a scowl on his face.
And really, it’s just poor taste to speak ill of the dead.
Yeh, he is/was a canute (slang for cunt). What to do?