Movie fans may be waiting on Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs biopic, but another Jobs-related project arrives in theaters today. And, boy, is it not a film Apple is happy about!
Titled Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, the feature-length documentary is directed by Oscar winner Alex Gibney, who has previously made docs exploring the dark side of Enron and the Church of Scientology.
Yep, you can probably see where this one is going!
Gibney’s Jobs documentary debuted at the South by Southwest Film Festival earlier this year. Shortly thereafter it was blasted by Apple VP Eddy Cue, who called it a, “mean-spirited view of my friend.”
Jobs certainly wasn’t faultless, and I’ve long been a fan of Gibney’s work (his 2007 documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, about the death of an Afghan taxi driver while being held at the Parwan Detention Facility, is absolutely worth checking out), but I’m somewhat concerned about The Man in the Machine.
Reviews so far — even those from outside Apple — have labelled it pretty much a sustained attack on Jobs, without much to counter-balance that. Here’s the Huffington Post, for example:
“The Man In the Machine is focused largely on the thesis that Jobs was always and only a jerk, that people who enjoy Apple products and admire Jobs are idiots and cult members, and that the computer revolution that was born of Jobs’ vision must inevitably contain the same ugly darkness Gibney feels is Jobs’ defining trait, despite any evidence to the contrary.”
And here’s the Denver Post:
“What seems to fascinate Gibney most are Jobs’ well-known character failings, which his accomplishments merely seemed to throw into ever harsher relief … Gibney doesn’t exactly go in for cheap shots here, but you do get the sense that he’s making use of every weapon in his arsenal.”
You get the picture. On the plus-side, the movie appears to be full of great quality archive material which, while not new, most of which you’ve probably seen before in low-resolution YouTube clips. That alone should be a reason to go see The Man in the Machine.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
5 responses to “Controversial Steve Jobs documentary hits theaters today”
It’s not a documentary, it’s a butchering job! Oh, a butchering of Jobs.
Well, I have watched about half of it, and so far I don’t see anything we didn’t already know. Steve Jobs was a brilliant visionary, and Apple is the most valued company in the world ever. It is the number one brand name in the world, and it’s all because of a man named Steve Jobs. Nothing anyone can do or say that will ever change that.
Keep watching. The 2nd half is where the accusations fly.
What I got out of watching it was understanding better WHY people were so emotionally attached to Jobs and mourned so greatly at his passing. I don’t know who the CEO of Toyota is, and would be sad to hear of his death, but I can’t say I would mourn it, place flowers at a Toyota dealership, etc.
What was different about Jobs was that he championed products to which we became emotionally attached, far more than I would feel even about a car that I really loved. Personally, I started with an Apple II, which taught me to program and understand the concepts of what a computer could do. The Mac was visually simpler, but did no more than extend that attachment. The iPod was the music device I always wanted but never envisioned until Jobs got a team to make one that made it easy. The iPhone was the blend of portable phone, PDA and iPod that again I didn’t know would be so useful to me until Jobs got a team to create it and make it available to me.
So this film, with its subtitle “Man in the Machine” points out how Jobs, with all of his failings, still pushed the creation of devices to which we have a close connection. That connection made the death of Jobs feel far more personal.
As for his failings, I don’t think this movie said any more about Jobs’ bad side than was said in Isaacson’s biography. He was mean-spirited and inconsistent to people who worked under him (you were either praised or ridiculed, depending on how he felt that day), would not acknowledge his daughter until years later, and had some questionable business practices under his leadership.
He was not constantly a jerk, but he certainly was not wonderful while everyone else sucked. Bill Gates also had issues with how he conducted business, but I don’t believe that people feel emotionally attached to MS-DOS or Windows in the way that Apple fans are to Mac OS, iOS (or, back in my day, Apple DOS and ProDOS).
Thank you Steven. Eloquently said. I also read the book and agree with you completely.