SummaryIn his signature black turtleneck and blue jeans, shrouded in shadows below a milky apple, Steve Jobs’ image was ubiquitous. But who was the man on the stage? What accounted for the grief of so many across the world when he died? Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine is a critical examination of Jobs who was at once revered as an iconoclast...
SummaryIn his signature black turtleneck and blue jeans, shrouded in shadows below a milky apple, Steve Jobs’ image was ubiquitous. But who was the man on the stage? What accounted for the grief of so many across the world when he died? Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine is a critical examination of Jobs who was at once revered as an iconoclast...
The accounting of his life story, as it unfolds in the film, is grounded in the brutal realities of corporate skulduggery. I’m a big fan of Balzac’s maxim that “behind every great fortune is a great crime,” and if nothing in Jobs’s history qualifies as a great crime, there is certainly a long trail of extreme misdeeds.
Gibney uses interviews, fresh and archival, and a court deposition and reporters’ memories of long-exposure to Jobs for his evidence. And it’s damning, from the financial cheating to the lack of philanthropy to the arrogance that let him think he knew better than modern medicine how to treat his cancer.
Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine reviewed
by jd ep
Since the death of the Apple Co-Founder, no less than 4 films have been made about Steve Jobs, most attempt to canonize him as the Patron Saint of Personal Technology. The Man in the Machine asks the question of "Why did so many people weep for the passing of Steve Jobs?" In reality, Jobs was a bitter perfectionist, who sought inner peace, though never seemed to allow himself to sacrifice for the zen for which he desired. Documentarian Alex Gibney's Man in the Machine, dares to show Jobs for the man who he was, warts and all. Despite what the Cult of Apple would have you believe, Jobs was a harsh taskmaster, and not necessarily the sole architect of the success of Apple. Gibney, no shrinking violet when it comes to controversy, as the first result **** search for his name will show an ad decrying him for his Triple Emmy winning "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief," narrates and makes himself the cypher for the audience, we are seeing Alex's journey on piecing together who Steve Jobs really was. From Steve's birth as an unwanted orphan, to his early days as a Phone Phreak, to launching the first Apple, to Steve's attempt to deny his responsibility for his first daughter, Lisa by claiming he was infertile and therefore couldn't be the father. Gibney, over the course of 2 hours and 8 minutes, un-ashamedly presents the darker side of the Crown Prince of Cupertino. Steve's hypocrisy, believing he was above the law, dismantling philanthropic outreach from Apple. Gibney asks "What were his values as a citizen? Was he interested in power to change the world, or the right to have power without responsibility?"
The film illuminates Steve's involvement on several damning events, from a Stock Backdating scandal which threw a few high level Apple Execs under the bus, the anti-trust class action lawsuit that affected 64,000 silicon valley programmers, to Apple's tax avoidance involving an Irish Shell Company. Gibney also talks about the iPhone 4 Leak that Gizmodo broke. It's a David Vs Goliath story that ends with David becoming a larger Goliath. As for the answer of "why did so many people weep for Steve Jobs," Gibney offers a Japanese term "Mono no aware" which translates to "an empathy toward things." Steve Jobs gave us all our own black mirrors. A thing that contains our entire lives, which in the end, are nothing but things. No doubt Steve Jobs was a difficult man, but as the documentary concludes he was, just a man. A man with vision, and hunger, and a master marketer, but as Gibney states late in the film, "[Jobs] had the focus of a monk, but none of the Empathy."
Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine is well worth the watch, whether you're an Apple Fanboy/girl, an Android User or a troglodyte, Steve Jobs was a major architect of our modern world and we should know who the man was, rather than just idolize him through rose colored glasses.
Movie Grade: A+
While the filmmaker's trademark mixture of talking heads, archival footage and investigative ethos is familiar, Gibney is certainly good at what he does, and "Steve Jobs" is at its best in providing a brisk summation of the man's life. Or, more accurately, lives, for Jobs seemed to have been more people than one would have thought possible.
What the movie actually could’ve used less of is Gibney, whose faux-pensive voice-overs are meant to push the story forward, but more often make your eyeballs roll backward.
If this isn’t the iPhone of documentaries, it gets its point across, and unlike Mr. Gibney’s Scientology exposé “Going Clear,” this movie has a harder target (albeit with its own devoted following).
The film quickly abandons any sort of broader cultural interest in favor of a typical womb-to-tomb, warts-and-all examination of recent history’s most visionary CEO.
Jobs has been and always will be my role model. Not matter who many rehashes are many, everyone of them is going to be able to introduce something that you didn't know or couldn't see from a different perspective. This movie is intense, emotional, heart-breaking and inspiring at the same time. No matter how much you love or hate Apple and its products, you can unarguably agree to the fact the Jobs was one of the most inspirational and passionate man to ever work in the tech industry. No matter how belittling or berating he could be, he could always spark that fire you needed so desperately to make the unthinkable happen.
"Stay hungry, Stay Foolish"
Steve Jobs is a truly fascinating character, and this film provides a thorough overview, from Steve's days as a "Phone Phreak" (when we still had pay phones) to his untimely demise. Obviously, it would have been good to have more interviews with former colleagues, but Alex Gibney did well with what he could get. There are expected points (he is not unique in his exploitation of Chinese workers) and unexpected ones, for me (his interest in Japanese Zen Buddhism). Overall, it's entertaining and informative.
Steve Jobs corporate white washing is so fake he should be considered fictional character, this is the third or fourth production capitalizing on the celebrity image of a useless parasite who time and time again took credit for the work of others. Take some time to stop reading his post death propaganda campaigns or multi-million dollar image pieces, and read some real facts.
I find it quite ironic that a documentary about Steve Jobs is so supremely superficial, misguided and misleading, as these were the very things he spent his life fighting against. I guess I shouldn’t have expected any less coming from a mainstream media produced piece.