Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine

Review: After seeing the 2 Steve Jobs movies, starring Ashton Kutcher and Michael Fassbender, I personally thought that they didn't do Jobs justice but now that I have seen this documentary, he really was a calculating, manipulative and uncaring person. Nobody doubts the bare genius of the man, who had a unique vision which has taken over the world but his under hand tactics and dangerous minds games have damaged some people for life. When you hear the interviews from his fellow co-workers, who actually worked side by side with Steve, they all seem like there life's were hanging on a thread, so my question is, was it really worth it? I know that the Apple brand is one of the biggest in the world and that everyone has an iPhone but when people are committing suicide, mainly because of the bare pressure in the business, I personally would rather work in McDonald's. Anyway, this documentary gives more information than the movies did but I personally don't think that anyone would have said anything about the "goings on" behind Apple doors if Steve Jobs was still alive. You do have to have a cutthroat personality to make it in business, so it seems like he was the right person to dominate the technology market but if a lot of the stories in this documentary are true, I think he went a bit too far in a lot of circumstances. Anyway, this is definitely worth a watch, basically because everyone knows about the Apple brand, and I'm sure that people will come away with there own personal opinion about Steve Jobs and his determination to take over the world. Educational!

Round-Up: This documentary was written and directed by Alex Gibney, 62, who has brought you over 30 documentaries, which include The Armstrong Lie, Mr. Dynamite, My Trip To Al-Qaeda, Finding Fela! and many more. He has a way of getting to the gritty truth, even though it could damage people's reputation but that's what makes a documentary worth watching. 

I recommend this movie to people who are into their documentaries, which give an in depth look into the private and personal life of the late Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. 6/10

From the director of Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine is another entry in the long list of films that have been pouring out ever since the greatest visionary of our time breathed his last. And while there's no denying that it's an intriguing examination of the legacy he left behind, this documentary takes a very one-sided approach and focuses only on the imperfections of a gifted individual.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine begins with a segment focusing on the intense hoopla surrounding Jobs' death, questioning the outpouring love from everyone around the world for the man they barely knew. The film then briefly skims through Apple's history & its late CEO's life before delving into the darker stuff concerning the way he manipulated his friends, his employees & almost everyone to get what he wanted plus also covers Apple's rise from a rebel company to the Goliath itself.

Written, produced & directed by Alex Gibney, there is an attempt to balance both aspects of Jobs' life but as the plot progresses, it is easily seduced by the darker side and simply skips over how his immaculate vision & his products single-handedly went on to revolutionise not one but six different industries (personal computers, music, movies, phones, tablets & apps) and in the process completely changed everything about how we live & communicate today. Instead, this documentary is a wonderment if idolising him makes sense.

Steve Jobs was an insanely complex human being & a persona of sharp contrasts. His love for what he did & his philosophy of life is clearly reflected in the pristine design of his products for its elegance, beauty & simplicity is an ideal marriage of technology with liberal arts. It captures how he pushed his employees beyond their limits to accomplish what they considered impossible yet on reflecting upon it now, they call it the proudest work of their entire life, something it almost chooses to skip over.

But then, one can't blame it for emphasising Jobs' infamous characteristics considering the fact that negative portrayals always attract a wider crowd, thanks to our morbid curiosity in such stuff. The film goes through events like Jobs dumping his girlfriend when she got pregnant, him not being around for his daughter, his souring relation with Steve Wozniak, his ruthless marketing strategy, complete disregard for rules, the isolation his products have created in society, labour practises, tax exemptions & other controversies surrounding Apple Inc.

It's not that whatever it puts on screen has an unverified source for it picks its stories from incidents that were in news when they happened but it's biased in its portrait of a man whose vision changed the world yet who failed as a human being for he saw everything in binary form, had no compassion for people who didn't matter to him, and was more devoted to his work than anything else in life. Like most people who pushed this world forward, he was a misfit and yet people complain that he wasn't a nice person as if it's a necessity to succeed in life.

The interviews are from people who were close to Jobs at different times yet there isn't anyone who was around him in his last decade. It covers some engaging topics, sheds further light on things that weren't really in the dark but was still forgotten, and tries to challenge the grievance felt when he was gone. Gibney's narration is undeniably enthralling and keeps a firm grip on viewers' attention and blends recorded interviews with archival snippets of Jobs' earlier convos & cleverly chosen images, all edited together in a manner to make its point across. At times it succeeds, at times it doesn't.

It also takes a dig at iPhone which actually put the smart in a smartphone from the moment Steve Jobs unveiled it during that legendary keynote at 2007 Macworld. Instead of criticising people's own inability to handle their instincts, it blames iPhone for isolating its owners from outside world as if it's not the case with other devices that were inspired from it. iPhone had the same aesthetics, art & simplicity of other Apple products but it did far more than what people ever imagined something in their pocket could do and yet, all it focuses on is an unintended side effect than the groundbreaking change it inspired in global cellular industry.

There's... one more thing! As evident in anything that inspires a devoted fan following, Apple has its share of blind followers who are horribly smug & can't offer any valid reason behind their Apple product purchase but there are also many who've stayed around as loyal customers only because they're extremely happy & satisfied inside this company's ecosystem. No other technology company has as passionate a fan base as Apple, which was only made possible by consistent delivery of quality products that scored high on design aesthetics, simplicity, ease of use & overall satisfaction, and the combination of it all contributes to why this company & its late CEO are beloved like no other.

On an overall scale, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine is another impressive investigation but it's not as intensive, informative & absorbing as Gibney's previous work. Its casting of a dark but ineffective spell on the legacy of Steve Jobs is understandable given his shady personality but a balanced insight would've made for a far more rewarding experience for Jobs was a creative entrepreneur whose passion, vision & obsession with precision, perfection & simplicity remains in a league of its own and who's directly or indirectly responsible for the way people go about doing their daily things today. In a sentence, The Man in the Machine chooses to neglect the man & focus only on the inhuman aspects of a machine.

Great movie about great man! Steve Jobs was a genius, but a strange person. This biopic helps to understand him a little better. Everybody is talking about that his communication with his colleagues was harsh and that he was tyrant, but we can see now that is necessary to get the job done. His love and passion for Apple and his products was fascinating. Great innovator, talent to change things in a way that is unexpected. He changed people habit of working with technology. Downside was his obsessive controlling disorder and his arrogance. It helped his to make great new gadgets, but made a lot of enemies around him. In some cases he acted like a spoiled child. Anyway, you should see the movie and judge for your own.

This documentary deserves 9 stars because it is the best doc/feature we've seen thus far in it's delivery of the factual events of Steve Job's life and the scope in which it does so. I chose NOT to give this film a 10 out of 10 because,

there are some events where the narrator's script seems to deliver biased moral opinion on the events and choice made in Steve Job's life even if it is often both positive AND negative. Because there seems to be a bias at times, it detracts from the documentary's potential as a film for the preservation and posterity of Steve Job's historical life and actions but,

if you're capable of thinking for yourself and listening only to the wonderful facts that it presents and are capable of forming your own opinions and ignoring the occasional political spin. This is the best doc/feature we've had in the last 4 years since his passing in terms of delivering a full account of all the man's most notable works and his own personal life.

Excellent work.

I feel that a lot of content about Steve Jobs, whether film or TV interviews or books or written articles, often present a simplistic, one-sided, view of Steve Jobs. Many present just a portion, such as the technological achievements; others just cover certain time periods--the resurgence of Apple after 2000--and doesn't clearly convey the character of Steve Jobs and his history.

This documentary is something unique: it presents a balanced view of Steve Jobs. It is mostly about Steve Jobs as a person and less about Apple or technologies he was involved in.

Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine covers not only the good side, including his spiritual journey, but also his terrible personality, some serious ethics lapses (such as the options backdating scandal or the secret deal with other companies to prevent tech workers from getting jobs elsewhere), and some controversial manufacturing practices sanctioned by Apple (regarding its suppliers in China and elsewhere). This coverage of the controversial issues is what makes this a great documentary; it doesn't whitewash anything at all.

If you are looking for something more about the technology or how he made Apple into a success, you should check out other material. But if you are looking to learn about how Steve Jobs was as a person, I highly recommend this documentary. I have seen or read quite a bit about Steve Jobs (since the 90's) and this probably does the best job of covering his complex personality and his decisionmaking.