Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine

Despite his over productivity and well-known biases, Alex Gibney is always an essential documentarian to watch, especially since his Oscar winning film. He's already made the best documentary of the year thus far with his attack on Scientology, Going Clear, anything else is icing on the cake. While that film is a revealing call to arms, his Steve Jobs film The Man In The Machine tries those same tricks but it's coming a little too late, especially as the film frames itself over the outpouring of grief over his death. Not that the film is a poor effort. As Going Clear illustrated what we already knew, so does this film. It's not a 2-hour attack as reported - along with the justifications to question society's hero worship towards him are all the reasons he's beloved and considered a visionary that changed the world. Those later Apple announcements with the awed cheers for Jobs earn a similar spine-tingle as the Scientology congregations in Going Clear. It's more endearing here.

The negative reaction to this documentary's criticisms almost highlight that hero worship he still harnesses, but it's difficult to argue over the hard facts of his bullying, both minor and major as documented here. Ultimately, Gibney poses the film as a reflection on our emotional connection to our technology and how that extends to its creator, but while it's an interesting conversation it results only in vague existentialism asking similar questions that he started with. Yes, we've grown dependant on our tech and Jobs' death sparked fear that innovation will slow, that's more or less where the grief comes from and nothing to do with Jobs' life or business tactics. His image as an icon is Goliath and this film is a little David and it offers a small but fair chiseling of that towering statue. It's not Gibney's best work and it spends this year in the shadow of two significant films, but it's still solidly produced and worth a watch for an insight into Jobs' life, especially with Danny Boyle's biopic on the horizon.

7/10

This is a solid documentary about Steve Jobs. He's was a genius, but also a jerk, and this movie explores both of these aspects of him well.

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.

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.

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.