Steve JobsThe Man in the Machine is a documentary directed by the famous Alex Gibney, and yesterday we told you that its premiere at SXSW motivated some Apple employees to leave the screening room. Among them is, apparently, the senior vice president of Apple, Eddy Cue, who harshly criticized through his own Twitter account the way the documentary presents the man who was a very good friend to him throughout the years he spent at Apple.
Cue claims that the documentary presents a Steve Jobs with a completely different character than the one he knew at Apple, but considering that most of the film focuses on Jobs' youth, it is normal that those years present a different man than The Steve Jobs of the 2000s. In the documentary there are interviews with former Apple employees, including Daniel Kottke who took part in the creation of the company only to be later removed by Jobs, but also Chrisann Brennan, Jobs' ex-girlfriend who gave him Lisa, the daughter that Jobs recognized only after a paternity test.
Separately, there is a testimony given by Steve Jobs in front of the agents SEC, and those who saw the documentary before the first screening stated that many close friends and fans of Steve Jobs could be dissatisfied with the way the former Apple CEO is presented. Below are some of the testimonies of those who had the opportunity to see the film before it reached US cinemas, but also for a broadcast on CNN American television.
Gibney offers a more conceptual and critical assessment of his subject's legacy than did Walter Isaacson's biography, which was published less than a month after Jobs's death in October 2011. ...On a certain level, "The Man in the Machine" functions as a corrective and a tribute to the many brilliant men and women Jobs surrounded himself with but didn't necessarily give their due; many here attest to his sharp way with a jab and his monomaniacal need for control, particularly with regard to staff retention.
The film points out that Jobs's genius was in personalizing computers – Lisa being the first – but it also reveals that this impulse came from a pretty messed-up place. … Jobs achieved things that the vast majority of us would never dream of. Yet Gibney's film forensically anatomises the contradictions, the ruthlessness, and the pointlessly crappy behavior that reveal Apple's ideals to be a sham, even while the products themselves continue to prove almost irresistible.
It's a surprisingly nuanced, in-depth and affecting portrait of the man, made in the face of opposition from both Apple and Laurene Powell Jobs. …There are definitely times when Gibney reaches. But Gibney has done a good job with the ex-Apple employees he could get, and it's fun to hear stories about, say, the raucous night of drinking that followed the successful iPhone unveiling in 2007. On the whole, what emerges is a balanced portrait.
Rather than going for a chronological history of Jobs' life, Gibney has created a documentary that is about his own dawning awareness of the many facets of Jobs. ...Familiar figures from throughout Jobs' life make appearances... but largely they're telling stories we've heard before: Jobs' cruel denials over the paternity of his daughter, the insane working hours Apple employees were subjected to, the a-ha moment when Toshiba hard drives made the iPod a reality. What's different is the focus. It's an unflinching look at the emotional shrapnel people took when they were part of Jobs' life, and how some of them — paradoxically — still feel tremendous love and gratitude towards him.
