User reviews

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

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine is being accused of not being a very uplifting view of Steve Jobs himself. The interviews and actually footage of Steve Jobs speaks for itself. It's not mean spirited; it's actual events, conversations and scandals that took place.

Make no mistake, Steve Jobs was a brilliant man. This well-made documentary is self aware of his genius mind and how he controlled and oversaw every aspect from concept to completion of Apple corp, products and NeXT. It explored how he was David and took down Goliath (IBM) and now in the 21st century, has taken the rein as Goliath and isn't afraid to stomp on the little man.

Director Alex Gibney poses the question(s): Why are we all so obsessed with Steve? Why did we all mourn for a man we've never met? What emotional connection ties us all with our products to the man himself?

If you're interested in this type of pop culture, definitely check it out. Great perspective on a man and company that have changed/dominated our culture in many, many ways.

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.

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

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.

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.

There are no professional actors in this documentary, but it has the feel of a Rob Reiner mockumentary. That being said, it seemed to be even-handed and a fair assessment of the events leading up the unfortunate death of a media genius. Sometimes, the material seems to be a bit plodding, and other times moves at the speed of light, so the pacing is a bit uneven. Also, there is no mention of Jobs' wife or daughter, as highlighted in the Hollywood version of his life. His relationship with Steve Woz is also glossed over pretty much in this documentary, while in the Hollywood version, it is painfully examined in detail. I believe that Danny Boyle did a much better job, which is why I gave that film a higher rating.

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.

A stylish music player (iPod)

a stylish mobile phone (iPhone)

a stylish tablet (iPad)

a stylish desktop (iMac)

a stylish laptop (MacBook)

and all their variants.. credit's goes to one man Steve Jobs.

As people have sweet tooth what I have is style appeal, and Jobs was amongst first to put it into work. Disadvantages like price, not being open source still prick me.

Jobs was certainly not the best person out there, but best came out of him in trends of technology.

It was nice to know Apple became the biggest corporate giant two weeks before his resignation. RIP Steve Jobs.

This film was a rather bizarre affair.

It starts as a love letter to Steve Jobs. A tribute even. Then you realise that you're actually watching the history of Apple and this is not a Steve Jobs biography (which is what I expected).

However, then, you realise it's actually a hate letter to the whole of Apple. You spend quite a long time hearing about Foxconn which is the Chinese company that produces most of Apple's products and you're not exactly sure why and how it fits in (it doesn't).

Then follows some more personal attacks on Jobs including, people who make indirect accusations and who imply negative facts without actually explaining why they say what it is they are saying on film.

The film lacks direction and purpose. It is a waste of time (unjustifiably too long), money and effort (on the part of the audience).

A look at the personal and private life of the late Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. According to critics, a very biased and negative look at these aspects, but who knows? I personally didn't find it to be that negative. Yes, some bad things are said about Jobs, but those are the opinions of the speaker, and the fact is that he was involved in some shady things. Overall, I thought this was pretty fair.

We get a good overview of computer history, phreaking and more. I have to compare to "Steve Jobs", the Oscar-nominated film. As good as that was, it did not touch on some of the best things of this documentary. The hacking? I would love to have known more. I also now see why Ashton Kutcher was cast in the other Jobs biopic. Fassbinder is the better actor, but wow, Kutcher actually bears a resemblance to Jobs. It is remarkable.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine (2015)

Why do so many care so deeply about someone they've never met that they could be moved to tears at a drop of a candlelight vigil? This becomes the entry point to a documentary that seems to neither really attempt to answer the question nor offer any new insight into Steve Jobs.

People probably become strongly connected with things because they bring them so much joy, opening a virtual font into self-expression. And in many ways they/we are perhaps weeping for the countless memories that are washing over us, of the realization of who we are and who we can still be. And perhaps also, a genuine and deep human bond for someone responsible for so much happiness and influence in our lives. There are millions of examples across millions of products and people, originating sometimes in far less than the saints that poster our walls and have witnessed the millionth profundity of our inspiration.

During the first hour of this documentary I was engaged and hopeful for where it might be taking me, despite my concerns that we were heading towards the ditch. But by the second hour I started getting whacked hard about the face and head with little more than darkened conspiracies where people in ever-increasing simplicities of slow motion are backed by foreboding music tuned to the binary depth of a political smear.

We all deserve far greater depth. We are all so vastly more layered, complex, and informed.

Why weren't more people let into the story? It's as if this film were constructed by the comments found on the Internet — with little debate from people who might be able to offer an alternative to their merits — before being pasted together to form the collage its maker perhaps saw in their head before they even secured the financing needed to deal with their own feelings of guilt.

This is the same documentary filmmaker who thrilled me with his take on "Scientology." I'm now traumatized enough by this film on Steve Jobs that I'm seriously doubting my love for something that I know far less.

But perhaps I'm being too hard on myself.

The cult template seems to be fully present here but Steve Jobs is light years from L. Ron Hubbard and Apple is definitely no Church of Scientology no matter how many examples of superficiality and stupidity one can find waiting in line. And corporations are not evil, cynically existing only to please stockholders; they are part of what allows us to live and love, employing millions of good, hardworking people who are always there by choice. And despite its constant presence, there is no mystery here beyond why so many of us reserve such a broad brush for those who hold opinions different from our own.

Shown quite beautifully in the opening of this film, Steve Jobs makes himself so sick before his first national TV spot that he pleads for a restroom where he can throw up. Now there's a starting point that could end up offering the wisdom and multiplicity needed to command the hairs to stand on the back of our dead skin.

3 out of 10

Film Review: Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine. Academy Award Winning Director Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side - 2008) loves his "behind the scenes" look at people and events (Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief - 2015). So, it 's no surprise he's ready and able to take on Steve Jobs. This look at Apple/Jobs moving quickly pass the start up years of Apple, and focuses primarily on Jobs' work ethics (and/or lack there of). Through select interviews and replaying of testimony, the viewer is provided a unique look into Jobs' personal, public and work life persona - all showing a bundle contradictions. However, be this information new or old to the viewer, there is no question the Man behind the Machine (Apple) produced one of today's most innovative products.

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.

It seems like Gibney's approach to this film was to first answer to himself the question "what do I think of Steve Jobs and how do I feel about Apple?", and then set out to find material that fit the narrative he previously decided on.

Music score, interviewees, aspects of his life, all meticulously chosen to paint a very particular picture of SJ, and not a flattering one at all. Not that the man wasn't an a-hole, of course, as there is a plethora of evidence to that assertion. Stealing from Woz in the Breakout deal, denying paternity, throwing Fred Anderson and Nancy Heinen under the bus in the backdating scandal are some of the most poignant examples, to be sure.

But then you see Bob Belleville's testimony, a heart-wrenching interview with so much grief and sorrow. His reading of the text he published when Steve died almost drove me to tears, so much sadness, hurt, love, hate, despair was packed in the feelings he was projecting as he read those lines. My first reaction was to think something along the lines of "how could Steve have willingly or simply casually have caused so much pain to this man (and, by induction, to so many others)? But the deeper understanding that has to come from this is the fact that Mr. Belleville never had a gun to his head preventing him from leaving Apple and Steve at any moment he chose. He always had a choice, and he made the choice over and over to stay aboard. Yes, Steve, it seems, was charming, and could supposedly charm people into doing his bidding with an almost Jedi "these are not the droids you are looking for" ability. And yet, in the end, there is always the choice to put on a scale everything that is happening—on one hand, the unique opportunity to work on a revolutionary computer, on the other, the damage it is causing to one's personal life—and choose a different path. Personally, I have been submitted to a similar treatment, by a mercurial boss—albeit one admittedly a couple of orders of magnitude less intense than Steve Jobs—and I somewhat know how it feels. I learned a lot, I got tons of experience, I got hurt a lot. I am a better professional today because of such experiences, but in the end I decided to leave, when balancing everything out I found it wasn't worth it. And that extremely important facet of what happened to Bob Belleville is never even touched in the documentary. Neither are told the stories of Bob Mansfield, Scott Forstall, Jon Rubinstein, Eddy Cue,Tim Cook, Jony I've and several other Apple executives who worked under Jobs for several years and were able not only to "endure" it, but to thrive.

And then there the blatant double standards: working conditions in China, that every single company that designs in their own country and outsource manufacturing incurs; tax dodging schemes that every single multinational company avidly seeks and implements; and the most absurd and pernicious of all: the sense of alienation supposedly provoked in the users of modern electronic equipment. All of these traits are by no means exclusive to Apple, but they are treated as if Apple is not their sole perpetrator, but also their inventor. That approach is simply not fit for a documentary aiming at the truth.

On that last point, the thesis that Apple's products foster alienation, it's particularly pernicious because it aims to vilify what actually is one of the best characteristics of Apple products: they are exceedingly good at their jobs. We want to use these products—and supposedly alienate ourselves while doing it—because they make our lives so much easier. I can do my job better; I can be in better contact professionally and personally with people around me; I can be more productive; I can be more well informed; I can be more creative. The list goes on and on. Alienated? I never had the opportunity to be in so much contact with so many people before I started carrying a smart-phone with me all the time. I constantly message friends and family that live hundreds and sometimes thousands of kilometers away at a negligible cost, thanks to modern communication technology. Is Apple better at all of these things than the competition? Although I have an opinion on the matter, of course the subject is absolutely debatable. And if, say, Android's users aren't so much into their own devices as Apple users, that is not an advertisement point for Android. "Our products are better because they are crappier and you won't be drawn to them so much" is not a viable campaign motto.

If we use the "bicycle for the mind" analogy, it's as if Apple invented the best possible bicycle (to date), and the critics are ranting about how nobody walks anymore. Yes, everybody is getting everywhere faster and more efficiently, but very few people are going out for strolls anymore! Not a valid complaint at all, IMHO.

OK, this is a long rant, and I apologize for it. Go see the documentary for yourself and reach your own conclusions.

He was an artist who sought perfection, but could never find peace. He had the focus of a monk, but none of the empathy. He offered us freedom, but only within a closed garden, to which he held the key.

It's an amazing documentary about a person who was a maniac and totally insane about his dedication to his company, his ideas and his products. The story of person who gave ace to Apple, saved it, all the up and down of company. It worth something. This documentary will give you both perspective of Steve Jobs personal life, all the hard times and the thing we never knew about him, the side of coin we never noticed or watched, gadgets and their usage in your life, how you get intimated with those toys, how they effected and changed you life and living era. This documentary is perfect thing that puts a light towards soaring technology domain surrounded by more and more gadgets, technology and products. Don't miss it. You will find more interesting things out there.

Has got be my favorite documentary ever. Really dives into Jobs personal life and shows the type of person he was. From abounding his to daughter to taking shortcuts with the law this documentary covers all of it really makes me wish I could have met the man. Apple still isn't my favorite company though I'm not a fan of how closed in their products are and think Steve really screwed up the company by making it a luxury brand

It must be difficult to do a documentary about a man who was deliberately opaque, who wanted to be known only for his work, or as his work, and tried to reveal as little about himself as possible - even to the point of hiding his car's license plate! Some info about him does come thru here - not surprisingly he was a perfectionist workaholic whose one real love in life was Apple Computer, a project that was very personal and emotional for him. He had a thing for Japanese culture and Zen Buddhism, and their aesthetics influenced his designs. We see him on stage performing at Apple events (something he did well), and it becomes clear that his genius was for marketing and design. It was his lesser known teammates that did the nitty gritty programming and financial work. It is safe to say he was a genius - but was he a good man? He could be dishonest, he could be mean, he could be selfish (as revealed in his treatment of his first partner and his first child), and philanthropy didn't interest him. When he died, his multi-billion dollar fortune went into several anonymous trusts. Ultimately I felt like the world did not really get to know Jobs - and I guess that is how he wanted it.

I am a HUGE Alex Gibney fan btw - keep them coming, Alex - you're the best!