Steve Jobs: Attempts to Both Elevate and Deconstruct the Myth

Editor’s Notes: Steve Jobs is currently out in wide theatrical release. 

It’s probably quite difficult for any of us on the outside to think of Steve Jobs as anything other than a myth. It’s hard to think of the tech megalith that he’s responsible for as anything other than the most recognizable monopoly in the business world, though not a traditional one, where the market is unfairly swallowed up. No, Jobs’ monopoly was – and still is – one of image and influence. He understood the style, the simplicity, the signature naming convention. He knew how to make technology sing for the consumer. That takes a remarkably tuned mind. It also takes extreme pomposity.

Steve Jobs the movie is about that furious swarm of brilliant mind and pompous asshole, a film that views its subject the same way we do – as a giant myth.

Steve Jobs the movie is about that furious swarm of brilliant mind and pompous asshole, a film that views its subject the same way we do – as a giant myth. But screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director Danny Boyle attempt something quite daring – attempting to both elevate and deconstruct the myth, almost simultaneously. This is not your standard, A-to-Z biopic chronicling every life event with overt histrionics. Steve Jobs is about distilling the essence of the man, about culling general understanding from extreme close-up.

The film is structured in three acts, like any other film, except these acts are clearly divided and entirely self-contained, like a trio of one-act productions. All of them focus keenly on the feverish lead-up to one of Jobs’ (in)famous product unveilings. You know the ones…an audience of fans and media types gather in a posh facility while the signature product sits center stage like a monolith, the idol waiting to be worshipped by the masses. Apple still holds these summits a couple times per year, though the absence of Jobs (who passed away in 2011) has left of a noticeable void. The narrative strategy is a clever one, because let’s face it – for most of us, our primary knowledge and understanding of Steve Jobs is the version we all saw standing on that stage, in the black shirt and blue jeans, talking about his latest innovation with a passion that seemed to directly transfer to our brains. Sorkin’s screenplay takes us behind the scenes, revealing a man who is certainly a genius…but who may be too aware of that genius for his own good – or anyone else’s.

Sorkin’s screenplay takes us behind the scenes, revealing a man who is certainly a genius…but who may be too aware of that genius for his own good – or anyone else’s.

Michael Fassbender plays Jobs – in a performance that seems destined for an Academy Award – as a blistering force of selfish energy. He’s the smartest guy in the room, he knows it, and he expects everyone else to know it, too. And yet, like all insanely smart people, he can wrap his brain into a knot over the most ridiculous notions…notions that seems to run counter to common logic. In the first segment, set in 1984 before the unveiling of the Macintosh, Jobs is adamant about two things. First, he wants a shirt with a pocket. And second, he is not the father of little Lisa, the daughter of Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston), Jobs’ former lover. It’s not so much the parental interaction or financial commitment that bothers Jobs – it’s merely the formal acknowledgement. And why would this famed creator not acknowledge his own creation? Perhaps because Jobs, ever the control freak, can’t handle the fact that such a profound creation could ever be accidental, conceived under circumstances not entirely within his control.

The fractured father-daughter relationship becomes a through line for the remainder of the film, which moves from the 1984 unveiling of the Mac to the 1988 launch of Jobs’ doomed educational tool dubbed the NeXT Cube to the 1998 launch of the now-legendary iMac. Each of the three distinct acts follows a fairly similar trajectory – Jobs and his harried team, led by Apple marketing exec Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) impatiently prepare for the imminent presentation while a cacophony of interpersonal conflicts unintentionally swirl about to further intensify the atmosphere. The players are largely the same as well, from Jobs and Hoffman, Brennan, and Lisa, to Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), Jobs’ mentor John Sculley (Jeff Daniels), and Apple programmer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg). In every segment, each of the characters get their chance to collide with Jobs, which seems repetitive and tidy in terms of convenient structuring, and yet somehow the performances – and the internal conflicts they build thanks to Sorkin’s brilliant verbal and thematic writing – ring out like the choruses that punctuate the film’s individual verses. The familiar rhythm of Sorkin’s dialogue pulses vibrantly, but the weight of the words thump even harder, their thematic implications harder still. Boyle’s unmistakable visual energy brings cinematic life to what could easily feel like a filmed play; he creates angles and movements that flourish in tandem with the sharpness of the script and performances.

This is all in service to the title character, Steve Jobs, in what seems like the 15^th film adaptation of the man’s story. Somehow, this Steve Jobs is the most insular and yet the most profound, sharing our befuddled awe of this mythic figure but probing past that psychic wall to the man underneath, vulnerable to the same frailties, failures, and fears as the rest of us.