Steve Jobs [DVD] [2015]

When it comes to A-type personalities, Jobs was an alpha-A. Single-minded, relentless, driven, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Business was politics and ambition power, control the driving force, the need to tell others what to do. Allies and alliances were made, not friends and friendships. Enemies too of course, many of them created by him.Or so this stark portrait here tells us, an image disputed by some in the Jobs camp, calling it a one-dimensional caricature. Maybe so, but not entirely. He was complex and had complexes. Napoleon spent years ravaging Europe to prove he wasn’t half a man. Where did the chip on the shoulder of Jobs come from? It was made at the start of his life. Unwanted by his biological parents, he was given up for adoption. Thus began his identity crisis. Who were his parents and why didn’t they want and love him? Rejected from the beginning, he would spend a lifetime trying to prove his worth to others.If this analysis is even partially correct, it helps explain some unattractive traits in the man: his arrogance, abrasiveness, manipulation, duplicity and cruelty. People were not just people to him; they were instruments to be used. They existed to help him get his way.What exactly did Jobs do? Others made the circuit boards, did the programming, understood the matrices of the machines. Jobs was not a hardware guy, nor even software. He didn’t do nuts and bolts. His was the vision thing, the presentation. People out there — the customers and end users — didn’t know what they wanted, but he did. He knew their desires and needs before they did. Not the hobbyists and nerds — they were a small collective, a minority. He looked beyond them to the everyday person, the one who knew nothing about computers but could be taught to love them. That was his genius, his single best insight, because he was absolutely right. He saw the future. More to the point, he helped create it.He was an artist. Or so he thought, even if his greatest talent was for marketing – selling ideas, images, devices. Picasso, Stravinsky and Bob Dylan never asked the world what it wanted. They created then gave their creations to the world. Jobs was the same and said so to others. The audience exists to receive the art, not dictate how it should be made. He had faith that people would love the beautiful and useful things he made, so these he gave to them because he could, because this is what artists do.Did he die a happy man? We don’t know from this film because it doesn’t follow him that far in life. But we see signs of mellowing in his later years, and these are good to see. The intense drive of the young man (early 1980s) is replaced by a more detached and thoughtful man in the late 1990s. Apple was in trouble in that decade. It had run out of ideas, lost its way without him. He had been forced out by the board in 1985 because he was a tyrant, a mad king afraid of losing his kingdom. But Apple discovered a curious thing after that: it found it wasn’t the same without him, a loss opposite to what the company thought it would be. They had wanted him gone and got what they wanted, but in the end they missed him. Missed his energy, vision, manic genius. And so they courted, wooed and welcomed him back. Caesar returned to Rome. Or maybe the trade and popular press got it better: the prodigal son had come home, the family embracing him with outstretched arms. He signed a massive contract that made him instantly rich, or richer than he had ever been before. In return he made Apple rich, dazzling the world with new devices the public didn’t know it needed until he showed them how and why it did. Artist maybe, but also sorcerer and magician.The English poet Philip Larkin said man hands on misery to man, a reframing of the old insight that the sins of the fathers are revisited upon the sons. What sin did Steve Jobs inherit from his biological parents? Clearly, the sin of neglect.Lisa is his daughter. We first meet her here at age 5. She’s bright and precocious, a chip off the old block. She looks like Steve as well. This tends to happen, but Steve says no, she’s not mine. Born out of wedlock, she must be someone else’s. He denies reality because Lisa was not part of the plan, her existence a massive inconvenience. The heart of this drama lies here. Naturally, we are dazzled by the glitz and glamour of the new product releases and the iconic images of Jobs on stage, the showman baiting his audience with hints of new magic he’s about to reveal to them. But the greater story, I think, is the man coming to terms with his humanity, accepting himself and his responsibilities as a father to someone who dearly needs one.Early on Steve had named an Apple computer Lisa. When asked why he called it that he invented a story, a subterfuge. He said the word was an acronym for Local Integrated System Architecture. But it wasn’t. This was a nonsense, a made-up concept to veil the truth. He named it – this beautiful thing he had created — after his daughter. So even then, way back then, he was admitting the truth to himself subliminally. Machine and flesh were one, and both he said are beautiful.Lisa is now 19, so the year must be 1997 or ‘98. She’s a Harvard undergraduate and everyone likes her. They do because she’s nice. Yes, despite everything she has turned out this way: nice and good to others. But she’s troubled. Her dad complicates everything. She wants him to love her because she loves him but doesn’t know how to make him understand this. In fact, he already does. His problem isn’t love but how to express it. In the end he does it in a way that’s in keeping with the character of the man.Lisa loves music. She carries it with her everywhere in a clunky old thing called a Walkman. Steve knows it, has seen her with it many times. Lately, he’s been thinking a lot about this — about her, music and the Walkman. Not just a lot, but intensely and deeply. In a touching scene near the end, he looks at her and the Walkman. He says he wants to give her more music: hundreds of songs, or even thousands, and in a device so small and lightweight it will fit in her pocket. He’s working on it. He wants her to have it. He’s making it for her, and also for us. Hence we are made to think, fanciful or not, that the Apple iPod was born out of love.I like this idea a lot. I want to believe it’s true, to think this is how Steve finally told Lisa that he loves her and always did, that he wants her and cherishes her.When cultural historians look back at the early 20th century, the dividing line is clear. There are two worlds, one pre-Edison, one post. Edison lit up the world for us. The same will be true in the future when historians look back at our time: the world before Steve Jobs and the one after him. He connected all of us and deserves our admiration. Even more so if it was done partly out of love.

A good film though perhaps not as good as I had hoped after all of the hype. Fassbender and Winslet are just as brilliant as everyone says and the other actors in the film certainly deserve a mention as well for convincing performances. The film was certainly entertaining enough though really paints Steve Jobs in a way that perhaps might not be 100% accurate or fair considering the film is called 'Steve Jobs' and therefore reflects very strongly on his character. Everything but the plot are immaculate though as would be expected of experienced filmmakers such as these. Worth seeing though if you like that sort of film.

Far more intriguing than the dramatized story starring Michael Fastbender, this biography covers Jobs entire career...warts and all. It is told with vintage clips from throughout Jobs professional life, intercut with recollections from those he worked with, and less convincing words from those who reported on his activities.The film gives tremendous insight into the mind of true genius. What we find is far from normal, but totally in sync with what it takes to "achieve", all the while shedding light on the man who encouraged the world to "Think Differently".

Steve jobs is the co-founer of Apple & this convoluted story, with far too many flash backs tells his story while centering around the launch of the Apple Mack computer.Good film if you want to know about Mr Jobs or are a computer fanatic.

This movie about the founder of Apple is absolutely worth the watch!It only cost me £2,000 for the case, £30,000 for the DVD, and then my whole house for the Bonus Features!

Fantastic film. I can completely see why Michael Fassbender received an Oscar nomination, it was thoroughly deserved. Aaron Sorkin's screenplay zings across the screen deftly handled by all the cast. This movie was so good that when I first saw it I rewatched it 5 times in quick succession and never got bored!.

Interesting approach, though concept did not work for me.

It,s okay but I felt their is so much to tell that I think they should have made this film in two parts? if you what an in-depth look into Steve Jobs live & work you really need to read the book hisbiogology for the full story.

Esperaba que estuviera en castellano.