The Steve Jobs movie is almost completely made-up
Maybe they should have called it “iLied.”
Entertaining and smart though it may be, the movie “Steve Jobs” is factually challenged, say those who knew the Apple co-founder, calling the movie unfair to its subject and flat-out fabricated.
The dramatic backstage discussion in which Jobs (Michael Fassbender) frets about how to get the Mac to say “Hello” in the moments before the product launched in 1984? Didn’t happen.
The dramatic moment when Jobs acknowledges paternity of his illegitimate daughter Lisa because he likes the abstract painting she creates on his computer? And the later reconciliation with her as a young adult? Not true.
Jobs’ devilishly clever plot to intentionally fail with the NeXT computer in 1988 so he could sell the software back to Apple and return in triumph to the company he co-founded? Fabricated.
The scene in which Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), who co-founded Apple with Jobs, says, “I read ‘Steve Jobs is a genius.’ What do you do?” Didn’t happen.
The desperate, years-long pleas of Wozniak for recognition of the team that created the Apple II computer? Made up.
“[Writer Aaron] Sorkin and his fellow moviemakers are taking advantage of the feelings people have for the real Steve Jobs to sell tickets, yet the Steve Jobs he created is a complete figment of his imagination. It’s a con,” wrote New York Times columnist Joe Nocera, who knew Jobs.
“There are moments in the film, like the big ‘reconciliation’ scene with his out-of-wedlock daughter, Lisa, that are almost offensively in opposition to the truth,” Nocera wrote. In fact, Jobs treated Lisa like a daughter. She spent her high school years living in his house, a member of the family.
Added Los Angeles Times technology editor Russ Mitchell, “I interviewed Jobs several times and I’ve covered the technology industry for decades. For me, ‘Steve Jobs’ fails to capture the essence of Steve Jobs. It’s not even a very good movie.”
Even Wozniak, who was paid $200,000 to consult on the film, concedes his character bears little resemblance to himself.
“Anybody who knows me will tell you I don’t say negative things to people and could not have said them,” Wozniak told USA Today.
Screenwriter Sorkin doesn’t pretend the movie is factually accurate. “‘Steve Jobs’ doesn’t fall into the same genre” as other fact-based films, Sorkin told the LA Times. “It’s not meant to be a dramatic re-creation of actual events.”
He added, “At the end of the day, it’s much more a movie about genius versus decency and fathers and daughters. It’s a much more universal movie than the history of Apple.”
Or maybe Sorkin decided to make the movie more about Sorkin’s obsessions than about Jobs.
“This is the difference between ... journalism and art,” Sorkin said at an advance screening of the movie in San Francisco. “Journalists have an obligation to be objective. I have an obligation to be subjective.”
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