Butler's Cinema Scene

“STEVE JOBS: THE MAN IN THE MACHINE”   My rating: B

120 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The first hour of “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine” is pretty much what you’d expect. It’s mostly a history of the late Steve Jobs and Apple, the brand with which his name will always be synonymous.

The second hour?  Well, that’s where things get ugly. Because here filmmaker Alex Gibney (the Oscar-winning “Taxi to the Dark Side” and HBO’s Scientology expose “Going Clear”) delves into the less-inspiring aspects of Jobs’ character, as well as Apple’s corporate malfeasance.

Gibney, who narrates, says that like millions of others he’s in love with Apple products. But he wonders how the brand’s fans can embrace the tech while overlooking the ugly underbelly of Apple’s rise to corporate dominance.

In the first hour we see Jobs’ first TV interview (he’s like a kid in a candy store, awed by the technology around him), his early partnership with fellow tech wonk Steve Wozniak (whom he blithely screwed out of millions of dollars), and the introduction of early Mac desktops (Jobs created the phrase “personal computer”).

Jobs believed — and made the rest of us believe — that he was a paradigm shifter, a rebel, and also a business giant/genius.  He had one speed — full on — but sought relief in the study of Zen Buddhism.

But even in this retelling of Jobs’ heady early years, there are dark rumblings.  Like his refusal to recognize his illegitimate daughter until DNA proved his paternity. The fact that working for Apple was debilitating despite all the countercultural trappings (Jobs could be incredibly callous and cruel toward underlings).

Gibney speculates that having largely failed with human connections, Jobs compensated by creating technology that connected the entire world. At the same time, the film asserts, people aren’t so much connected to Jobs or other people as to his creations.

“My hand is constantly drawn to it,” Gibney says of his new iPhone, “like Frodo’s hand to the ring.”

The film points out — not that it’s news — that the iPhone is isolating technology.  It offers snapshots of various groupings of individuals. Ostensibly they are sharing an experience, but each is immersed in her or her own portable device.

The iPhone has made us all “alone together.”

The film makes it clear that Jobs thought himself above the law. For years he drove a silver Mercedes for which he never got a license plate.

Jobs and other tech CEOs colluded to not recruit each others employees, thus suppressing payrolls.

Apple implemented a system of back dating stock options to allow company bigwigs to buy stock at the lowest possible prices.  When this came to the attention of the feds, Jobs threw his cohorts under the bus.  After all, if Jobs himself had been convicted it would have meant a $22 billion loss to the company. He was Apple.

To avoid paying billions in federal taxes, Apple has maintained tax havens in Ireland since early ‘80s.

There is a history of reprehensible labor practices at the Chinese factories where Apple products are manufactured.

For nine months after his diagnosis for pancreatic cancer, Jobs refused medical treatment, opting instead for homeopathic remedies. Legally he was required to tell the stockholders of his illness, but he didn’t, knowing that as the face and driving force of Apple word of his condition could send stock prices tumbling.

And under Jobs, Apple abandoned its philanthropic ventures. As Gibney puts it, Jobs had “the focus of a monk, yet none of the empathy.”

There’s nothing in “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine” that hasn’t been reported elsewhere. But by bundling it all up in one package, Gibney delivers a damning indictment — so damning that it can make Apple lovers ponder whether they want to continue supporting a brand with so many skeletons in its closet.

| Robert W. Butler