Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine

Filmmaker Alex Gibney's documentary on Apple Computer CEO and cult figure Steve Jobs offers a dark view of the mercurial business/tech icon. While not a tabloid takedown, the documentary is dubious about the world Jobs helped to usher in, where marvelous handheld devices serve to isolate more than unite people. Also narrating, Gibney says that he was intrigued when Jobs's death in 2011 spurred worldwide mourning—as though a revered pop star or religious leader had fallen. He retells the familiar Jobs saga with input from such unheralded witnesses as ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan and the Japanese Zen monk whom Jobs nearly followed into monastic life. This profile of a digital-age Citizen Kane combines interviews and archival material as it posits that Jobs's early, giddy creation of a tech company based on optimism, rebellion, and individuality fell prey to its own success, becoming a tax-dodging, unsavory corporate goliath. Where Walter Isaacson and other biographers saw a Jobs valiantly obsessed with quality control and consumer-design perfection, Gibney sees brooding megalomania and greed. Not surprisingly, Jobs's ex-wife did not cooperate with the project. Despite the bias, this will be a sure-to-be-popular addition to bio shelves (in the tradition of Albert Goldman and Kitty Kelley's jaundiced books on the revered and powerful), regardless of history's ultimate judgment of Jobs. Highly recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include deleted scenes (31 min.), an interview with director Alex Gibney (20 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for this decidedly non-hagiographic portrait of Steve Jobs.] (C. Cassady)