Latest Jobs portrayal does think different
Michael Fassbender has two films coming out this Oscar season. One is “Macbeth,” an adaptation of Shakespeare’s play in which he plays the titular nobleman who cuts a bloody swath across Scotland in his mania to make come true the witches’ prophecy that he will someday be king. In the other, “Steve Jobs,” the German Irish actor steps into the skin of the Apple co-founder in Danny Boyle’s Aaron Sorkin-scripted biopic.
“Steve Jobs” won’t have a first look until it premieres in October at the New York Film Festival, but based on the trailer, in the drama set against three Apple project launches, climaxing with the 1998 release of the iMac, Jobs gives Macbeth a run for his money when it comes to sheer ruthlessness.
But “Steve Jobs” is only the latest movie or TV show built around the man. As a tech visionary, outsize personality, and hard-nosed businessman, Jobs fascinates people far afield from Silicon Valley. Here are some starring roles as Jobs in films, TV shows and documentaries.
The dramas
“Pirates of Silicon Valley” (1997)
Nominated for five Emmys, including outstanding made-for-TV movie and a nod for director Martyn Burke’s script, an adaptation of Paul Freiburger and Michael Swaine’s book “Fire in the Valley,” this energetic drama recounts the behind-the-scenes machinations of frenemies Steve Jobs (Noah Wyle) and Bill Gates (Anthony Michael Hall) and the rise of Apple and Microsoft. Wyle’s doe eyes and baby face lend the character an aura of innocence, an impression belied by Jobs’ behavior in this drama that tracks him from HP to Apple and from acid-dropping hippie to take-no-prisoners tech titan. Biggest surprise: That the casting of Wyle and Hall as billionaires and tech geniuses actually works. They nail it.
“Jobs” (2013)
The first serious biopic of Jobs’ life to come out after his 2011 death was the subject of mostly scorn, and mostly well deserved. The film limits itself to Jobs’ life between 1971 and 1991 (six years after his forced departure from Apple) with a coda set in 2001. Director Joshua Michael Stern and screenwriter Matt Whiteley simply don’t know what story they are trying to tell. ”Jobs” is too much a dull, paint-by-the-numbers biopic that offers little in the way of insight into the man and even less reason to care about him. Biggest surprise: Ashton Kutcher was nominated for a Razzie Award for worst actor, but he actually acquits himself well, the actor’s familiar smirk well suited to the ambitious Jobs.
“iSteve” (2013)
The strangest portrait of Jobs’ life so far comes courtesy of the Funny or Die website. Normally, a platform for short-form work, the company produced “iSteve,” a 2013 feature biopic parody where even the casting is a kind of joke — Justin Long, famous for being the Mac in Apple’s “Get a Mac” ad campaign, plays Jobs. Not all of the jokes work, and it is woefully uneven, but its human-scaled take on a man so often treated with godlike status is refreshing. Biggest surprise: The stunt casting of Long pays off as memories of his former role of Mac pitchman quickly fade. Now, why doesn’t this guy have a bigger career, again?
The documentaries “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine” (2015)
Alex Gibney’s documentary is epic in scope and scathing in its details. The documentary paints an unflattering portrait of the man who urged people to “think different,” but who comes across in the wealth of amassed details and interviews with his associates (and the man himself in archival footage) as built in the tradition of a rapacious, self-serving businessman, a robber baron for the technological age.
Biggest surprise: Gibney widens the scope of his film. He is critical not just of Jobs but also of the idolatrous consumer cult that has arisen around Apple. And the filmmaker acknowledges his own place among the Apple-lytes.
“Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview” (2012)
In 1995, Jobs took part in a three-part documentary series, “Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires.” He was a small part of a large canvas, and his interview with director Robert X. Cringely was long thought lost. Clearly, it was found. To call this a film or a documentary is overstating the case, since this is nothing but Steve Jobs expounding before a camera. He’s 40 and 10 years into his exile from Apple, and two years away from retaking the helm of the company he founded. And he has a lot to say.
Biggest surprise: That a 70-minute film of a man talking in front of a camera not only holds the viewer’s attention, but provides the most fascinating glimpse into Jobs to date.
The cartoon “The Simpsons” (2008 and 2012)
“Greetings, it is I, your insanely great leader. I’m speaking to you from Mapple headquarters, deep below the sea.” So says Hank Azaria as “Steve Mobs,” just before Bart hijacks his new-product announcement in “Mypods and Broomsticks,” the first of two episodes — the other is “A Tree Grows in Springfield” — and the one that features a sharp, short parody of Apple’s infamous 1984 ad and a confrontation between Lisa Simpson and Mobs in his undersea lair over her $1,200 Mypod bill.
Biggest surprise: None, really. It’s not a stretch to portray Jobs as cult leader with an HQ that a Bond villain would love. Both episodes are sharply written, so maybe that’s the surprise for a show in its 20th and 24th seasons.