SAY ‘HELLO’ TO STEVE JOBS
3 acts define the man behind Apple’s rise and fall and rise
Steve Jobs had a major introduction issue before he could show off Apple’s personal computer to the world in 1984: His Macintosh wasn’t saying “Hello” when it turned on.
“That was very important to Steve that this be the first computer to introduce itself,” says
Steve Jobs screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. “It’s another piece of evidence he wanted to give this machine a personality, so that this machine could be liked.”
The glitch was key for Sorkin, a powerful vehicle for telling the story of the game-changing Jobs, through the chaotic scenes before three major product launches. “This is the way to get to the guy,” says director Danny Boyle.
The Apple products highlighted in Steve Jobs (which opens across the nation through Oct. 23) aren’t the overwhelming successes burned into national memory, such as Jobs presenting the iPod or iPhone.
Boyle preferred to show failure as well. “One of the things that Steve Jobs did was to make sure people forgot the misses. He was an expert in public relations and a storyteller,” he says.
1984 Macintosh launch: Sorkin opened the film with this event because Jobs at the time was denying paternity of his 5year-old daughter, Lisa. Plus, the Macintosh was inherently Jobs. “That was the first machine out of Apple that Steve felt complete ownership of,” Sorkin says.
The scenes were shot in the Flint Center in Cupertino, Calif., where the Macintosh actually launched. Between scenes, Fassbender recalls watching a children’s orchestra rehearse in the auditorium, repeating the same musical phrase until perfected — highly appropriate for playing the demanding Jobs, who saw his role as conducting the orchestra. “Watching that lent quite nicely to Steve Jobs’ obsessive way of working,” Fassbender says.
1988 NeXT launch:
The critically praised Macintosh was a sales failure, and Jobs was fired. Boyle shot the launch of Jobs’ new company’s NeXT computer in San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House. Fassbender found the operatic setting fitting, “in particular, the revenge aspect, which is what’s going on there.”
1998 iMac launch:
Signs of Apple’s rise were apparent before the culture-changing iMac. But in the film, the pre-launch is dominated by Jobs’ personal relationships exploding.
“The film leaves him where he takes personal responsibility for the success, which he wasn’t shy about doing, but also some of the damage he’s caused,” Boyle says.
The string of professional hits that followed and Jobs’ death in 2011 aren’t addressed in the film.
“The rest of the story,” Boyle says, “that is for other people to tell.”