There’s a jarring dissonance between Sorkin’s obvious skills as a writer and the way his movie was perceived by people in the Applesphere.
Aaron Sorkin wins Best Screenplay Golden Globe for Steve Jobs
There’s a jarring dissonance between Sorkin’s obvious skills as a writer and the way his movie was perceived by people in the Applesphere.
The Applesphere has a tin ear for dialogue.
In this way it’s no different than a fiction book that’s been turned into a movie. Fans who have read the book have some ownership, since they were devoted to it long before it became a film…and resent not having a say in the shaping of the movie. Then the movie gets out, it’s a more accessible thing to a wider audience (a few bucks and a couple of hours is all it takes), and the resentment gets deeper because now anyone can get the message in a way that perhaps the devoted don’t like.
Huh? People didn’t go see it because it was a work of fiction based on real life characters.
Yes, I phrased that poorly. I believe that the ownership of the Steve Jobs story by fans is similar to a situation where it’s a fictional story.
Fans of The Lord of the Rings books have opinion on how the films interpreted the books, ditto Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Batman comics, etc. etc. In that case it’s fiction but follows a canon, a “truth.”
Similarly, those that have followed Apple for a long time, and followed Steve Jobs, inasmuch as that is a different thing, have a truth that they feel about the story…and the film either represented that truth well, or didn’t. Steve Jobs’ story might as well have been fiction to almost everyone in the world: we weren’t there, it’s a story we read about but didn’t interact with.
And yet Steve Jobs tanked, didn’t it? Interesting.
Steve Jobs was a human being with the very human attributes of being brilliant and tough at the same time. The “tough” part can be interpreted in a variety of ways and Sorkin is a pro at fleshing out interesting ways of using dialog and personal drama to help tell a larger story.
Many in the Apple community are concerned that Sorkin’s screenplay will upset the legend that is Steve Jobs but that legend hasn’t really settled out yet and the more takes we have on it the more interesting it will become.
Biographical dramas aren’t documentaries and because of this, they have broad license to tell a story using lots of different tools. I think many in the Apple community who felt offended by this screenplay and film aren’t considering the history of these types of films: Ghandi, A Beautiful Mind, All the President’s Men, American Sniper, Apollo 13, Argo, Awakenings, Fair Game, Frost/Nixon, Good Night and Good Luck, Lincoln, My Left Foot, October Sky, The Blind Side, etc.
All of these are dramatizations based on real people and real events, some of them written by the very people depicted but all with screenplays that do essentially the same thing that Sorkin did with Steve Jobs (the movie): build a dramatic narrative.
Indeed. And they like their legends pure.
I’m more concerned that Sorkin’s screenplay perpetuates lies, particularly the one about Apple stealing Xerox Parc’s desktop metaphor OS. Not only that, but having Wozniak utter the lie. There is a line where you cross from dramatic license into just plainly not caring for a subject, and Sorkin crossed it.
I generally like Sorkin’s work, and I actually like his wordplay, but a biographical film — even one simply “based on” reality — is probably not the vehicle he should be using to get his art out to the world. Leo Laporte of TwitTV said the film was great in many aspects, from directing to writing to acting, but it should have been called something other than Steve Jobs. I suspect that is a perfect take on it: good stuff and probably even worth some awards, but not really Steve Jobs at all. My suspicion is bolstered by the director’s and Sorkin’s own words in interviews where they claimed they were going for an overall feel rather than actual biography with real timelines and conversations.
Didn’t Steve Jobs invent the tuba?
I don’t know what Wozniak said or didn’t say to Jobs in the heat of an exchange but as I understand it, Sorkin was attempting to make the larger point that Wozniak felt like he was under appreciated and being left behind as Jobs moved on with the Mac and no doubt as Sorkin saw it there was a place for him to attempt to take Jobs down a notch. That’s what dramatic license is all about.
It’s not a lie that various folks have said and continue to say that Apple “stole” the Lisa UI from XeroX PARC. Just because those words are uttered in a movie does not mean the person who says them believes it or that it really happened. This is not a documentary.
I agree, it doesn’t seem like Wozniak would say something like that and maybe the mistake Sorkin made was using those particular words to illustrate Wozniak’s frustration or anger, but if an actor playing Steve Balmer were having an argument with Jobs we might better accept that he’d say such a thing and if so, would you still have an issue with it being said?
which good movies do 9 out of 10 times. which in turn doesn’t mean, that this one was a good one, bad movies tank just as well. it’s just that it’s usually harder for a good movie to be a success than for a bad movie. sounds stupid, but just work in movie distribution for a few years…
usually, the good ones get a limited release without lots of marketing, because you can’t ignore them, if they won lots of prices. but they also often won’t be crowd-pleasers, so you try to cut your losses. bad ones either get a huge release & marketing, because they were very expensive productions (if you’re movie is crap, at least have some big ‘splosions), which have to make their money back. or they go direct to video, if they didn’t cost that much (same goes for small, good but not exceptionally so, movies).
I would have less of an issue if a “villian” type character said it, but I’d roll my eyes since it’s fairly well-known among at least technorati that Apple did not steal anything from Xerox Parc. Just because people say it doesn’t make it worth putting into a movie and certainly doesn’t make it true.
Sorkin is not an idiot writer. He could have picked an early time to show Wozniak being frustrated with plenty of different lines. He knew exactly what he was doing by putting a widely debunked tale of theft into the mouth of a person not anywhere around at the event that it’s said in the movie. I can’t say whether he did it out of distaste for tech giants (many say his Facebook movie was a hit job, too) or out of expediency and a desire not to put in more characters or what, but I definitely don’t think he did it just to show Wozniak’s frustration. He’s too smart a writer for that.
Unless I’m giving Sorkin more credit than he deserves, but I don’t think I am because there is a ton of Sorkin work that I enjoy. I don’t think Steve Jobs was anywhere near his best work and certainly not worthy of an award — even if the actors or director were.
Only the one that plays the brown note.
not really. a movie can be good even while wildly inaccurate and penned by a jackass.
people didn’t go see it.
since you dont know, we can fill you in — Woz didn’t say anything, because he wasnt around for it.
read the Xerox story and more, from the people in the room:
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt
Oh brother, here we go…
I didn’t say nor do I believe that Woz said what Sorkin had him saying, nor do I think Apple stole the UI from PARC. It’s called dramatic license and if you’ve seen other movies of this type you’d understand.
Do you think every word that Bradley Cooper uttered in American Sniper was exactly what Chris Kyle said? Kyle’s book was turned into a screenplay by Jason Hall and Cooper read a script.
Oh, and yes, I’m familiar with Andy’s site, having watched it go up and commented on it in the early days. Maybe check out the comments on Switcher.
I’ll admit I haven’t seen it. But I have seen the script. It’s full of clever lines and some really awesome zingers, and I feel like it would have made for an excellent movie… had it not been about a real person.
“This isn’t a biopic” aside, a biopic that isn’t a biopic doesn’t have a purpose. And it was marketed and received as a biopic. So I think it has to be judged as a biopic, which makes it atrociously, hilariously bad.
And, again, I disagree that this dramatic license works. Whether agenda or lazy writing or a bad day at the keyboard, I don’t know. Not Sorkin’s best work at all.
I think you’re probably right and the LA Times piece is excellent. Still, the XeroX PARC line doesn’t stick in my craw the way it does in yours. I’m not saying Woz said that or that Apple stole anything, but it’s a meme that Apple haters have used for years attempting to establish no doubt in defense of the fact that MS ripped off Apple’s UI. I get that. But, I’d hate it if the Apple world became so PC that they went ballistic every time that meme is used, even in made-up dialog.
The folks who matter know how Apple worked with PARC (I talked with Atkinson at great length about it). That’s all that matters to me as both a long time user and stockholder.
That said, what I’m attempting (maybe poorly) to say is that I would hate it if the Apple faithful turned Steve Jobs (and to a lesser extent Jony Ive) into saints. This really bothers me and I go way back with Apple, met Jobs quite a few times, and worked closely with the early Mac team for years.
I believe what Sorkin, maybe poorly, was attempting to do was show the disintegration of the original partnership that started Apple. It’s well known that Woz was marginalized as Apple moved forward. How Jobs did this, like how he dealt with his good friend Daniel Kottke with stock grants shows a less saintly side of him. No doubt Sorkin was attempting to show that complexity.
This is what Sorkin does, it’s in all of his screenplays: heroes are almost always flawed (human).
Peace, and may Apple continue to make stuff we like.
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I think Gibney’s documentary “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine” does a better job of showing the flaws. It angered some people, too, but overall I think it gets to the meat of the complexity without actually using full-blown mistruths and calling it artistic/dramatic impressionism. Time will tell, both with Jobs and with these movies, eh?
In the end, I agree: Peace, and may Apple continue to make stuff we like.
People saw it, in theaters, even. All twelve people had mixed opinions about this movie. People will continue to see it, in its various forms. This could be in the bargain bin Blu-Ray soon!
A “biopic” like this is only ‘atrociously bad’, when you have a very narrow and inflexible view…
It is not just the Applesphere. That movie tanked hard because fundamentally, it is a scam to sell a work of fiction as a work of non-fiction. People don’t like being lied to like that.
BTW, selling a work of fiction as non-fiction is called “the oldest trick in the book.” In book publishing, we have mostly let that go, but in movie production, they are still doing it. But I think now that the real person who is featured in a movie can just tweet out that the movie is full of shit, that is going to have to change.
That is the problem. People didn’t go to see it because it was a work of fiction based on real life characters, however, that is what it turned out to be. That is common practice in movies.
Good movies about gigantically famous people don’t tank.
His issue was the dishonesty. Same with a lot of people. They created fictional characters, gave them the names of actual real famous people who have participated in famous events, then had them do and say fictional things. Doesn’t matter if you make up a character and call him “Ballmer” and have him say things that didn’t happen also.