“We blow this and IBM will own the next 50 years like a Batman villain”.
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This is my second individual re-release of an ostensible “Top 5” of the films directed by 66 year old Manchester born English filmmaker Danny Boyle. Having already re-released Shallow Grave recently and my second all time favourite Boyle film behind Trainspotting from that epochal year of 1996, I’m also planning to release my musings on 28 Days Later (2002) and Trance (2013) shortly, but all of these films and another seven, Danny’s entire cinematic catalogue from 1994 to 2017, can be found within the opus article linked at the bottom of this opening paragraph.
This huge article was originally started in early 2013 and then added to with the release of both Steve Jobs in 2015 as well as T2 Trainspotting in 2017 and the only film missing from Danny’s entire career at the time of writing is his Beatles inspired Yesterday, from 2019. I wasn’t keen on the reveal I won’t reveal here, but my son and I saw Yesterday at the cinema on release, and we left smiling broadly after having been fabulously entertained.
So here’s my lucky 7 year old spoiler free review of the marvellous Michael Fassbender portraying Steve Jobs based upon the iconic white book that resides on my bookshelf and may well find a place within your bowing bookshelves too. I hope you enjoy.
Danny Boyle — 12 Cinematic Gems
Trainspotting to Trainspotting and ten more gems all lovingly appreciated and spoiler free from inside a shallow grave.medium.com
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“We blow this and IBM will own the next 50 years like a Batman villain”.
Based on the biography “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson (highly recommended) and excellently adapted for the screen with yet another effervescent screenplay by Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, Moneyball and A Social Network), one word perfectly encapsulates this wonderful film from Danny Boyle — control. The picture painted on screen, from his earliest memories and formative years as an orphan is of Steve Jobs craving control of every possible event and outcome and this becomes immediately evident as soon as the film introduces him as the epicentre of the launch of the Apple Macintosh Computer in 1984.
The film as a whole follows a traditional three Act structure but the movie itself is anything but traditional, commencing with Black and White Television stock footage of Arthur C Clarke surrounded by huge computers in a “Computer Room” as he describes a vision of the future and “computers in every home”, with the film climaxing 14 years later in 1998 and Steve Jobs taking to the stage at the launch of the iMac Computer against the backdrop of a huge screen with images of Arthur C Clarke, Albert Einstein, Muhammad Ali, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Alan Turing and lastly, Pablo Picasso.
In the two hours in between, Danny Boyle interweaves real life stock footage of the day capturing the rise, fall and rise again of Jobs, his association with Apple and cleverly using flashbacks during each Act to fill in the missing back story to an incredible tale of loss, determination, a pig headed refusal to comply with perceived wisdom and fractured human relationships of a man determined to grasp, and retain control of all areas of his life and career. Spoilers aside, this fantastic film is all this and so much more, with enormous credit due to Aaron Sorkin for another poetic, balletic and often pulsing screenplay, composer Daniel Pemberton for an eclectic and Act specific musical composition and of course to Danny Boyle for bringing together so many intricate details and weaving them together in such an engaging and beautifully affecting manner.
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Aside from the excellent performances from a stellar cast list ranging from Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Katherine Waterston, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jeff Daniels (all further explored below), what impresses me repeatedly on re-watching this often claustrophobic gem is that the three Act structure actually works, they are distinct pieces every time even though they contain the same rotating characters in a similarly veined narrative structure as grievances are aired, revenge taken, relationships strained to breaking point and occasionally apologies given. Cleverly, we never see Steve Jobs in the public role that made him famous to many, that of the avuncular and gregarious on stage speaker extolling the virtues of his new product. Each and every Act is the claustrophobic, hemmed in atmosphere of back stage, as Jobs prepares to take to the stage before a new product launch across the 14 year period of 1984 to 1998. And what impresses me the most is that Jobs is portrayed as a particularly distasteful and unlikeable character in nearly every human interaction (bar his relationship with the human “soul” of the film and confidant Joanna Hoffman), yet I’m still engaged and rooting for, and agreeing with Hoffman in the film’s final Act, for Jobs to redeem and engage with his human side before it’s too late.
Originally scheduled to be directed by David Fincher, the parallels with his film The Social Network are stark: A singular driven creator of a machine that has a need for absolute control. An acrimonious split from an original business and creative partner but with whom he retains a grudging respect. And more importantly, an insular and unlikeable character that is far more interested in machines than human beings. But whereas Fincher’s portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is of the absolute creator of his product, Boyle’s Steve Jobs admits in one of many frank exchanges that he “plays the orchestra” relying on the geniuses that surround him and his ideas and from the first Act of this drama onward, and he is played incredibly well by Michael Fassbender.
Despite the countdown to his stage entrance in every Act of the film Fassbender portrays the besieged and harassed Jobs brilliantly, flowing from one argument filled interaction to another with a bubbling intensity which is only seemingly assuaged but the calming influence of the film’s heart beat, soul and only real human emotionally, his Marketing Executive and close personal confidant “Joanna Hoffman” (Kate Winslet). Both Fassbender and Winslet were nominated for Oscars in 2016 for their respective portrayals but it’s arguable that Winslet provides the more striking role even set against the titular role from Fassbender. In a film full of machines, mechanics, algorithms and fractured relationships, Winslet’s Hoffman beats to a more human drum, performing a real task of course of keeping Jobs “on point” and ready to take the stage but more importantly showing heart and soul and a pragmatism that really comes into it’s own in the film’s final Act and her imploring of Jobs to re-connect with his daughter before all maybe lost.
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In every Act, whether it’s the initial launch of the Apple McIntosh in 1984, Jobs creation of the NEXT Cube four years later or the iMac in 1998, he has to deal with a merry go round of five people before taking the stage each and every time. “Chrisann Brennan” is brilliantly portrayed by Katherine Waterston as Jobs’ former girlfriend and mother of his daughter Lisa. Jobs’ flat refusal to acknowledge his daughter and the possibility of his being the father is horrifically played as he falls back on algorithmic probabilities of Chrisann and who she has probably slept with and therefore the chances that Lisa may not be his daughter. Already worth over £441M in stock in 1984, Chrisann and Lisa are living on welfare and whilst addressed as the film covers the Acts, the scene on the rooftop at the film’s denouement where this pays off with Jobs finally heeding Hoffman’s warning and reconciling with his daughter and ending 14 years of uncertainty and recriminations. Indicative of the film as a whole is Jobs’ relationship with “Steve Wozniak” (Seth Rogen), co founder of Apple and to whom Jobs has given a “free pass” for life for their initial joint creation. Their interactions in every Act are tense and direct, specifically so their final encounter, but the initial two are in keeping with the film with the characters walking and talking as they go (a theme of the film). Wozniak is enraged by the slight of the free pass and is simply seeking recognition of the “Apple 2” design but the theme of control again is evident as Jobs won’t refer to this at a launch of another product and refuses to to cede control of his “end to end” system method. Rogen here produces another career highlight of a performance, albeit in a high profile cameo role, finally publicly admonishing his friend as he’s “tired of being Ringo when I know I’m John” and pointedly “It’s not binary. You can be decent and gifted at the same time”.
Another member of the original Apple team is “Andy Hertzfeld” and is subtly portrayed in a timid, shy performance by the excellent Michael Stuhlbarg. Another cameo role but an important one with a gem of a retort to Jobs’ frustration that “the universe was created in a week” to which Hertzfeld replies “one day you’ll have to tell us how you did it”. Journalist “Joel Pforzheimer” (John Ortiz) interviews Jobs throughout the film but the final cameo role falls to the brilliant Jeff Daniels as “John Sculley”, the CEO of Apple. In a nuanced performance, Daniels is outstanding as the ebullient celebrating friend before the 1984 launch despite his cutting remark to Jobs that “no-one sees the world like you do” before a bombastic firing of Jobs in a flashback and a mournful, regretful yearning in 1998 that history and events could have been so different for them both.
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Fassbender’s portrayal of Jobs is of course the key to this wonderful film. Living in his own bubble of creativity against an outside world of unrequited love, mistrust and being far more interested in machines than the human beings he surrounds himself with, he interestingly describes himself as “poorly made” as an excuse for his behaviour and even a Caesar analogy with his enemies surrounding him at every turn. His desire for control seeps through every pore of Fassbender’s brilliant performance and perfectly encapsulated by Chrisann’s tearful proclamation of “Things don’t become so because you say so”, and another shining example of the superb screenplay writing of Sorkin and helmed by Boyle in a highly recommended film in his cannon of already much vaunted body of cinematic work.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 100 blog articles (with 300+ individual film reviews) within my archives from which to choose:
“Red State” (2011)
“Even the Nazi’s think this guy is nuckin’ futs!”medium.com
“Drive” (2011)
“You put this kid behind the wheel, there’s nothing he can’t do”.medium.com
“Dogma” (1999)
“Good Lord. The little stoner has a point!”medium.com