Steve Jobs (2015): Art, The Man, The Machine

The second film in what one might call Aaron Sorkin’s ‘Asshole Diptych’ (following 2010’s The Social Network) Steve Jobs engages with Apple’s controversial founder: a man whose legacy, as Sorkin’s screenplay voices, had more to do with building beautiful machines than being a beautiful person. This article argues that Sorkin’s innovative biopic approaches its complex subject (both Jobs, and Silicon Valley) via the artifice and intricacy of its own screenplay form: the portrait of an imperfect man, as a perfect cinematic machine. Departing from classical biopic’s focus on the narrative of a ‘life’, Steve Jobs’ three-part structure - focusing on three public product releases - aligns with the structural expectations of the classical screenplay, as well as acknowledging its theatrical setting and influence: the idea of Jobs as a performance. In the script’s various progressions and parallelisms, this article shows, Steve Jobs offers a self-consciously aesthetic rendition of a life seemingly ‘fixed’. Recognising that art is more perfect than its subject, Sorkin’s film encapsulates and potentially obviates the contradictions at play in Jobs - not unlike the ‘beautiful products’ for which Jobs is himself recognised.