Apple CEO Tim Cook has described recent attempts to immortalise the late technology guru Steve Jobs on the big screen as “opportunistic” during a high-profile interview on US television.
Speaking on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Cook said he did not recognise what the host described as ‘unflattering’ portraits of his predecessor in the forthcoming Danny Boyle biopic Steve Jobs, nor the documentary Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, which is due for a limited release in US cinemas this weekend and hit online formats earlier this month.
“The Steve I knew was an amazing human being. He’s someone that you wanted to do your best work for,” said Cook. “He had this uncanny ability to see around the corner and describe the future – not an evolutionary future but a revolutionary future.”
Cook said he had not seen either movie, but added: “He was a joy to work with and I love him dearly, I miss him every day. I think that a lot of people are trying to be opportunistic and I hate that, it’s not a great part of our world.”
Reviewing The Man in the Machine earlier this year, the Guardian’s Alex Needham described Alex Gibney’s film as one which “forensically anatomises the contradictions, the ruthlessness, and the pointlessly crappy behaviour that reveal Apple’s ideals to be a sham, even while the products themselves continue to prove almost irresistible,” adding that it “will prove extremely displeasing to devotees”. Variety labelled the documentary “a coolly absorbing, deeply unflattering portrait of the late Silicon Valley entrepreneur”.
Meanwhile the Guardian’s Benjamin Lee called Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, which stars Michael Fassbender as the Apple co-founder, “admirably unsentimental in its portrayal” after viewing the film at the Telluride film festival earlier this month. The Hollywood Reporter suggested the Oscar-tipped biopic, based on a screenplay by The Social Network’s Aaron Sorkin, presented a vision of a “difficult and withholding man, one famous for abusing his underlings, keeping them guessing about where they stand and rejecting their ideas only to later claim them as his own”.
Cook’s position on Steve Jobs stands in marked contrast to that of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who acted as a consultant on the biopic. “My impression was I was shocked and amazed at how good it was in the sense of professional film-making,” he told the BBC. “I usually go to a movie not looking for ‘do I like the story’ as much as: ‘What is the quality that came out of the heads of the people that made it?’”
“In this case the film-makers have done an award-winning job. The acting was just so realistic. In some prior movies, I saw [the actors] simulating Steve Jobs, but they didn’t really make me feel like I was in his head understanding what was going on inside of him – his personality. This movie absolutely accomplishes that, and it’s due to great acting, which obviously comes from great directing.”
