Wednesday, 18 November 2015

Film

Steve Jobs

I try hard to avoid being an unwavering Apple fanatic. It won't help that the first time I've been to a cinema in five years is to watch this film named after the one of the company's founders.

In my defence I'll point out that those closest to Steve Jobs — his family and work colleagues — have treated the film with disdain. I might also add that I've frequently enjoyed work by Danny Boyle, Kate Winslet and Aaron Sorkin so a film they've all had a hand in was likely to curry favour with me.

It did impress. Much has been made of its dense dialogue, its innovative use of different film stocks to distinguish the three acts and the fact that this is really a film about broken people not computers. I've not seen reference to the presence of iconic fonts or the Arthur C Clarke interview/prologue.

For me though, the heart of the film is in one line. Introducing her to the first Mac, Steve Jobs tells his daughter, "there is literally nothing you can do to break this," and leaves her to explore the computer on her own. That goal — an unbreakable appliance — is something we should still be yearning for in technology. As for relationships, perhaps what makes them so special is that such a goal for them would be completely unattainable.

ticket-machine.jpg(Side note: things have changed since I was previously at the cinema. For a start, the box office is a machine. Unfortunately the user interface is so clunky and the implementation so unreliable I was left with a foot-long receipt of an aborted transaction and had to resort to human intervention. There's an irony here.)

Posted by pab at 23:00 | Comments will be back one day. Please email me instead!