Alex Gibney compares ‘cult’ of Apple to Scientology

But, they don’t question the good of what Jobs invented.

Otogawa’s assessment of Jobs: “He’s brilliant, but he’s too smart”. The person responsible for each part of Jobs’ presentation would take a shot when their work was on display. There are clips from online video tributes. One can’t help but wonder how Gibney (“Taxi to the Dark Side”) would stand up to a similar deconstruction, but the dedicated muckraker is neither the innovator nor the evil genius Jobs was – and still is four years after his signoff.

Narrated by Gibney himself, Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine begins with the question of why, especially toward the end of his life, Jobs inspired such devotional fervor.

There are plenty of other ways Jobs tried to find loopholes in the laws: He was involved with tax evasion schemes, issues of backdating and was known for ignoring poor Chinese workplace conditions. The fact is that Jobs is a slippery subject who often attempted to windowshade the truth. Beyond that, Gibney explains, there was the story of a private jet Jobs wanted.

His excuse was that it helped him stay anonymous, but it seemed that practically everyone in the area knew of the silver Mercedes to be found in handicapped parking spaces.

Yet, Jobs once told his teacher, the Soto Zen priest Kobun Otogawa, that he was enlightened.

In Be Here Now, a book that Brennan and Jobs loved, author Ram Dass talks about the problem of becoming enlightened while still being attached to ego. And Brennan believes this is what happened to Jobs. And did you know Jobs used to park in handicapped parking spots on the Apple campus? Gibney says. The documentary acknowledges Jobs’ extraordinary successes. – Jobs is more than ever an object of fascination. The suicide rate is so high at the factory that Apple installs nets to prevent workers from jumping out of windows to their deaths.

So I’m a huge fan not only of Apple products (I’m writing this on a Macbook Air) but also of the innovative approach the company brought to the computing business. Bushnell asked Jobs to design the game’s hardware.

Business reporter Sherry Turkle marvels at Jobs’ mystical marketing – an Apple device “wasn’t just for you, it was you”.

Unlike Going Clear, which was financed by an entertainment company, Man In the Machine is co-financed by CNN – which tends to be more balanced than its competitors Fox News and MSNBC, and will be showing the film next year on television. Inspired by the intense global, public mourning after his passing from cancer in October 2011, the movie looks at who it was that inspired such an outpouring of grief. The documentary has been met with strong criticism from some, including Eddy Cue. But be warned! It also makes for a downbeat movie. Gibney specializes in hard-hitting documentaries.

“Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine” is available On Demand on Friday, September 4th. Visually and structurally it sometimes feels more like an essay. But Gibney comes pretty close.

“People do not buy products because of a personality. What is the full nature of my transaction with the maker of this magical and intimate machine?”

Gibney, a prolific Oscar victor whose recent works have included examinations of Lance Armstrong (“The Armstrong Lie”), Julian Assange/WikiLeaks (“We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks“) and Frank Sinatra (“Sinatra: All or Nothing at All”), is no stranger to controversial figures. He gave Wozniak his half of the fake amount and Wozniak only learned the truth later, when an Atari employee mentioned it. This was not an isolated incident of selfishness.