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Aaron Sorkin talks 'Steve Jobs'

Aaron Sorkin talks to Movie Critic Gary Thompson about his highly controversial script for ‘Steve Jobs.’

AARON SORKIN'S hotly debated script for "Steve Jobs" avoids biopic formula, instead looking at the Apple co-founder in the context of three product launches. Sorkin talked with

Daily News

movie critic Gary Thompson about the movie.

Q: "Steve Jobs" is about a particular individual, but it also fits a tradition of movies about American industrial titans, men with whom Jobs has things in common.

A: In a way, this character has been around forever. William Randolph Hearst became "Citizen Kane." Before that, Henry Ford or Thomas Edison. We mythologize these people, and we think we know them, then we get a peek into their personal lives and it turns out they are not gods, they are men, and that prompts debate, and the same thing is happening with our movie. Our hope is that people are going to have arguments in the parking lot.

Q: And photograph these arguments on their iPhones, or post them online. Jobs' camp has called your movie "opportunistic," but given the considerable influence of Jobs' products and technology on culture, isn't the interest of writers and filmmakers in men like Jobs inevitable?

A: Danny ["Jobs" director Danny Boyle] would tell you that not only are they inevitable, they are important. There has to be art about these people, in addition to nonfiction and journalism. Art can come at it from a different angle.

If you look at our movie, it's not biopic, a cradle-to-grave timeline, with me giving you Steve Jobs' greatest hits. As I've said, it's more of a painting than a photograph. That's not an excuse that I'm using to make things up. When there are things that are [invented], it announces itself pretty quickly.

Steve obviously didn't have confrontations with the same five people 40 minutes before every product launch. But the content of these conversations is true, and all of it comes from [me] spending time with those people. But they are filtered through me, and my interpretation.

Q: Your movie makes the point that Jobs could be rough on his employees. Given his exalted status in Silicon Valley, some people say Jobs made it cool to be cruel.

A: I think a lot of people believe that's what you have to do to achieve greatness. You have to be like that. There is a story of Steve saying to [Oracle CEO] Larry Ellison, his good friend, that when [Ellison] is nice to employees, he's being vain - he wants people to like him more than he wants people to produce a great product.

Any time I've been in a position of authority, in a TV series or a movie set, and I feel like yelling - first of all I don't have it in me; second of all, it seems like a terrible way to get the best out of somebody. A much better way is to notice the good work that they do, and make sure that when they do it, it is being noticed.

Q: Still, there seems to be a double standard when it comes to the way filmmakers treat other artists, and the way they treat capitalists. "Birdman" is typical: An artist can make any sacrifice for his work, his family can sustain collateral damage and it's deemed to be worth the sacrifice because he stages a successful play. Business men don't have the same privileges.

A: That's absolutely true. And it's totally fair to say. They deserve the same leeway, even though it seems from the artists' perspective that the goal of the capitalist is to make as much money as possible, and the goal of the artist is more noble. But to the head of the movie studio, having a great bottom line gives him or her the same feeling that the movie makers get when they feel like they've made a great movie.

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