Aaron Sorkin praises 'genius' Steve Jobs (interview)
Culture
Your Apple stock is worth 441 million dollars.
That your daughter and her mother are no welfare.
She's not my daughter!
You must be able to see that she looks like you.
We will know soon enough if you are Leonardo da Vinci or just think you are.
You're the only one who sees the world the same way I do.
No one sees the world the same way you do.
[SOUND] All right, Aaron Sorkin thanks for speaking for us today.
What [UNKNOWN] the story of Steve Jobs and what was kind of the biggest challenge that you faced in telling that story?
Well what drew me to it was a blind date.
I had just had a great time making two movies in a row, Social Network and Money Ball, with the same studio, same producer, and they had just bought Walter Isaacson's authorized biography.
For [UNKNOWN] Steve Jobs.
And they said, we'd like you to do this and I said sure.
It was a blind date but then I fell in love.
And before I knew what I wanted to do, I knew what I didn't wanna do and that was write a bio pic.
I didn't wanna write a cradle to grave story where we land on the greatest hits of the protagonist along the way.
I wanted to do something else.
And after spending a lot of time with the real people who are represented by characters in the movie, and then several dozen others who aren't, I started to recognize points of friction between Steve and a number of these people, particular his eldest daughter, Lisa.
And I came up with A whole different structure, which said the movie would just be three scenes, each of them in real time.
Mm-hm.
And each of these scenes would take place backstage in the moments leading up to a product a launch.
How did you choose those three moments in Steve's life?
They had nothing to do with products themselves.
People have said, well, how could you not do the iPhone?
It was It's because those choices didn't have anything to do with the products and the movie doesn't have much to do with the products.
I chose to launch the MAC because Steve as still denying paternity of [UNKNOWN] in 1984 and because the McIntosh was the first product that Steve really felt complete ownership of.
The others He either made compromises on or he had been kicked off of, or something like that.
This was his baby and it failed.
Then the second act next, that's the king in exile.
The third act is the king return If the third act had been the iphone, then it would have been the king returns several years ago, there's nothing much dramatic about that.
The first two acts, they're both [UNKNOWN] about the times when he didn't really have the things that he said that he had.
What do you think that says about him as a person.
Well I think that
It says a number of things.
First of all, he dreams big.
He swings for the fences.
And of course the reality distortion field.
He would have a dream that here, the technology would be here.
He always knew the technology would catch up to where his dream was.
It was a matter of how fast could it Do it.
All right and to borrow a phrase, one more thing, was Steve Jobs a genus?
First of all, let me tell you that for a while I thought that would be the title of the movie And One More Thing but I couldn't work in And One More Thing into the screenplay.
Right.
Was Steve Jobs a genius?
I don't the results speak for themselves?
He marshalled the forces that created not just the most successful company in the history of the world but these products and devices that so many people feel emotional A bath.
Yes, it's my verdict is, yes.
That he stood at the intersection of art and technology, and that was something.
And sure, would I like to have his brain, his imagination?
You bet.
[SOUND]
