Andy Hertzfeld on Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs:
None of it happened, but it’s all true.
The film (starring Michael Fassbender, not Ashton Kutcher) recounts Steve Jobs’ life through subtext, through suggestion, rather than through lovingly recreated scenes from his real life. The effect is much more powerful. Andy Hertzfeld was portrayed by Michael Stuhlbarg in the film, and though he hated the Kutcher version, he loved Sorkin’s.
As an example of what I mean, here’s my favorite quote from the movie, versus the real quote it’s based on.
Sorkin:
The most efficient animal on the planet is the condor. The most inefficient animals on the planet are humans. But a human with a bicycle becomes the most efficient animal. And the right computer — a friendly, easy computer that isn’t an eyesore, but rather sits on your desk with the beauty of a tenser lamp — the right computer will be a bicycle for the mind.
Jobs:
I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts.
And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.
Which one is more real? Which one is more true? Are these two quotes saying different things? How you answer those questions says a lot about what art is for.