'Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine' Trailer

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine is a new documentary film from Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side). Produced by CNN films and released by Magnolia Pictures, the film promises to be a "candid look at Jobs' legacy featuring interviews with a handful of those close to him at different stages in his life." Watch the just released Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine trailer embedded after the jump.

The trailer (found via Mashable) seems to play off the controversies and personal perception of the man. I'm interested to see this film as I'm fascinated by Steve Jobs, but have often found Alex Gibney's documentaries to be too dry, filled with too many talking head interviews — for me, they usually only server a a primer, not digging deep or adding much new to the conversation. Apple Employees who attended the first screening of the film at SXSW Film Festival last year reportedly walked out. Stephen Silver of EntertainmentTell called the film "Wholly unoriginal" stating that "We've seen not only this same material but versions of this same take on the material from multiple books, magazine articles, thinkpieces, one-man monologue shows, and even the Ashton Kutcher Jobs movie." On the other hand, Alex Needham of the Guardian called the film "a riveting and important corrective to the myths Jobs helped to propagate, and which in the four years since his death have proved as seductive as his machines – and a lot more durable."

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine Film Festival Poster

The official synopsis for Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine follows:

In his signature black turtleneck and blue jeans, shrouded in shadows below a milky apple, Steve Jobs' image was ubiquitous. But who was the man on the stage? What accounted for the grief of so many across the world when he died? From Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney, 'Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine' is a critical examination of Jobs who was at once revered as an iconoclastic genius and a barbed-tongued tyrant. A candid look at Jobs' legacy featuring interviews with a handful of those close to him at different stages in his life, the film is evocative and nuanced in capturing the essence of the Apple legend and his values which shape the culture of Silicon Valley to this day.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine will be released in limited theaters and be available On Demand on September 4th, 2015.