Film-maker Alex Gibney knows how to pick a controversial subject for his documentaries.

电影制片人亚历克斯·吉布尼(Alex Gibney)知道怎样为自己的纪录片挑选一个有争议的主题。

His examination of Apple’s co-founder arrives at a time of renewed debate about Steve Jobs’ life. In March, Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli argued in their book, Becoming Steve Jobs , that their subject was too harshly portrayed by his many previous biographers.

他所拍摄的关于史蒂夫吠布斯(Steve Jobs)的纪录片《史蒂夫吠布斯：机器人生》(Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine)上映时，围绕这位苹果(Apple)联合创始人生平的辩论再度展开。今年3月，布伦特施伦德(Brent Schlender)和里克礠噲利(Rick Tetzeli)在《成为史蒂夫吠布斯》(Becoming Steve Jobs)一书中表示，以往的许多传记作者对乔布斯过于苛刻。

Later this year, Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin’s drama starring Michael Fassbender as the iPhone impresario will go backstage at key product launches.

由丹尼娠伊尔(Danny Boyle)导演，阿伦∠尔金(Aaron Sorkin)编剧，迈克尔法斯本德(Michael Fassbender)主演的《乔布斯传》(Steve Jobs)将登上大屏幕，展现苹果关键产品发布的幕后故事。

Gibney’s addition to the canon points out, like so many others before him, that Jobs was a man of contradictions: the renegade who wanted to be legit, the humanist who denied paternity of his first daughter, the Wall Street idol embroiled in stock options and recruiting scandals. “He had the focus of a monk,” Gibney says as narrator, his camera lingering over Japanese zen gardens, “but none of the empathy.”

如之前其他许多作品一样，吉布尼的作品也指出乔布斯是个矛盾的人，他是个叛逆者，却想得到承认；他是个人道主义者，却拒认自己的大女儿；他是华尔街的偶像，却身陷股票期权和招聘丑闻。吉布尼在旁白中说道：“他有着僧侣一样的专注。”镜头扫过日式禅宗花园，“却没有同理心。”

The familiar stories told in this documentary are brought to life with extensive interviews with former Apple employees and Jobs’ associates, as well as archive footage that includes his first screen test.

这部纪录片讲述的故事并不新鲜，但片中大量的前苹果员工和乔布斯同事的访谈，以及包括乔布斯首次试镜等影像资料，给这些故事注入了生命力。

Just as compelling are clips from the March 2008 video deposition, where Jobs squirms constantly in his seat as he is quizzed over allegations of backdated stock options.

其中有个片段颇为引人入胜，这是2008年3月拍摄的一段视屏证词。当时乔布斯因回溯股票期权的指控接受问询，画面中他在座位上一直坐立难安。

Absent from the screen, however, are any current Apple employees. Several members of Apple’s current management team blessed Becoming Steve Jobs as their preferred account of their former chief. Eddy Cue, who heads Apple’s services business, was rather less enthusiastic about Man in the Machine, calling it “an inaccurate and mean-spirited view of my friend”.

但是这部纪录片里没有一个苹果在职员工。苹果目前管理团队中的几名成员更青睐《成为史蒂夫吠布斯》作为前掌门人的传记。苹果服务部门主管艾迪錠伊(Eddy Cue)对《史蒂夫吠布斯：机器人生》态度冷淡，称这部片子“对我的朋友抱有一种不准确且刻薄的观点。”

It is not hard to see where Apple loyalists would object.

不难看出苹果拥趸们会反对这部纪录片的地方。

Early on, the film-maker professes his love for his iPhone and Pixar movie Wall-E, but says he struggled to understand the global outpouring of grief in 2011 at the death of a man he calls “ruthless, deceitful and cruel”. He supports this argument by recalling suicides at Apple’s suppliers in China, investigations of its overseas profits and ripped-off colleagues such as Steve Wozniak and Daniel Kottke.

该片开头，阿里克斯吉布尼表达了自己对iPhone、皮克斯(Pixar)电影《机器人瓦力》(Wall-E)的喜爱，但表示难以理解2011年当乔布斯——一个被他称之“无情、虚伪、严酷”的男人——去世时，全球各界表达的悲痛之情。为了支持自己的观点，吉布尼提到了苹果在华供应商员工自杀事件，苹果海外利润受到调查，以及乔布斯昔日同事史蒂夫茠祬尼亚克(Steve Wozniak)和丹尼尔科特克(Daniel Kottke)的吃亏上当。

Yet by failing to include Jobs’ heirs and bring the story up to date, Gibney misses an opportunity to examine the company that survives him — at a crucial moment for the iPhone maker’s leadership.

然而由于未能采访到乔布斯的继任者以补充整个故事的最新情节，吉布尼错失了考查这家公司在乔布斯过世后的情况的机会，而当前对于苹果的领导层是一个关键时刻。

“Jobs’ genius was how he sold the iPod. It wasn’t a machine for you, it was you,” Gibney says. As Apple pushes beyond phones into watches, televisions, even cars, it is still figuring out how to sell these new categories without its master marketer.

吉布尼说：“乔布斯的天才之处在于他销售iPod的手段。它不是你的一件设备，它就是你。”除手机以外，苹果现在又推出了手表、电视机，甚至汽车，没有了乔布斯这位营销大师，苹果仍在摸索如何销售这些新品类的产品。

Gibney criticises Jobs for “behaving as though Apple was a start-up”, despite it becoming one of the world’s most valuable companies, yet the film-maker underestimates the energising force of playing the underdog.

吉布尼批评乔布斯“表现得就像苹果还是一家初创公司”，尽管它已经成为全球市值最高的公司之一，但这位电影制片人低估了扮演弱者的励志效果。

“This is a field in which one does one’s work and, in 10 years, it’s obsolete,” a young, bearded Jobs tells us towards the end of the film.

影片结尾时，蓄着胡子的青年乔布斯说道：“在这个领域，人们所做的事10年后就过时了。”

Apple is about to enter its fifth year without its co-founder. All these controversies about Jobs’ life may soon give way to renewed debate about the future of the company he left behind.

苹果即将进入离开乔布斯的第五个年头，关于这位联合创始人一生的所有争议，可能很快就让位于围绕他留下的这家公司的未来发展的辩论。

Steve Jobs: The man in the machine, directed by Alex Gibney, released by Magnolia Pictures, now in selected cinemas, on iTunes and on demand

《史蒂夫吠布斯：机器人生》，阿里克斯吉布尼执导，木兰影业(Magnolia Pictures)发行，可在部分影院、iTunes以及点播电视上观看