Aaron Sorkin on ‘Steve Jobs’ and the Secret to Great Dialogue

Рет қаралды 39,217

8 жыл бұрын

I loved Steve Jobs. Featuring exceptional work by the entire cast, brilliant direction by Danny Boyle, and a dazzling script by Aaron Sorkin, Steve Jobs is one of those rare movies where everything works perfectly and it’s absolutely worth your time and money. It’s definitely going to be a player in this year’s awards season.
Unlike most biopics that try and tell someone’s whole life story in two hours, the film consists of three principal scenes that each take place during a major product launch in Jobs’ career: the Macintosh in 1984, the NeXT in 1988, and the iMac in 1998. As most of you know, Michael Fassbender plays Steve Jobs, the pioneering founder of Apple, Kate Winslet starring as Joanna Hoffman, former marketing chief of Macintosh. Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple, is played by Seth Rogen, and Jeff Daniels stars as former Apple CEO John Sculley. The film also stars Katherine Waterston as Chrisann Brennan, Jobs’ ex-girlfriend, and Michael Stuhlbarg as Andy Hertzfeld, one of the original members of the Apple Macintosh development team.
At the recent press junket in London, I landed an exclusive video interview with Aaron Sorkin. He talked about the secret to writing great dialogue, memorable moments from the making of the film, if he ever thought the film wouldn’t get made, if the iPod was ever going to be one of the product launches, and more. Watch what he had to say below.
Steve Jobs is now playing in limited release and expands nationwide on October 23rd.
Aaron Sorkin:
• Did he ever think this film wouldn’t get made?
• Memorable moments from making Steve Jobs.
• What’s the secret to writing great dialogue?
• Was the iPod ever going to be a part of the film and changes to the script.
For More Collider:
collider.com/
/ colliderdotcom

Пікірлер: 33

@Adamdow95 7 жыл бұрын

Best dialogue: 1) Apparently he's very happy down here because he's written letters to everyone but Santa Clause asking for a transfer. 2) You WANT me on that wall, you NEED me on that wall. We use words like Honour, Code, Loyalty we use these words as a backbone of a life spent defending something, you use them as a punchline! 3) You seconds you had three weeks, the universe was created in a third of that time. 4) Two days ago we ran a Superbowl ad that could've won the Oscar for Best Short Film. 5) That thing looks like Judy Jettson's Easy-Bake oven. 6) Let me tell you something about Time Magazine, I believe its a training facility for paid assassins. 7)

@camilleholle1538 4 жыл бұрын

#6 is my fave hahaha

@SteveHovland 7 жыл бұрын

Great dialog serves the story.

@SteveHovland 7 жыл бұрын

Excellent advice from someone who actually does it successfully. Deserves a lot more hits than it as gotten. On the other hand, his "voice" seems to be people arguing all the time, which gets tiresome. If the numbers on imdbpro are accurate, this has not been a very profitable approach to writing screenplays.

@bobpolo2964 7 жыл бұрын

it's very limiting when you think about it, people don't argue all day

@mcmanpa 7 жыл бұрын

+bob polo & + SteveHovland I think Sorkin’s film scripts show his roots as a playwright, writing dialogue for actors to be spoken on a stage where there is limited scope for physical action; which is not to say he doesn’t like and employ the comic pratfall quite often to break the tension, but it’s not his main concern. Sorkin, I believe, feels characters reveal themselves in their words rather than their actions, or at least when they talk about their actions; he is not a writer of action films. Even in The West Wing, when director/producer Thomas Schlamme came up with the idea of the camera following actors talking non-stop through the set, this was camera action intended to support the energy of the dialogue. I would be surprised if Sorkin writes camera directions in his scripts; yet look at a Terrence Malick film, by comparison, to see how much information is given to us, the audience, through the camera filming scenes often with actors who don’t say a word. Yes, it’s true, people don’t argue all day; but film is not reality, it is dramatised reality. (To see reality, watch Warhol’s 5hour film “Sleep” of a man sleeping.) Film is 90 or 120 concentrated minutes of characters introduced, established, conflicted and resolved. Sorkin does that process as good as anyone in the history of film. A good director, imo, will let that script shine on screen, and put his own thoughts about auteur filmmaking into the project that he does next after shooting Sorkin’s.

@bobpolo2964 7 жыл бұрын

mcmanpa I somewhat agree with everything above. And cinema is inherently fake, from the actors to sets to the plot. All false. But that's the great paradox of fiction: we often find truth through an artistic medium full of lies. I'm an aspiring screenwriter myself and I tend to write more sorkin-like character studies, but to just focus on excessive dialogue is very limiting for me. People don't just reveal themselves through mostly dialogue. I would say it's a subtle balance between action and dialogue, with the action working as a supplement. Wes Anderson is a filmmaker who exploits cinematic fiction to its full potential, but he also values visual expression unlike sorkin's talking head dramas. And cinema works effectively when used as a visual medium

@mcmanpa 7 жыл бұрын

bob polo I agree with you in part, though I think to describe film as a medium full of lies is a bit harsh. Drama on film is an artistic representation of reality, a concentration of metaphor, symbol or example. I believe the one piece of equipment essential to filmmaking, on which all the other contributors and equipments are based, is the camera. No camera = no film. The rectangular image is the world the drama inhabits, so when I think of memorable films, I think of Fellini’s images in “8½” or Kurosawa’s landscapes in “Dersu Uzala”, and when I think of dramatic dialogue climaxing in physical action I think of Scorsese’s “Raging Bull”, and when I think of wordless action in an almost silent scene delivering effective drama I think of Angelopoulos’ “Reconstruction”. In a sense, it’s possible to argue that Sorkin, by contrast, is not a writer for film, but rather a writer for the stage who reaches his biggest audiences on the small and big screens, because his dramas are so un-cinematic, yet nonetheless very satisfying.

@bobpolo2964 7 жыл бұрын

mcmanpa No light=no film. A camera can provide images, sure, but without the script, all you have is improvisation. And staged productions beat a movie full of improv any day of the week. And sorkin is a cinematic writer because his dialogue is mostly devoid of exposition unlike stage plays. He does a great job revealing sharply drawn personalities through dialogue with little action. It's his niche

@UltimateKyuubiFox 7 жыл бұрын

... I get the feeling, even though it's literally impossible, that Jeff Goldblum's persona is inspired by this man.

@MikeRoberts1964 7 жыл бұрын

"Yeah...I see where you're going there but...uhhh. can I just say...that...uhhh. I see it as well."

@doctorfritznoel 3 жыл бұрын

The interviewer style is a bit grating and you can see Aaron looking down avoiding eye contact at 1:45, which I sense reflects that.

@Moonawrathic 8 жыл бұрын

I'm pretty sure the sith is Luke, just listen to his voice a few times

@RafaelBenedicto 5 жыл бұрын

I take what he says very seriously. But I can't ignore the fact that he stutters almost throughout the interview.

@yeshwanthashok8032 6 жыл бұрын

worst lighting for an interview.

@19River96 8 жыл бұрын

Kim Jong Un*

@jqyhlmnp 8 жыл бұрын

Leonardo DiCaprio*

@zexx1lion 7 жыл бұрын

bad sound

@willrich3908 6 жыл бұрын

pulled from 2,072 cinemas in the United States. a flop. so much for 'great dialogue'. so called experts know sweet FA.. they just get lucky, simple as.

@IAteFire 6 жыл бұрын

So? Shawshank flopped too, that doesn't make it a bad movie. Social network was a hit, how do you explain that?

@biggestronald 5 жыл бұрын

You’re a dumbass will

@bennozoid1 3 жыл бұрын

A fantastic movie. Cinemas pull movies for purely commercial reasons. this was intelligent and emotional and fresh.