Alex Gibney explains why his Steve Jobs documentary may cause you to put down your iPhone for good

For Alex Gibney it all started with the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on October 5, 2011.

"The motivation to make the film was why so many people who didn't know Steve Jobs were weeping when he left," Gibney told an audience last week who had recently seen his new film "Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine" (in theaters Friday).

Gibney opens the film with footage of people all over the world crying at makeshift memorials for Jobs, lifting their iPads and iPhones that showed a picture of a single burning candle in remembrance. Gibney also included people giving emotional video testimonials online reacting to Jobs' death, including a young boy who shouts in amazement, "He made the iPhone!"

Gibney admits that, like many of us, he loves his Mac and iPhone. But it was more than that to him.

"I grew up on IBM and PCs and when I switched over to Mac it felt like I'd been liberated," Gibney told Business Insider. "I really did buy into that, I had entered a new zone and these were my people."

That "sticking it to the man" quality Apple had, as Gibney perceived it, came to a crashing halt for the filmmaker when he started making the Steve Jobs documentary two and a half years ago (financed by CNN Films).

"I do react differently now," Gibney told BI about using his iPhone since making the film. "I get a lot more pissed off."

In the film he shows Jobs as a marketing genius who revolutionized the personal computer and then made us addicted to mobile devices. But behind the scenes Gibney paints him as a maniacal task master who ruled by intimidation and mind games. In one instance, while giving the exit interview to one top employee leaving Apple, Jobs gave him a "Godfather"-like speech promising him he'd be hunted down if he took any other Apple employees (or in Jobs' words, "his family") with him.

And Jobs wasn't any better in his personal life. The film highlights that in the early days of Apple Jobs repeatedly denied being the father of his daughter Lisa. Then, when a DNA test proved he was the father, he only paid $500-a-month in child support.

"I didn't want to do the official bio pic of Steve Jobs," said Gibney. "In fact, just the opposite. I never really made a film like this before where you sort of go in and wonder."

That wonder lead him to many closed doors when he started out.

The Oscar winner is known for making unapologetic films that have exposed everything from Enron and Jack Abramoff to legends James Brown and Frank Sinatra to most recently the controversial Church of Scientology.

So needless to say when he reached out to Apple for assistance in getting people within the company to talk to him for the film he was given a swift "no." Gibney tried to speak to Jobs' widow, Laurene, too but was turned down.

"I had to go down different pathways to find interesting information and that's why you can't call it a complete biography, it's not that," Gibney said. "It's about an idea, like why is he so important to us? That means you have to reckon with him, but we also have to reckon with ourselves."

To do that Gibney retraces the rise of Jobs from 26-year-old Apple CEO to an icon behind one of the top companies in the world.

But he also exposes some things that might make you think less about the company.

The film shows that allegedly workers in China who were on the assembly line making the iPhone 4s, along with earning considerably low wages, suffered nerve damage while putting the phones together. Its top supplier, Foxconn, over a two year span, had 18 workers commit suicide. The suicides allegedly got so serious that Foxconn built safety nets around the building the workers lived in to prevent jumpers.

Gibney also spotlights the company's alleged elaborate tax avoidance. By enacting a loophole called a "Double Irish," Apple uses holding companies in Ireland (a lower-tax country) to pocket around $137 billion in profits, according to the film.

These unethical revelations has made Gibney rethink what his iPhone means to him and he hopes those who see the film will do the same. But he knows it's going to be hard as Apple products, particularly the iPhone, are now constantly attached to our hands. And with that comes a blind faith.

Gibney recalls the backlash by Apple workers and fans of its products following the premiere of the film at the South by Southwest Film Festival earlier this year.

Here's how Eddy Cue, Apple's senior VP of Internet Software and Services, reacted to it:

Gibney believes what Jobs was incredible at was making Apple products a reflection of you. His goal with the film is to show that a company that makes so many people happy is still just a corporation at the end of the day - a corporation Gibney belives was trained by Jobs to be ruthless and unforgiving in order to succeed and make the most money possible.

"We are to believe that what you have in your hand is all good," Gibney said. "I love my iPhone, but I have to look myself in the eye and say, 'Is it turning me into someone that I like?'"

"Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine" opens Friday.

Watch the trailer:

 Apple did not respond to BI's request for comment on this story.

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