Christian Bale Wailsathon

[Ray de Galles]

Is this real

What is happening with that accent?

[ursus arctos]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

Seems to be real.

No idea about the accent.

Well done on the title. Perhaps Spurs can recoup some money by selling Christian the film rights for Gareth's Travails at Tottenham.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

hah, it sounds like Toro when I deleted that nonsensical religion thread, twice.

Didn't bale get arrested for battering the shite out of his mam and his sister there a couple of months ago?

[Guest]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

The cops had to let him go for "lack of evidence".

Was listening to the MP3 of this thing a second ago. Apparently it happened last summer, even before the assault episode with his mother and sister.

Why didn't the guy just tell Bale to go take a flying fuck at the moon? And if Bale follows through on his threat to quit the film, great, he gets his arse sued for zillions of dollars by the studio the next morning and has to either come back to the set as a laughing stock, tail between legs, or have his career irreparably destroyed.

[diggedy derek]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

Great thread title.

[De Geas Clean Linen]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

I know that he likes to use an American accent when being interviewed in the States. Perhaps the same applies while he is working there...

[Guest]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

He's obviously one of those actors who's always "in character" when he's making a film. Anyway, here's a somewhat self-righteous take on it: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39984

[Reed John]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

I think he was fully justified. I hate it when some jackass in the lighting crew walks throw the set distracting me from my work.

[amp]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

vennegoor strokes wrote:

Why didn't the guy just tell Bale to go take a flying fuck at the moon? And if Bale follows through on his threat to quit the film, great, he gets his arse sued for zillions of dollars by the studio the next morning and has to either come back to the set as a laughing stock, tail between legs, or have his career irreparably destroyed.

This seems like you mean it. You know that's never gonna happen, don't you? The talent gets what the talent wants. Even if it was a (name) director and it came to brinkmanship case like this [star] will always win because [star] can't be replaced once shooting has started.

Being shouted at by an ego is a rite of passage on film/tv/ad shoots.

Very depressed that there's yet more Terminator on the horizon though. That thing really can't ever be stopped can it?

[Reed John]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

I don't quite buy this "oh it's so hard to get emotionally into the scene" and "its the emotional center of the film" shit. This is Terminator, we're talking about. How hard could that really be? (although I'm psyched to hear that Bryce Dallas Howard is in this movie. I fancy her.)

But I do know from talking to people who have worked a bit in film that on a set, everything is supposed to be done a very specific way and every piece of gear, every roll of tape, every little thing has a certain place and a certain way it's supposed to be. It has to be that way or there would be needless delays and time is very expensive. So professional film people get extremely pissy about minutiae like this.

Given that, I can imagine a guy fiddling with the lights during a take would be the sort of thing to send an actor, who is a bit mental to be begin with, into a hissy fit.

I don't know if Bale has a big ego so much that he's just a bit unhinged. Did you see The Machinist?

[Guest]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

amp wrote:

This seems like you mean it. You know that's never gonna happen, don't you? The talent gets what the talent wants. Even if it was a (name) director and it came to brinkmanship case like this [star] will always win because [star] can't be replaced once shooting has started.

Being shouted at by an ego is a rite of passage on film/tv/ad shoots.

Well, in the recording, Bale is expressly telling the director that he will quit if he has to work with this guy again. So, hypothetically, if the object of the tirade replies: "Fuck off, Christian, go back to beating up your female relatives," and Bale then says, "That's it, I'm outta here," it's not the lighting guy that is leaving himself wide open to masses of lawsuits -- it's Bale. The lighting guy might get slung off the production, but he will find other work easily enough, whereas Bale's name will be mud in Hollywood because he was too much of a gibbering, hysterical, eggshell-brained dickhead to be able to survive glimpsing a fellow human moving somewhere in his line of sight during a scene and not have a nervous breakdown.

I was reading the memoirs of Michael Deeley (producer of The Italian Job, Blade Runner and The Deer Hunter) over Christmas. Deeley wrote how, during the shooting of a biopic of Catherine the Great, he had major problems with Julia Ormond -- an actress who is now totally forgotten, but came fairly close to becoming a megastar in the mid-1990s. According to his version of events, Ormond repeatedly acted like an arsehole and picked fights with him and other members of the crew. He eventually stared her down, because he and she both knew that if she walked off the set, she would not get another decent leading role for at least a decade.

Bale is an actor who makes run-of-the-mill action movies for Hollywood. He isn't a fucking cancer surgeon, or a politician being interrupted in the middle of peace negotiations. He's also 35 years old and if this is all it takes for him to go berserk, he will die of a heart attack well before his 50th birthday.

[amp]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

Well I've only heard it once and I wanna go to bed so I'm not going to listen again right now but he's shouting at the DP (Director of Photography) who has messed with the lights.

Bale might storm off set but he'd be talked back round. And it was more like "either you leave this movie or I do" as I recall it. Sure if he did actually withdraw then he would leave himself open to the lawsuits but I don't believe that would ever happen. Maybe there are films where this has happened?

It's a fine line this prima donna shit. Up to a point it confirms your reputation. And *nobody* in Hollywood cares what you do as long as you're still making money. It's not a defense of Bale's behaviour but this does seem fairly tame stuff. Pissed off somebody on the production team enough for it to get leaked though!

I did see The Machinist. Average film but those early skinny scenes are awesome. He limited his diet to a tin of tuna and an apple a day for months or something. And Werner "it is an insignificant wound" Herzog, called him "the real deal" for biting into the live snake / maggots for that Japanese POW film recently

[Reed John]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

That was Rescue Dawn. It was about Vietnam.

[Guest]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

I would have thought it was the director or whoever's in charge of the set's responsibility to make sure nobody's doing anything distracting whilst filming's taking place.

Werner Herzog; now there's a guy who knows about on-set tantrums.

[ian.64]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

The Deeley book is good. Try to eat after reading about Deeley's unusual discovery in the gravy at a meal held in a nudist colony during a naturist film shoot in the early part of his career.

As for Bale's rant, well, it is spectacular, no doubt about it, but I sense that it was 20% genuine anger against 80% 'The Big I Am', a high-volume enjoyment of star-powered victimisation to test his A-List on-set superiority. It's only, what, four minutes long, but there's the feeling he could have made his genuine feelings known for a good minute instead of doing this empty bullshit. There's patches where I feel he's revelling in what feels like a really good monologue written by a Scorcese wannabe, and relishing that American accent as it curls around his gob.

It'd be interesting seeing Bale explain it all on the publicity junkets after the film's out.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

Yeah, great thread title.

[Bored Of Education]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

AS someone who has thrown real self-important toys-out-of-pram tantrums (regretted later) and seen lots of others do it, I was underwhelmed by that.

I expect that SR and the many other journos on here have seen much worse and maybe thrown much worse. Anyone onvilved with music, TV, film or publishing will have

On the other hand, I very rarely see doctors, nurses, teachers etc throw them. Well, until I become a teacher.

It is something to do with a niggling feeling that, underneath it all, you aren't doing something of much worth to the world.

The place where I worked where most pointless tantrums were thrown was an antique carpets magazine. I have never seen so much territorial pissing.

Bale knows he's been a twat there.

[ian.64]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

Meanwhile, the Beeb Apology Machine keeps a-grindin' on.

[Bored Of Education]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

The Today programme compared the tape of Bale with the tape of the pilot who landed the plane in the Hudson. Needless to say, Bale doesn't come out well

[wingco]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

Bale has now apologised profusely, it seems.

[Guest]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

There's a rumour going around that this whole thing is a stunt to drum up publicity for the film.

[Ek weet nie]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

The leaking of it might be but the rant seems real to me.

[West End Zuma]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

I don't think this was actor ego at all. If the DP was constantly walking around during takes then he should know better because, 1) It's unprofessional, and 2) it is distracting. Whether the actor's playing Hamlet or the Terminator is immaterial. It's basic set etiquette. The Director of Photography (who's also in charge of the lighting) is not a lowly peon, he's supposed to be a top professional, so if he got a cussing out it was probably justified. I'm with the actor on this one.

[Reed John]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

Yeah, my understanding is that points of professional etiquette that might seem minor in other settings are taken extremely seriously on film sets because every moment is so expensive and concentration is so important.

But Bale, by his own admission, really seems to go off the handle here. He could have just said "what the fuck are you doing?" He didn't need to threaten to kick his ass or quit the film.

[West End Zuma]

Christian Bale Wailsathon

Individuals react according to their temprament. His is volatile to begin with so I imagine it doesn't take much to set him off. Acting's an unusual business, you're evoking emotions for a living. Sometimes you walk a knife edge to make a character believable which puts you in a very vulnerable position. Some actors feel the stress of that more than others which can make you more reactive than usual. I guess I'm sympathetic because I've got a short fuse and low tolerance myself. I'll blow up and get in somebody's face but later feel like a shit for having done so.

Filmmaking is bloody hard. Long days, short tempers, multiple set-ups, retake after retake, action in all extremes of weather. So much to get right and so much that can go wrong--and does, it'll try the patience of a saint. Film sets are time bombs waiting to happen in my opinion.