He is the Dark Knight - He is professional

With a tip of the hat to my friend Keith Uhlich at The House Next Door, comes the next song in the Christian Bale saga.

Devin Faraci at Chud has written an interesting piece on how Christian Bale can get out of this “Bale Out” mess. He mentions that Bale should take the Tom Cruise route, and make fun of himself. While I generally agree, it should be noted that the place where Tom Cruise found himself after jumping the sofa/shouting at Matt Lauer/channelling Xenu came in the wake of a twenty or so year career as a bona fide movie star. As Devin says, Bale is not a star, and he can’t “open” a film, though his decision to shoulder reimaginings of, not one, but two fanboy-favourites seem to belie his I-am-a-thespian-and-I-care-only-for-my-craft-general-moroseness. I just don’t think it will be as easy for him to come out of this mess. Look at Cruise – he is nowhere near the star he used to be five years ago, and that’s after the kind of damage control reserved for high-ranking politicians, not star actors, from whom the public expects a certain amount of diva behaviour. Besides, Tom Cruise has a much more likeable persona (and is an infinitely more talented actor than Bale – until the latter proves otherwise by showing us he has the ability to smile).
Anyway, the best thing for Christian Bale’s people to do right now is to get on the phone with the producers of this year’s Oscar broadcast, Bill Condon and Laurence Mark, and get him a gig as a presenter at the Oscar ceremony. He could get up to present a minor award with Kevin James, who’d then “fuck up,” to which Bale would “react,” mimicking his Bale-out performance. It would be a YouTube moment, and it would show the world that the actor can laugh at himself. Lots of LOL’s and ROFLMAO’s. Everyone’s happy.

You’re quite welcome, Christian.

Handbag!

“It’s my art. You are ruining my process!”

Christian Bale doesn’t utter those particular words, but he might as well have. By now, the recording of Christian Bale’s previously reported nutsoooo moment on the set of the new Terminator film(titled Terminator 4: Seriously?) has made the rounds on the interwebs for a good day, and most have had a chance to listen to Bale’s juvenile hissy fit as he makes the case for having the worst reputation of any actor in the industry by, first, cursing, and then, at one point, seemingly trying to physically assault, the movie’s DP, Shane Hurlbut. (And what’s going on with his accent, by the way, as his vowels do the tango through America, Wales and The East End?)

TMZ, which broke the original news and posted the recording, fills in the details:

“It happened on the set after a director of photography accidentally ruined a scene by walking onto the set. Bale lost it, screaming, yelling and threatening to quit if the bosses didn't fire the dude.

Film execs sent the tape to the insurance company that insured the film in case Bale bailed.”

It should be noted that if you listen to the file, it doesn’t actually sound like Shane Hurlbut walked into the set, but, instead, like he didn’t realise the cameras were still rolling, and proceeded to do his job, unaware that he was in Bale’s eyeline.

It is crucial, during a shoot, for an actor to be able to stay in the scene, and any distraction in their eye line, might rip them out of it. That’s funny because a sudden divertissement that destroys concentration is an ailment that is particular only to superstar actors. The rest of us mere mortals are such bastions of single-minded centralisation that we never, EVER, get distracted.

And of course if we did, we, too, would do like Antonioni and BLOW UP!

This is what I do not understand. A celebrity fit making the rounds is the kind of info nugget that usually invades my conscience but for a few minutes; however, reading some of the commentary (over at the Chud boards, for example, or Nathaniel’s excellent blog The Film Experience), I have come across a group of people who are, bizarrely, apologising for Bale’s petulance. Their central thesis is that acting is his lifeline, that Bale is an intense performer, and that all is fair in the pursuit of his craft.

These would all be valid were one able to transfer them to any other vocation save acting. You wouldn’t care that chopping meat was his only lifeline if you found yourself at the other end of a butcher’s spit-filled diatribe. You wouldn’t forgive an intense baker if he rocketed insults at you like a demented chimpanzee hurls its bowel movements. And you wouldn’t tolerate a candle-stick maker if he decided to use your most colloquial orifice as a snuffer.

Another reason to defend Bale seems to be the apparent clumsiness of the DP. In the file, Bale bitches about how this is the second time that he has ventured into the great thespian’s eyeline, and, like I said, that is one of the big no-no’s that Hurlbut should know better to avoid. That’s still no excuse to act like Nathan Lane’s Albert from The Birdcage – not everything can always go according to plan. People make mistakes. We all make mistakes. In fact, one of the unintentionally hilarious moments in the tape comes halfway through when Bale yells how unprofessional this is. For once, he’s right.

One of the crucial things when it comes to enjoying a piece of art is to dissociate one’s self from the artist, and enjoy the art itself. Your Christian Bales, your Ed Nortons, your David O. Russells make that very difficult indeed.

“Oh, but he’s so stressed!” Join the club, bitch.

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UPDATE: /Film has just posted a very funny parody of the whole thing courtesy of jedibff.

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UPDATE 2: This is awesome beyond measure. Hattip to John Lichman, who helpfully points out that the track is from the producer of RuPaul's new album.

Why meme?

I like memes, and not just because the word meme means breast in Turkish. Peter Nellhaus at Coffee, Coffee, and More Coffee, one of the great blogs out there, posted one recently, which piqued my interest. The rules are simple:

1) Pick up the nearest book.
2) Open to page 123.
3) Locate the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing…
5) Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

The nearest book around me is Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass, the final part of the His Dark Materials trilogy. I read it about six months ago, but it’s just been sitting here on my desk, waiting to be returned to its owner (thanks, JC – ironic that the person who lent me this atheistic fable shares his initials with Hay-zeus). I am a fan of the book’s ideas – the parallel evolution angle has been justly celebrated, and the story is a fine latter-day homage to Paradise Lost. But I find the final book lacking in drama, which is usurped, instead, by the subtext. I see what Pullman’s getting at, I appreciate the world(s) he’s created, but I just don’t feel any immediacy to the two main characters. Pullman’s affinity for dangling modifiers, and needlessly complicated imagery of the locales (his descriptions of the Citagazze seafront in the second book are all over the place) don’t help matters, either.

But enough of my yakkin’ – let’s boogie:

“So each side was aware that the other was also making its way towards the cave in the mountains. And they both knew that whoever got there first would have the advantage, but there wasn’t much in it: Lord Asriel’s gyropters were faster than the zeppelins of the Consistorial Court, but they had further to fly, and they were limited by the speed of their own zeppelin tanker.

And there was another consideration: whoever seized Lyra first would have to fight their way out against the other force.”

Steampunktastic.

And, finally, tag you very much:

Jonathan Lapper’s CinemaStyles
Dennis Cozzalio’s Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule
Kevin J Olson’s Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies
Girish
Zach Campbell’s Elusive Lucidity