Actor Christian Bale since the 2000s began to slowly win the title of one of the highest paid artists in Hollywood. This person amazes the audience with his ability to transform. Still: he is continuously removed, starting from 12 years old. What is significant for his filmography the role in the film "The Engineer", and what sacrifices did the actor have to make for its performance?
Christian Bale: filmography and a brief biography
Christian Bale - a native of Great Britain - first hit the set at nine years old. True, then it was just shooting in advertising. Then the boy got the role of Tsarevich Alexei in the television drama: "Anastasia: The Enigma of Anna." A year later, Christian generally went to the shooting in Yalta, because he was approved for the role in Vladimir Grammatikov’s film “Myo, My Myo”.
Then Bale got into Steven Spielberg's “Empire of the Sun” - this was a great start for his career. Christian played in films with celebrities such as
Patricia Arquette, Nicole Kidman,
Gerard Depardieu , etc. But all these roles went unnoticed until the young man appeared in the form of a cleric John Preston in the film "Equilibrium".
"The Engineer" is a film in which Bale starred immediately after the "Equilibrium". For the sake of this role, Christian turned from an athlete into a gaunt and thin man. Both viewers and critics puzzled: how did he carry out this transformation in just a year? Christian Bale the driver conquered both the audience and the directors. Immediately after this work, the actor got a role in the action movie Christopher Nolan "Batman: The Beginning."
A brief plot of the film "The Engineer"
"The Machinist" is a film about a man who works as a lathe operator on a machine tool. An ordinary, not stressful profession, but Trevor Reznik for some reason completely and irrevocably lost the ability to sleep. Over time, insomnia completely brought the man to exhaustion: Trevor begins hallucinations, he periodically confuses reality with the world of illusions.
Over time, it turns out that guilt is the reason Christian Bale does not sleep. The driver once became involved in the death of a person, and since then it has tormented him. The main thing is not even that, by absurd chance, Trevor did, but that he disappeared from the scene of the crime, leaving the person to die.
In many details of the plot, you can find similarities with a whole series of Dostoevsky’s novels, such as Crime and Punishment, Double, Idiot. However, the director Brad Anderson did not hide his "borrowings", but directly pointed to them in the film. For example, in his free time, Reznik reads Dostoevsky’s book “Idiot”, in one of the tunnels the main character sees the inscription Crime and Punishment - “Crime and Punishment”.
Film crew
The director of the film "The Engineer" was an American Brad Anderson.
Prior to The Machinist, he was a regular director of the drama series The wiretap. It has already been mentioned that Anderson is well acquainted with Russian literature, in particular, with the legacy of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Subsequently, the director more than once gravitated to Russian motives. For example, in 2007 the crime film “Trans-Siberian Express” was released, the action in which is allegedly unfolding in Russia. In 2010, Anderson also shot the horror movie Disappearance on 7th Street with Hayden Christensen, and in 2014, The Abode of the Damned, starring
Kate Beckinsale .
The Machinist had to shoot the film in Spain, despite the fact that the action takes place in Los Angeles. Carlos Fernandez, a famous Spanish footballer, acted as a producer. The cameraman was found in Spain - it was Shavi Jiméness, who once shot the Agora directed by Alejandro Amenabar with Rachel Weisz in the title role.
Christian Bale: "The Engineer." Preparing for the lead role
In the story, the character of Christian Bale is exhausted by his insomnia. To achieve external resemblance to Trevor Reznik and to fully experience the state of exhaustion, Christian Bale made huge sacrifices. Changes in the weight of the actor are still considered a record for Hollywood: minus thirty-one kilograms.
Back in 2002, on the set of "Equilibrium" and "The Power of Fire," Bale weighed about 84 kg, his muscles were noticeably visible on his body. Exactly one year later, in the film “The Engineer”, the actor appeared dried up and skinny, without a hint of past athleticism. “I ate just one can of tuna and an apple a day,” Christian Bale shared his secret, the weight change of which was 31 kilograms for Hollywood.
In order not to break, the actor drank a little whiskey every evening. A little later, Bale admitted that he would no longer agree to such experiments. However, he still had to crank up something similar when, in 2010, for the shootings in the movie “The Fighter,” he again lost weight, but already by 20 kg.
It is noteworthy that after the “Engineer” Bale received a role in the “Batman” by Christopher Nolan, for which he re-gained weight and increased muscle mass to 86 kg.
Other cast members
However, not only Christian Bale starred in the film. "The Machinist" honored with its presence another American movie star - Jennifer Jason Lee.
The actress became famous for her role as Hadie Carlson in the thriller Lone White Woman. Also, the main role went to Jennifer in the eccentric comedy of the Cohen brothers “The Hadsaker's Hand” and in the adventure film “Existence” by David Cronenberg.
In addition, the Italo-Spanish actress Aytana Sanchez Gijon, known mainly to Spanish viewers, was involved in the film “The Engineer”.
Subsequent Christian Bale Projects
"The Engineer" is an independent film, and he did not play a special role in Christian Bale's Hollywood career. But thanks to the feat that the actor performed to shoot in this picture, he probably felt more confident at the screen tests in the picture "Batman". Still: only Batman will be able to carry out such manipulations with the body and remain at the same time in working form!
Christian Bale got the role of a superhero, and then played in many more wonderful films: Prestige, Fighter, Train to Yuma, etc.