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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Christian Bale goes off on DP

Jeff Kilgroe said:
As for the DP, I'm impressed he took it. I don't think I could've stood there and let someone yell at me like that. Don't care who they are. I suppose I could take some abuse if I knew that I screwed up, but this guy takes a load.
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I don't think the DP took it very well. Had he screamed back, things might have escalated- I wouldn't want to brawl with that fellow. Had he not try to defend himself at that moment, perhaps the situation might have diffused a bit quicker. I guess it's a mixture of embarrassment and pride trying to retain some dignity as someone rips a new one at you.
 
My note is that, like others have said, we don't know whats going on. We know it sounds bad but, who knows. Bale is a method actor, and thats a fair amount different than any typical actor. I can tell you this, he's not a bad guy, but perhaps easy to upset if he feels disrespected. Again, its point of view, we don't know what happened. That being said, I am greatly disappointed that such a thing was allowed to be leaked, to be honest this could lead to a huge law suit as well as blacklisting of those if found out that leaked if law suits win, but as I expect this is not worth Bales time. Same old words...sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
 
I just heard the Christian Bale meltdown.

Bad all the way around.

Did he over react? Oh yeah. Like you guys have already covered, the scene and the emotions and conditions were unknown to us. What no one has mentioned is, "why is it up the actor to tell someone to not walk around while shooting?" From the audio, he is supposed to be taking the scene with Bryce (?) and the DP comes walking up behind her.

Seriously? That was covered in the first week of film school. Don't make eyecontact with the talent going into a scene. Don't move as you can draw their attention and ruin a take. The guy was wrong. Now, where was the 1st AD or Director to tell the guy to sit down? Why are people letting someone who isn't in the shot walk around during the take?

Then instead of "taking it" like someone said above, the DP was trying to defend himself. Which only served to wind Christian up even more. The guy was wrong but didn't want to admit it and accept looking like an idiot so he tried to justify what he was doing.

Then the "Bruce" comes up to Christian to tell him to calm down? It makes him feel like he is the one in the wrong for being angry. So he gets even MORE ANGRY! Had the Director or 1st AD stepped in and began reprimanding the DP, Christian would have felt others were on his side. Then someone could have calmed him down easier.

Instead they let the DP keep talking until Christian threatens to "kick your @$$".

Bad all the way around.
 
Sean said:
We don't know what kind of scene Bale was in the middle of performing when the DP strolled into his eyeline. It might have been an extremely emotional, angry, frustrating scene. You want good performances? Guess what, the actor does have to "go there." They're not working at a bank. They're not accountants. If you want to cast accountants in your film, then prepare for the reality that no one will watch the result. So maybe Bale was there emotionally, and the DP got in Bale's face. I don't know if Bale is a jerk in the rest of his life. But you have to accept that the best actors keep their emotions very close to the surface. And a DP who wanders around the set in the actor's eyeline during an emotional scene should not be a DP on a dramatic film. He should stick to car commercials. If what Bale says is true, then the DP doesn't care about the scene or the actor's craft, just as Bale states. Yes, Bale went overboard. But he might have been correct. And, well, I'll say it again...he's an actor for gosh sakes. Maybe Bale's an evil egomaniac (weren't his family members trying to intervene in his life a while back?). Or maybe he is trying to do a highly artistic job with huge expectations and a ton of pressure.
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I tend to side with you (and Bale) if this is actually what happened.
 
Woah...and the DP sounds like such a mellow guy too :sad:...but he keeps saying things back!! Admittedly after a lot of provocation!! (that's when Bale really loses it, sounds like he's physically held back, threatens to kick his ass, get him sacked etc). I think the DP should have been extricated from this car crash straight away while Bale was left to vent on set - it would've been over a lot quicker!

Obviously it's a major no-no to continually walk into any actor's eyeline during a take, let alone a major star who's also a) tired b) a method actor c) trying to film the most emotional scene in the film (according to the 1st AD). BUT no-one deserves that kind of a rant! It's also interesting to note that Bale was accused of assaulting his mother and sister a few days after this incident :umm:

I think Bale should definitely work with David O. Russell next:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Qls1rAfYs
 
Nice to hear what everyone thinks here..
Hearing it for the first time I just figured the DP was disrepecting & ignoring Bale's craft and on the face of it I would have taken it as an insult by the DP.
Who knows what the back story was.
And sure Bale was being a complete arse but that was probably the only way he knew or felt right expressing himself.
Public humilation ain't my thing but if it was indeed disrepect, who wouldn't have felt like taking the DP out, albeit privately.
D
 
I like it how he stays in character the whole time during his rant...now that's what I call method!! Although you can hear the British accent struggling to break through at points (probably best not to have pointed this out at the time :ohmy:)
 
It's funny. You see DP's getting stressed out all the time - like there's some kind of magic in their head that requires solitude to come to the surface yet. Some (I'm sure no one here) of them have absolutely no respect for actors. The irony here is that the only way that film got funding was because of Bale (McG acknowledges this in a recent interview). If someone continues to show no respect for your process then what can you do? The most appropriate would have been to make it private. Bale went public - and now he looks like a putz. But that doesn't excuse the DP - this all assumes what the DP was doing was actually distracting. What confounds me is where was McG? Director's set the tone. He should have stepped up and diffused this right away. Maybe he was in a meeting with Britney. My two cents.
 
Well, I look at it like this...in the end, the actors are the reason were on set with all our expensive toys. Everyone has a time to get their work done, and then needs to get the hell out of the way.

Things I did like about his rant:
1: He tried to explain what was wrong.
2: He didn't walk away from it. He wanted to try to keep working
3: He made some good points about the appropiate working times.

Things I didn't like:
1: Language. Not very professional, but sometimes we all slip and it slips out.
2: Threatening to walk off the job. Again...not the best way to handle the moment, and I hate it when anyone...ANYONE...makes that assinine threat.

I listened to it, and really didn't think it was so outrageous. A little over the top, sure, but not the extent that this needed to leaked out to the tabliods. It hurts everyone, the actors and the DP.
 
Typical example of another actor's 'God-Complex".

Method actor or not.....IT'S JUST A MOVIE!!!!!!!!

I can see the anger for ruining the scene, but to continue on like that, and then THREATEN to kick the DP's ass? In front of hundreds of witnesses???

I would have laid Bale out on his ass.....on the spot. No question about it.
 
There's no question that the behavior was unprofessional, but that's pretty much irrelevant. Stable, well-balanced people are rarely high achievers in the dramatic or narrative arts -- especially after 16 hours on the set. The kind of professionalism some are demanding here would probably kill movies altogether. Actors in particular work under stresses incomprehensible to most of us.

It's also part of the casting process -- if the director isn't prepared to work with a volatile actor, he shouldn't cast that actor. If he wants those explosive qualities, he's got to be prepared to deal with it when the camera isn't rolling.

Where it's truly insufferable is when it comes from folks, including directors, who don't possess the talent to justify the tantrum, and over nonsense which has nothing to do with making the movie.

But as Sean noted, if you want to work with people who have the temperaments of accountants, the movie business probably isn't the best choice....
 
Interesting hearing your all's views. I think what I take issue with is that it wasn't Bale's job to chew the DP, even if the DP did disturb him. A professional would have been private about it and not going off in front of the entire crew. What I don't like is that McG OR the producer didn't step in and tell Bale that he is not running the show. Actors get like this because they think they are god and can do whatever they want (which happens with directors also.) It's all about being professional. People make mistakes when they get tired and patience needs to go up as the shoot day goes on.

Personally, I don't know how someone adjusting a light could be any more distracting than all the lights, the amount of people already on set, a moving dolly, moving jib arm, etc. But I'm really good at tuning everything out when I focused.

Matthew
 
I think the DP was just trying to make Bale look good. I mean, that's his job. If that had been the second time, maybe it was the DP's method! heh

Bale over reacts. He has no right to treat anyone, not his mother, his sister or the DP like that. I would have expected the director to handle the situation better, I mean, he should be the one pulling the strings and mostly interested that the group of people he gathered for making a movie would trust each other and make the best out of it. Moviemaking above all should be lots of fun, although within carries a lot of stress.
 
jpp said:
Actors in particular work under stresses incomprehensible to most of us.
QUOTE]

He gets paid how much? Before you make the mistake of putting finger to keyboard again maybe you should get some perspective?

I don't care what kind of "stress" you call an actors life - he isn't a Doctor in Gaza, an Air Traffic Controller, a Prime Minister, a Nurse, or anything else that could be considered "stressful". For goodness sake, his job doesn't even really matter in the grand scheme of everything.

Every weekend I see Premier League soccer players on TV shouting and swearing at eachother on the pitch whilst getting up to £120K a week.

There is no excuse for anyone with such a luxurious lifestyle to fly off the handle like that. Don't give us that "artists are temperamental" stuff as an excuse - the world would still turn on its axis just as well if Andy Warhol hadn't had focused a camera on the Empire State Building for 8 hours or whatever.
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Digital Upstart said:
He gets paid how much? Before you make the mistake of putting finger to keyboard again maybe you should get some perspective?
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It's not a question of approving of the behavior. If you have no tolerance for the kind of thing described, then you really don't want to work in the arts. It's that simple. Because you're going to get it whether you like it or not, and whether it's right or not.

Digital Upstart said:
I don't care what kind of "stress" you call an actors life - he isn't a Doctor in Gaza, an Air Traffic Controller, a Prime Minister, a Nurse, or anything else that could be considered "stressful". For goodness sake, his job doesn't even really matter in the grand scheme of everything.
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If we're going to make these kinds of comparisons, then everything is nonsense, for not being a matter of life and death. Why then even comment on Christian Bale's temper tantrum? Who cares?

Digital Upstart said:
Don't give us that "artists are temperamental" stuff as an excuse -
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I didn't say it was good or attractive, but rather that it's inevitable. If you can't accept that fact, don't work in the arts. It's not as if anyone's forcing you.
 
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