Tuesday, February 3, 2009

My thoughts on Christian Bale's breakdown

Okay, all I know is that Bale was in the middle of a shot, and supposedly the D.P. - who was not in the shot - started fiddling with one of the lights behind him. Bale then unleashes a verbal tirade. And of course now it's heard all over the internet. Who's wrong in this situation? I'm sorry, but the D.P. is wrong.

Why would you be fiddling or even looking at lights DURING A SHOT unless you were going for some sort of effect (which apparently wasn't the case)?? People are calling Bale a diva but do you know how difficult it is to get into character for an intense scene after you've been waiting around for 2 hours for them to set everything up? It's really fucking hard. The idea is you create an environment that gives your actors the best opportunity to give a great performance. A.D.D. perfectionist D.P.s roaming around the back of a shot while film is rolling is a fucking amateur thing to do. The D.P. is retarded if he doesn't know this. And to be honest, he does sound a little autistic.

I'm not saying Bale doesn't have anger issues. But anyone who's been on a film set knows they're pressure cookers. You're always racing against the clock. Thousands of dollars are being spent for every minute that goes by. Half the time you're doing something that nobody's ever done before and that nobody knows how to do. It's intense. And I can see someone cracking when Jeff the Retard D.P. just has to check his scrim to make sure it's fastened correctly.

This does not hurt Terminator at all though. Terminator is a badass franchise. So if one of the actors in the film does something badass, well then good. It's a fucking Terminator film. That's how it should be.

As a side note, this totally changes the game. Between this and the infamous David O. Russel breakdown, true divas are going to be a lot more careful with how they treat people on set. And ultimately that will be a good thing.