Christian Bale : The Real Deal (and now remixed)
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
Days after it’s infection of EVERY MEDIA OUTLET IN EXISTENCE, you have likely heard Christian Bale’s profanity-laced excoriation of a cinematographer on the set of TERMINATOR: SALVATION (which actually occurred months ago). The short-attention-span, snarky, glass-housed web media (and the legions of geniuses who stoke the fires with their brilliant comments) have lept on the story, mostly with the slant that Bale is clearly the biggest ______ (fill in the blank; your choice) EVER. Many morons point to the tirade as signs of a ‘typical’ actor’s ego-fueled rant. I’m calling bullsh*t on all of this because what is lost among many of the knee-jerk dissections is the fact that a CINEMATOGRAPHER was involved. While some reports describe Bale’s vitriol as directed towards a “crew member,” implying that Bale was yelling at some 18-year-old assistant on his first day, this completely misconstrues the situation. The cinematographer (or DP- Director of Photography) is one of the most important technical positions and I can’t imagine how a DP could be so unfocused to screw up a take. Having personally been on set with Mr. Bale (albeit for one day) and having heard him discuss his craft at length on Charlie Rose, I believe him to be a devoted professional who should command similar focus from those working around him… anyway…
If you haven’t heard the tirade, NME.com has it along with a “mash-up”-type track from LA’s THE MAE SHI called “R U Professional” HERE