The Dark Knight Rises
The Dark Knight Rises is a Christopher Nolan movie and so it’s very well made, structurally sharp, intelligent and takes the time to actually say something interesting. But there’s very little emotion in it.
Tag: Christian Bale
Christian Bale| Bring on the Knight
In a quiet restaurant in Los Angeles, Christian Bale takes a sip of carrot juice as he tries to make sense of the gigantic billboards for The Dark Knight Rises on either end of the street outside. “It’s just begun, hasn’t it?” says the English actor, 38, sporting scruff and looking gym-ready in shorts and an athletic shirt. He uses the word monster a lot when talking about Batman, both in terms of the character and the marketing machine that’s about to bring his last stint as the Caped Crusader to the world. “These movies always start as small affairs, […]
Christian Bale May Kill Someone Yet
When a rage for authenticity meets a workingman’s attitude, you get this guy. An actor of great dimension — just don’t call him that. And he’ll probably win some big award for his role in The Fighter, but don’t dare tell him that. A funny and sometimes testy encounter with Mr. Bale. Christian Bale comes to the bar looking much more scruffy and handsome — charming, rakish, ne’er-do-well, with a piratical mustache and goatee — than he ever lets himself look in movies. His English accent hits a sweet spot on the higher edge of working class, with a hint […]
A Nice Quiet Chat with Christian Bale
He slips into the room without fanfare. He walks slowly, on his heels, toward the terrace. When I stand, he points at me, or my table, or my general area still without turning to look at me, his eyes fixed on the terrace in front of him – and in his low English accent asks, “We doin’ this here or what?” Christian Bale detests interviews, on the predictable grounds that his offscreen life is nobody’s business, but also because he thinks the whole enterprise of movie-star “journalism” is corrosive to acting and storytelling. This opener “here or what?” is less […]
Terminator Salvation
The interesting thing about Terminator Salvation is that it really wasn’t John Connor’s movie. Christian Bale was a great John Connor. He was strong and focused and interesting. There was
Christian Bale| Behind The Mask
Jonathan Heaf: Let’s begin with The Dark Knight – the second instalment of the reinvigorated Batman franchise. What can you tell me about it?Christian Bale: This time around, Chris [Nolan, the film’s director] and I were allowed to spread our creative wings a little more. Before we were involved, the Batman franchise had gone to pot – everyone knows that. And to be honest, when we took it on, it was a big gamble; an awful lot of people thought we were destined for failure. This time around, as Batman Begins was such a success, the studio wasn’t so cautious […]
Dark Knight
This will probably be the least eloquent review of mine. Because I sort of don’t know what to say. It’s darker than what you expect, whatever you expect. I mean, yeah, if you’ve seen Memento
Christian Bale| Batman Unmasked
The Welsh actor opens up about being the Dark Knight, never having a plan B, and always swimming against the current. At the end of a warm spring day, as rays of amber sunlight flash off the ocean, Christian Bale arrives at a bar in Santa Monica. He’s wearing a baggy blue shirt, untucked, khaki pants, and New Balance sneakers. A black baseball cap is pulled low over his eyes, and the beginnings of a beard bristle along his jaw. He attracts little attention. Apparently, despite having recently starred in a series of successful movies—including 3:10 to Yuma, The Prestige, […]
Christian Rocks
Even in a career in which you’ve demonstrated an amazing ability to pull off accents, the one you do for Dieter in Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn is kind of a tour de force: the speech of a man born in Germany who came of age in America, as delivered by an actor born in Wales.The Germans I was working with told me that people from the Black Forest have a slightly strange accent, even for Germans, and beyond that Dieter had a very exaggerated way of speaking. In Werner’s 1997 documentary about him, you see clips from when he’s younger; […]
The Prestige
The Prestige is an incredibly smart and intriguing film; very well made. It’s kind of like a magic trick because it tells you exactly what it’s going to do and then you’re still surprised and fascinated when it does it. Which is just masterful, to craft a film about magic that effects you like a magic trick. How cool is that?