By Jamie Graham, Total Film, March , 2005
How Spanish dosh and Christian Bale's staggering commitment to his role turned mental thriller The Machinist into the talk of Tinseltown ...
What a difference a couple of years can make. Rewind to early 2003, and director Brad Anderson (Next Stop Wonderland) - was a relative nobody clutching a gloomy script written by Scott Kosar (who'd penned The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake). Written "from the gut" as Kosar grieved for his mother, The Machinist told the strange, unremittingly bleak tale of an emaciated lathe-operator suffering from crippling insomnia, his disintegrating mind filled with the clanging bells of grief, guilt and paranoia. Not surprisingly, Anderson's pitch to put Kosar's tricky tale on film was met with blank eyes and empty wallets.
It would have taken a brave man to predict that Anderson would even get this existential thriller made, let alone turn in a movie that would floor festival audiences and signpost the 40-year-old helmer as One To Watch. But that's exactly what happened, Anderson hoofing it to Barcelona to shoot The Machinist — El Maquinista to the locals on a fistful of pesetas with a Spanish crew. He emerged from a hazardous shoot clutching a moody thriller of rare power. It has a hook, if you're after, one — factory worker Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) begins to receive cryptic, threatening notes but it's really a mood piece. Stark, oppressive, desaturated visuals convey Trevor's terrible exhaustion; a haunting, melancholic, anxious score captures his fractured mindset.
"I was reading about insomnia and it turns out that people who can't sleep start seeing the world monochromatically," drawls Anderson, his bulky frame squeezed into an alarmingly petite armchair. "Their brains kinda lose colour so I wanted my movie to be gun-metal grey." And Spanish composer Roque Banos's (Sexy Beast) score? "It's modelled on Bernard Herrmann's work for Hitchcock. I could have gone for a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack and MTV editing, David Fincher style, but that would have been a different movie. I wanted something lush, something old school."
Hollywood didn't agree, scared off by Kosar's austere influences (Polanksi, Lynch, Kafka, Dostoyevsky) and Anderson's determination to shoot the movie "like a German Expressionist film — severe angles and shadows, no colour." Enter the Filmax Group, a leading Spanish production company with a reputation for being ballsy (they've also funded Jaume Balaguero's international horror hits Darkness and The Nameless).
"The Machinist's strong point is its dark atmosphere,"says Filmax chairman Julio Fernandez. "It draws you into the film from the very beginning." He does concede, however, thai his financial support came with cast-iron conditions. "We wanted the presence of a great Spanish actress such as Aitana Sanchez-Gijon," he admits, referring to the raven-haired actress whose ethereal waitress catches Trevor's bleary eye in a (skewed) romantic sub-plot. "She was very important to the film."
Anderson had no quibbles casting a Spaniard in a lead role, arguing it adds
to the movie's "timeless, otherwordly" atmosphere. It was getting
Barcelona to double for LA that caused the real migraines: "It was the
little things like licence plates and road signs, you know?" he sighs.
"It was tough."
The problems didn't end there, either. Shooting for 40 days in 104-degree heat,
the director had pause for thought (literally) when cast and crew started passing
out. Anderson himself ended up flat on his back, directing from a gurney after
slipping a disc. Yet through it all, one person remained impervious to heat
or injury — Christian Bale, whose skeletal body was seemingly indestructible
having survived losing 63 pounds in two months.
"Christian and I never discussed the weight," says Anderson, perching his size 12s on the edge of a coffee table. "It was clear he'd have to lose a few pounds — the script described Trevor as a'walking skeleton' — but I assumed we'd do most of it with baggy clothes, make-up and camera angles. When he turned up in Barcelona I was shocked and appalled." A mischievous glint sparks behind Anderson's specs." I was also kinda thrilled."
Bale shakes his head when Anderson's comments are relayed to him. "Brad knows that losing a little weight wouldn't have cut it," he grins. "Trevor had to look like he was on the brink of death." He laughs, realising the absurdity of what he's about to say. "Thing is, I enjoyed the fasting! It gave me clarity of mind and allowed me to become very still, mentally and physically. I wasn't distracted by nervous energy. I was a ghost, never awake or asleep. It was good for the part." And that, of course, is what it's all about. Bale's extraordinary transformation may I have benefited The Machinist by attracting extra column inches ("Roll up and see the "freakshow!"), but the actor's abstinence was I only about feeding the role to nourish the film. It worked, too, his sickly lethargy adding to the movie's clammy atmosphere.
"I just hope The Machinist does good business," says Anderson with a tentative smile. "It's a small movie and I'd like to be able to move to the next level... I'm actually working on a musical, but that's a different ball of wax."
The Machinist is released on 11 March and reviewed on page 42.