The Machinist (2004) – Brad Anderson (Friday’s Finest)

The Machinist was Christian Bale’s break-out movie as an actor. He deserves all the plaudits for his dedication here, not just because of his preparation having lost 62 pounds (28 kg) for the role, but his chameleon-like envelopment of the protagonist is exemplary of character-acting. You could be forgiven for forgetting you are witnessing one of the most current recognisable stars being born. He was paid just $250,000 for his role here. Not unlike his unforgettable character portrayal in The Fighter (where he won his first Oscar), The Machinist enables Bale to strut his stuff and he does so precariously, but convincingly on a knife’s edge.

Storyline:
Trevor Reznik is a lathe-operator who suffers from insomnia and hasn’t slept in a year. Slowly, he begins to doubt his sanity as increasingly bizarre things start happening at work and at home. Haunted by a deformed co-worker who no one seems to think exists, and an ongoing stream of indecipherable Post-It notes he keeps finding on his fridge, he attempts to investigate what appears to be a mysterious plot against him and, in the process, embroils two women in his madness.

The Machinist is a taut, but highly intense psychological thriller that I have seen several times. The Machinist warrants revisiting like David Fincher’s Fight Club because there are many cues about the protagonist’s fate and mental state as the plot unfolds that most viewers would not be conscious of from a single viewing. What I find so evocative and surreal about his psychological unravelling is beneath it all there is an underpinning ‘Logos‘ – ‘a divine animated pervading force’ which resonates deep within his pathology which is giving him in incremental clues on how he can achieve a sense of reality and identify with who he really is. I think that is the same for all of us if we are willing to succumb to its teachings for the betterment of ourselves. The twist is magnificent and one for the ages.

The Machinist was well received by critics, with praise for Bale’s performance, and grossed $8.2 million on a $5 million budget. In later years it has gained a cult status. The music soundtrack is a straight-up homenaje to that found in Hitchcock. Despite the movie’s setting in California, the film was shot in its entirety in and around Barcelona, Spain. Christian Bale strenuously dieted for over four months prior to filming, as his character needed to look drastically thin. According to a biography of Bale written by his former assistant, this daily diet consisted of “water, an apple and one cup of coffee per day, with the occasional whiskey” (approximately 55–260 calories). At the end of filming he was left with just six weeks to regain enough mass to be ready for the screen test for his role in Batman Begins, which he achieved through weightlifting and binging on pizzas and ice cream.

The strongest literary influence is the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky whose works have featured in this blog multiple times. In the DVD commentary, writer Scott Kosar states that he was influenced by Dostoyevsky’s novel The Double.

References:
1. The Machinist – IMDB
2. The Machinist – Wikipedia

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“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand