An appreciation thread for Christian Bale

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I haven't found one so I created one.

The reason why Christian Bale deserves an appreciation thread is because of how he wielded his career into existence which was almost dead by early 2000s. He was the 10th or 15th actor on the list for any male leading role at that point behind matt damon, ben affleck, leo, johnny depp, brad pitt, tom cruise, josh hartnett, edward norton, mark wahlberg etc. He has a generic handsome male actor face like many leads in TV shows and that might be the biggest knock against him. Because if you look at many of his contemporaries that have better careers than he did upto that point, they are mostly blonde haired and blue eyed with few exceptions. Even his face is not exactly a glowing welcoming reassuring face like someone like Matt Damon. He has certain darkness in his face and that doesn't scream "everything is going to be alright" to audience. The quality of being able to generate empathy from audience is quintessential movie star quality. Without that you are not a movie star. I don't think bale has it 100 percent.

In a book written by Bale's former employee, it was stated that certain entertainment journalists even dubbed bale as a box office poison and that no one should work with him.
Imagine knowing that a negative smear campaign is going on to end your career when you are already down. It takes balls to overcome that. That is until The Machinist. Yes, Batman begins was first movie that gave him huge commercial success but it was machinist that is the perfect display of his character. That to me is his career defining performance. Because it is bale proving himself to himself. He was seeking a self satisfaction that he got with that movie. That alone earns my admiration. When push comes to shove he wanted to prove to himself that he got what it takes. I have not seen another actor maybe until Matthew Mcconaughey in Dallas buyers club that was able to overcome such insurmountable odds to achieve something that not even an iconic performance can do...which is to inspire people who can read into it.

Even to this day he is competing for roles with Matt Damon and Leonardo dicaprio with the latter two winning. But I think he found his groove in taking on extremely challenging characters that neither of them would even consider doing. I think he is better for it because the alternate would be to take roles left by them. Which more or less won't be good. But if you make a movie about dick cheney, there is no way they would dare take on the role. So he can say with certainty that it is not a role passed by them. That's what makes him deserving of appreciation. I don't know any other actor who is doing what he is doing in such interesting and admirable way.



It's bad enough all these threads always end up being about the same two or three things (albeit with some window dressing to make them seem superficially different), but this one is basically identical, from the start, from something you posted less than a year ago. And that one contained all the usual unexamined assumptions that, once questioned, was quickly abandoned without seeing the discussion through. Rinse and repeat.

If you actually wanna discuss this stuff, you can reply there, or in all the other threads where similar questions are waiting about your unwarranted assumptions about public figures. But you can't just keep trying to reboot the discussion whenever those pesky questions come in.

Thread closed.