During the Renaissance, works depicted the perfect version of man, thereby most paintings and sculptures having exquisitely sculpted individuals. Even Michelangelo, for this reason, and to get the best from his work, took special care to only recruit bodybuilders as models. The idea of the perfect man has been evolving since time immemorial and is just a reflection of the values of the current society. The cinematic medium has largely taken over frescoes and sculptures as a storytelling medium, and though the consideration of a different art form has been acknowledged, the moving image is one of the primary sources of reflective thought of this age.
The actors are the bodybuilders, and directors the artist sculpting thought frame by frame. If Michelangelo ever made a movie, it would star Christian Bale in the principal role. The new-age Renaissance model is versatile and charismatic, shapeshifting into any character. This has been Christian Bale’s acting mode, with a filmography covering a gamut of scale and performances – from operatic productions like Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Prestige, and The Promise, to more independent films like The Machinist and Out of the Furnace. His career marks multiple fruitful collaborations with directors, including Christopher Nolan, Scott Cooper, and David O. Russell.
Listing out a rundown of the best performances is a difficult task, and more so in the case of Christian Bale. A lot of the actor’s performances are extremely layered, with the roles playing out to a larger purpose in each film. I would recommend the reader to take the numbers with a pinch of salt, and instead try to focus on how the actor has been an integral part to the cinematic process in each case, and how the roles in each title add up to make him one of the most prolific actors of our generation.
10. Equilibrium (2002)
Equilibrium is a superbly fun watch. The film is a spec-fic-styled tale that takes place in Libria, a totalitarian city-state founded by World War III survivors. The film follows John Preston (Bale), an enforcement officer required to suppress and arrest citizens with feelings and artistic expression. The gun-kata or gun-fu sequences are incredible, and the over-the-top cinematography adds to the wackiness of the film.
Bale incorporates himself into Preston and into the tonality of the film like a deadly virus catching onto the DNA machinery of the host cell. It is baffling to see how Bale executes Preston with suave and ease. In a post-Bruce Lee world, films like Equilibrium which morph stylistic action with technology and engineering are a satiating watch, especially when done well. Here is #10 in the list of best Christian Bale movie performances.
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9. The Machinist (2004)
The Machinist is a film where the coffee seems blacker and the people paler than usual. The film is about Trevor Reznik (Bale), who is going through a series of psychological problems and insomnia. Reznik gets numerous cryptic messages which lead him to question reality, with things seeming to appear not the way they are.
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The film offers Bale space to build Reznik, and by the halfway mark, we are with Reznik, and feeling his mind. Director Brad Anderson creates a maze which we wind through together, and accompanied with Bale’s transformation frame by frame, The Machinist proves to be a psychological thriller which doesn’t hide anything from its viewer, and one of those rare gems where we are taken together in the protagonist’s discovery. Here is #9 in the list of best Christian Bale movie performances.
8. Empire of the Sun (1987)
J.G. Ballard’s semi-autobiographical novel talks about his life as a teenager in a Japanese internment camp in World War II. Ballard identified Christian Bale to resemble him at that age and was majorly responsible for casting him as Jim. There is a Criterion clip of Jean-Pierre Léaud’s audition for the role of the young boy in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959), which more than being an audition for the role of Antoine Doinel, really showcases the oozing charisma and enthusiasm of the teenager. Much of Bale’s performance is remindful of Léaud at 14, and within Spielberg’s epic, he brings a certain calm in his performance that transcends the martial madness which runs on the screen.
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When broken down, ‘Empire of the Sun’ is about hope and endurance, common to other movies in the genre – Life is Beautiful (1997) and Schindler’s List (1993) amongst others. The ability to convey this boils down to characterization and character arc. The movements tapping into the emotional bank are derived from the actor and is a scrutable test of his mettle. This is a definitive watch for anyone wanting to trace back Bale’s roots.
7. The Big Short (2015)
Man in a t-shirt and shorts, bare-footed, in a cubicle office with a regular desk, working on a monitor with stock charts and excel sheets. It’s brilliant how Adam McKay and Christian Bale put together sequences that culminate into something which is exactly the opposite of monotony in this case. There are no bizarre graphics with gazillion digits bouncing around like Tetris, no wild investment banker lifestyle scenes, yet Bale pulls off one of the most interesting on-screen hedge fund managers in film history.
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There are very few characters whose decisions can be fully rationalized on-screen, and this is one of them. In a movie about the sub-prime mortgage crisis, Bale plays hedge fund manager Dr. Michael Burry, who is amongst the first to research and acknowledge the doom which awaits America’s economy. Bale’s character is superbly supported with snippets of information sprinkled around in the scene, from Metallica’s Master of Puppets playing in the background to his t-shirt with equations of conic sections. Accentuated with these details, Dr. Burry is brilliant to watch, and The Big Short is one of the films where the environment multiplies Bale’s enjoyable performance.
6. Rescue Dawn (2006)
If there was a list of actors to be the most watchable actors reprising roles of soldiers, Christian Bale would be up there on the list. Werner Herzog’s war epic is about Lt. Dieter Dengler (Bale), who gets shot down and captured by a Laotian communist organization during a combat mission.
Rescue Dawn reinforces ideas of bleakness and destituteness in war, remindful of The Thin Red Line (1998) and Full Metal Jacket (1987). In a scene where Lt. Dengler is trying to escape the internment camp, multiple tracking shots focus on Bale, and at these moments, Bale’s goosebump-inducing eyes cite fear and a fervency to survive. The first-person-shooter-esque nature of Bale at the center of every frame makes Bale the focal point for what the film stands for. It is worthy binge to watch all of Bale’s war characterizations, and Rescue Dawn will be a perfect next after Empire of the Sun (1987). Here is #6 in the list of best Christian Bale movie performances.
5. The Prestige (2006)
In addition to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999), The Prestige is one of Christian Bale’s most theatrically inspired performances, partly because of Christopher Nolan’s blocking and the film’s gestural sensibilities – with characters emoting through language, body, and setting. The film follows two magicians, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale), who start-off as apprentice magicians, and have their blossoming careers. Slowly, what one could call now as the IP on tricks gets the better of Angier, who is unable to replicate Borden’s tricks, and takes to bitter measures to outsmart him.
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Quite literally, a tale of magic is effective in outsmarting most of the audience, convinced by a plethora of incredible performances supporting Jonathan and Christopher Nolan’s excellent writing. The Prestige is a case in point of how Bale’s character adds to the already high-caliber cast, and the synergy metamorphosizing this magician psychological thriller into a wonderfully engaging experience. If you haven’t seen The Prestige, starting here before watching Bale’s newer performances would be the best way to understand how an actor aspires towards a larger cinematic purpose. Here is #5 in the list of best Christian Bale movie performances.
4. American Psycho (2000)
Mary Harron’s cinematic adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s book of the same name follows a New York investment banker Patrick Bateman (Bale) who lives through vanity and killing. American Psycho is Christian Bale’s loudest film, in the sense that there is no underplaying of Bale’s nature, and Bateman gets the egotistical and megalomaniac treatment required.
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Bateman is also Bale’s most immaculate character, propped with material goodies Bale looks slick in the film’s production design. One of the unforgettable scenes in the film is that of Patrick Bateman killing Jared Leto’s character, as a result of which Leto’s blood splatters onto Bateman. This creates a dichotomy, with Bateman covered in blood versus Bateman in a Valentine Couture three-piece, and is the parable of the American Psycho.
3. Ford v Ferrari (2019)
Ford v Ferrari is a film about the human spirit. The ardency, the competitiveness, the passion. The drivers of existence and living. James Mangold creates the perfect web of components, and like stringing the marionette to perfection, has created this gem which will go down as a classic in the years to come. In the film, Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) is tasked to build a car which will win the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. Shelby ropes in mechanic and driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale) in this task, and what follows is a sports drama like never before.
Bale and Damon’s relationship is heart-warming to watch, and one of the best on-screen friendships of the last few decades. The linear narrative makes for a very accessible film, and is perhaps the best way to tell this story about what is at the end of a day a tale of building something impossible and bigger than any person – of creation and being.
2. The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005, ’08, ‘12)
There have been multiple instances where comics have been defined by films. The manifestation of the superhero itself can be thought of as the extension of the superstar. The film industry-comic universe relationship is one of the most interesting ones, with a lot of comic evolutions rooted in the cinematic world, be it Joe Shuster naming Clark Kent after Clark Gable and Kent Taylor or Stan Lee basing Professor X on Russian actor Yul Brynner. The Dark Knight trilogy is an example where the films have defined and re-defined Batman. This redefinition though is in thought and form, which can largely be attributed to Christopher Nolan’s sensibilities.
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Once the credits roll in The Dark Knight Rises, it’s hard to see this definition go away, as Christian Bale lives through Bruce Wayne and Batman in our minds, and a heaviness lingers perpetually. The effectiveness of the trilogy lies in this very result, which encapsulates the masterful Bale-Nolan concoction. Here is #2 in the list of best Christian Bale movie performances.
1. Out of the Furnace (2013)
The first of the Scott Cooper collaborations, Out of the Furnace is an emphatic take on family dynamics in a crippling industrial town America. Cooper infuses a to-the-point-ness to his characters in the film, which works out beautifully for Bale, who plays Russell Baze, a steel mill worker, who is the chassis of a lower-middle-class household, and looking out for his enlisted brother (played by Casey Affleck), who looks for gambling and betting gigs for catharsis.
In a sense, Out of the Furnace is the first calm then awry tale, but unlike other movies in the genre, things going out of hand is just an extension to what the movie really stands for – inter-personal relations and the dynamic compassion in people. When thinking about how Bale can be today’s model for Michelangelo, it needs to be said how each of Bale’s roles involve an immaculate facial engineering. His chevron and flowy hair, and the way Bale uses these features throughout the film adds to a more personal understanding of Russell Baze. His ability to pick these instances, and to enhance the viewer’s relatability with his character makes for an even more enriching cinematic experience.
