Christian Bale
-
“The Studios Don’t Really Make Movies Like This… We’re Like Dinosaurs”: DP Phedon Papamichael on Shooting Ford v Ferrari
Based on the real-life friendship between Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby, Ford v Ferrari unfolds deeply within the racing culture of the mid-1960s. Egged on by future Chrysler head Lee Iacocca, Henry Ford commits to an expensive attempt to defeat the Ferrari racing team at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race. Shelby, an engineer and former racer, works with Miles to develop and test the GT40. Ford v Ferrari is the fifth collaboration between director James Mangold and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael. Christian Bale stars as Miles and Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby. Other performers include Tracy Letts (Henry […]
by Daniel Eagan on Dec 10, 2019 -
Die Yuppie Scum! Director Mary Harron on American Psycho
In her first feature, I Shot Andy Warhol, Mary Harron remembered the craziness of the ‘60s. With her adaptation of novelist Bret Easton Ellis’ satirical gorefest, American Psycho, she coolly captured the money-driven insanity of the ’80s. From our print issue archives, and appearing online for the first time, is this Winter, 2000 cover story: Peter Bowen talks to Harron about social satire, interior design, and Leonardo. In 1991, Bret Easton Ellis’ satirical novel American Psycho caused a minor scandal. Readers and critics could not agree as to whether its icy portrayal of the young, handsome, successful Patrick Bateman, an uber-yuppie who divided […]
by Peter Bowen on Jul 15, 2019 -
Of Human Bondage: The Big Short
Adapted by Charles Randolph and Adam McKay from The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Michael Lewis’s behind-the-scenes book about the 2008 housing market crash, McKay’s star-stuffed The Big Short is a brilliant demystification. Two scenes, hilarious in completely opposite ways, take place in the middle of an otherwise enervating securitization session at the American Securities Forum in Las Vegas. Hold on: hilarious and securitization jammed into the same sentence? Most people don’t even know what the latter word means. When a term completely sidesteps consciousness, it is probably unavailable to the unconscious—site of the split-second manufacture of humor. To […]
by Howard Feinstein on Dec 11, 2015 -
Baltasar Kormákur on His New Christian Bale Film, Everest
In late 2012, I interviewed Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur, whose excellent new film The Deep is upcoming this spring through Focus World. He is also currently in post on the Mark Wahlberg/Denzel Washington thriller 2 Guns, but was already talking about his next project, Everest. He described the (then-unnamed) lead who he was in talks with as “an actor who is known for… put[ting] himself through hell.” That strongly implied that the star in question was Christian Bale, and now it’s been reported that Bale is indeed attached to the project, with Universal and Working Title producing. Here’s what Kormákur told me about Everest when we spoke: […]
by Nick Dawson on Feb 19, 2013
