Christian Bale: Not just a hero on the screen

[rameumptom]

Bini, you compare apples with oranges when it comes to someone who builds a building that will have children's films in it (or was built several decades ago, when violent films were less than they are today), with someone directly involved with a violent movie.

While the murderer is most responsible for his actions (if the Lord determines he is mentally stable) there are others that also need to be responsible. For example, what is a 6 year old doing in a violent film at midnight? I'm glad the babysitter tried to save her, but why is the babysitter bringing a 6 year old to the film at midnight?

That Hollywood promotes sex and violence means they have some responsibility on how it affects society. There are several here that are angry that Hollywood and others are promoting gay marriage, but let them off the hook when they promote violence. Seriously? Can we get some balance here? The Book of Mormon condemns sexual sin, but its bigger message is regarding violence. If we are defending Hollywood and those that promote violence, then we have been convinced that evil is good.

As it is, it seems there are several here that just do not want to hear this. So I'm bowing out of this discussion, praying that all of us can see the evil that is upon us. I do not think Christian Bale is an evil man, but he is thoughtlessly promoting evil things.

[Bini]

Ram, I can accept this.

We agree that the shooter is responsible for his own actions, and we agree the Christian Bale is not responsible for the massacre. While I personally don't classify Batman as a violent film, I agree it is not appropriate for young children, especially those around the tender ages of 6 or younger. I also agree that many films glamorise sin, violence being one of them, and society tends to become numb to it.

[Guest]

Heath Ledger was talked about A LOT after the movie because:

1.) He was a super amazing ACTOR in that movie.

2.) He died young.

So, what I'm hearing here is - if you're an actor, you can't do a good job if you are the villain of the movie because you might be the one talked about after the curtain closes.

Or is it - you can't have a movie where there's a villain that the bad guy has to vanquish.

Let's go to children's movies:

Tangled - has violent characters - the Mother (as psychologically disturbed as the Joker), the 2 bad guys, the riff-raffs.

Brave - all these Scots were pretty violent

Snow White - Evil Queen (by the way, she's one of the top 10 villains of all times)

Power Rangers

Star Wars

Hunger Games

Any superhero movie, cartoon or otherwise. And man, nobody complained about the awesomeness of the Hulk in the Avengers...

It's pretty limiting if you want to tell a story about good versus evil.

And you might say... oh, but that's not the same violence as Batman... well, it pretty much is because Batman - even the Joker one - is on a very different level than The Godfather or Shindler's List or Kill Bill. It's on the same level as Star Wars Episode III.

We agree that the shooter is responsible for his own actions, and we agree the Christian Bale is not responsible for the massacre. While I personally don't classify Batman as a violent film, I agree it is not appropriate for young children, especially those around the tender ages of 6 or younger. I also agree that many films glamorise sin, violence being one of them, and society tends to become numb to it.

Batman is PG13 for that reason. You need to think twice before you take children to PG13 movies.

Batman doesn't glamorize sin - it glamorizes heroism. Kill Bill glamorizes violence. CNN/Fox/MSNBC/etc. glamorize sin by talking ad naseum about the Colorado shooter.

Edited July 25, 2012 by anatess

[EarlJibbs]

Yikes. How many of us see worse than the Batman movie in real life and do not go into rampage mode and kill innocents? How much better do you really think this society would be without violent films? The kid most likely would have done this sooner or later, it's just that he had a venue to do it. Compared to truly gruesome and violent films, Batman doesn’t hold a candle... but where are all of the mass murderers from the millions of people that have seen those? True: Violent films desensitizes you. FALSE: violent films are the cause of terrible crimes.

Blame falls of the person that committed the crime. We should not take the personal choice any of us make out of the equation. Never blame your problems on society, your parents, your circumstances... take responsibility. I decide.

As far as my opinion of Bale, the guys not very nice. He can do nice things, but my personal opinion was forever changed when he had his rant on the grip that wasn’t doing his job during the Terminator film. But who of us have not had our moments when we have been complete jerks? I dont put any stock into him as a person, as an actor, he does a good job.

Edited July 25, 2012 by EarlJibbs

[Bini]

As far as my opinion of Bale, the guys not very nice. He can do nice things, but my personal opinion was forever changed when he had his rant on the grip that wasn’t doing his job during the Terminator film. But who of us have not had our moments when we have been complete jerks? I dont put any stock into him as a person, as an actor, he does a good job.

I was trying to hold back on this but you're right, at least, according to various encounters and reports documented. Mr. Bale is known for a temper and was listed as one of Hollywood's more difficult actors to work with. But speaking from a purely talent related perspective, he is extremely talented in what he does.

[NeuroTypical]

My wife has a few encounters with pure evil under her belt. She has emerged from these encounters relatively whole, but scarred in various ways. She has been to more funerals in high school than I've been to in my entire life. She says she recognizes the evil in the shooter, and I believe her. One thing she is adamant about - we must not give evil whatever it desires.

The shooter has expressed his desire to be thought of as a supervillain. He identified himself as the joker to police. My wife proposes that we must act to keep the shooter from getting what he wants. She proposes we think about him as Sideshow Bob - the tormented sidekick from The Simpsons who also really wanted to be taken seriously as a supervillain:

Whenever I think of the theater shooter, I will think of Sideshow Bob.

[Guest]

There's a lot more to Christian Bale than his temper. The Teriminator incident came within the same timeframe as his conflict with his family that became public. The guy is an introvert. He is not comfortable with publicity. He is a method actor - that is, he takes on the complete personality of whoever he is playing on screen. He didn't go to drama school to learn how to act. So basically, acting allows him to hide his true self and put a fake one on that is seen in public.

The guy has been supporting his family since he was 12. Working children are a different set altogether. It's not like Drew Barrymore who was a child actress but didn't have to support a family. I worked since I was 12 but I never felt that I had to. Christian's family made him feel that he had to work to fill their growing demands (of course, this could be just in Christian's perception - but that perception is his reality). His personality is molded from a sense of responsibility - that he can't fail because people are depending on him. And because he never went to drama school, or any formal acting education, he has this inferiority complex that makes him feel that he is not good enough. So, he is very hard on himself and the people around him when it comes to his craft. The Terminator incident was one of those - he is a method actor so it is a process to get him immersed in the character. He was in the most emotional scene of the movie when an engineer walks in on the set completely taking him out of character. It takes him a while to achieve that level of immersion again - so he does it - and the guy does it again. Christian lost it. The reason the clip became public is because the producers sent it to their lawyer in case Christian quits the movie as he has threatened to do if the incident happens again.

Anyway, he has a temper, or so his mother says. I have bias against temper... I know how hard it is to overcome that. I see a guy visiting Aurora victims. I see a good guy. I give that to him.

Edited July 25, 2012 by anatess

[EarlJibbs]

I was trying to hold back on this but you're right, at least, according to various encounters and reports documented. Mr. Bale is known for a temper and was listed as one of Hollywood's more difficult actors to work with. But speaking from a purely talent related perspective, he is extremely talented in what he does.

Newsies remains one of my favorite Bale movies

[Bini]

Yes, there is a method to his madness. I saw a few years ago, a biography on Christian Bale dotting all the I's and crossing all the T's, of how he was raised and what makes him tick. I'm a big fan of his but like we all agree, he's just got a plain old temper on him that he has trouble controlling.

[trubludru]

He was the main character in three violent films that influenced the murderer. If actors refused to act in extremely violent films we would have fewer of them. Instead, they seek to make millions by continually "pushing the envelope" of what is good/evil. They took the Batman of the 1960s and turned him into a very dark and evil character. So, now there is little difference between good guys and bad guys?

If someone isn't part of the solution, then that person is part of the problem.

FYI the Batman of the 1960's wasn't how Batman was originally portrayed in comic books. From conversations I've had with some fellow nerds in the know Batman started out pretty hardcore, threatening, crippling, and killing the bad guys without hardly a second thought.

While I agree there is plenty of violence in the new films, but I don't think they were made to glorify violence. And I am sure I can come up with other movies that have more violence with a lot less of a message than the Batman films. The message I get from the films and about Batman is not that he is heroic because of his fisticuffs, but that he is heroic because he is willing to fight those who are evil even if he has to fight by himself and even if others think he is the bad guy because they don't understand his actions. I personally don't think the 2nd film glorified the Joker because of his violence, I got the message that there are people in the world who do evil things for no valid or understandable reason, but simply because they choose to (see Hitler, Stalin, Gadianton, etc).

I found the scene where the Joker tries to force the ferry passengers to blow each other up to save themselves very compelling as to the basic goodness in humanity. Each boat ultimately refused because they knew it was wrong, even if it meant they would probably die themselves. Thus proving that the Joker and his idea that everyone is as twisted as himself wrong.

That being said I agree that I don't think it is good to soak in violent media all the time, I am certain it would have a detrimental affect on a person if most of their time is spent watching violent movies. But I don't think you can pinpoint the cause of a shooting like this to something like the perpetrator did it because he watched (blank) film or played (blank) game. We know we are all born with the light of Christ, I don't think that disappears overnight from one specific event say watching one movie. That isn't to say it won't or can't be numbed over months or years of bad influences, but people still make their own choices.

[Vort]

FYI the Batman of the 1960's wasn't how Batman was originally portrayed in comic books. From conversations I've had with some fellow nerds in the know Batman started out pretty hardcore, threatening, crippling, and killing the bad guys without hardly a second thought.

The point is, had a Dark Knight-type Batman film been made in the 1960s, people would have been vomiting in the theater aisles, and the outcry for preventing such filth onscreen would have been deafening. Today, we take the kids and buy popcorn.

[NadiaStar]

Batman took on its 60s campy version because they just didn't have the ability to do the darker version. Dark Batman IS the original

[Guest]

The point is, had a Dark Knight-type Batman film been made in the 1960s, people would have been vomiting in the theater aisles, and the outcry for preventing such filth onscreen would have been deafening. Today, we take the kids and buy popcorn.

I am certain you have not seen any of the Dark Knight movies. So, I guess you can't really understand what we're saying and that's just fine. I have seen it. And even with all the fancy new-age movie-making graphics stuff of the Dark Knight series it doesn't come close to surpassing Psycho (early 60's) and Midnight Cowboy (late 60's).

Edited July 26, 2012 by anatess

[volgadon]

Anatess, look at the Joker. They made a very compelling and interesting bad guy that people liked! People talked more about Heath Ledger's character than Batman, and he earned several awards postmortem over it.

Have you read Paradise Lost?

[Vort]

I am certain you have not seen any of the Dark Knight movies. So, I guess you can't really understand what we're saying and that's just fine.

Your certainty is wrong.

[volgadon]

Fantomas was first filmed in 1913.

[volgadon]

The first Batman. http://bigotherbigother.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/detective-comics-27-pg06-detail1.jpg

[Guest]

Your certainty is wrong.

Oh! Then you know what I'm talking about!

Oh wait. You probably haven't seen Psycho or Midnight Cowboy. Errrmmm... I highly advice against seeing it. I'm sure Midnight Cowboy would be pushing NC17 in today's rating. There's another 60's one - The Wild Bunch - that I'm fairly certain is pushing NC17 in today's censor ratings as well. Midnight Cowboy is more on the sexual NC17 kind whereas The Wild Bunch is more on the graphic violence NC17 kind. All 3 of these movies were Academy Award Winners in their time.

The thing with the 60's is that there were no age-classification. If it passed censorship - anybody can view it in the theater - including children. So yeah, 6-year-olds could go watch Psycho if they wanted to.

[bytebear]

I have very little respect for Bale. His rant against a lighting tech was so egregious, I just have nothing but contempt for him now. I have fired people on the spot for less.

[Guest]

I have very little respect for Bale. His rant against a lighting tech was so egregious, I just have nothing but contempt for him now. I have fired people on the spot for less.

That's the trouble with being a celebrity. If you're not Mother Teresa perfect, you're toast. Because you can lose your cool just once... and nothing else you do will ever get that respect back. Not your work for Redwings Sanctuary, not your massive contributions to Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd. Not the 2 stray dogs and 3 stray cats you took into your home. Not the devotion you provide your wife and daughter. Not the endless patience you show in Manhattan while you get bomb rushed by autograph seekers on your way to the grocery. Not even your visits to Aurora victims. Nope. Well, maybe if you go Angelina Jolie crazy over your humanitarian work, then maybe, just maybe you'll be forgiven your outburst to a lighting technician. Well, maybe not - you still have your arrest record your mother got you still to overcome. Maybe if you go shave off all your hair, donate all your assets, and get chosen to be the Dalai Lama - that might do it.

[Vort]

Oh! Then you know what I'm talking about!

Oh wait. You probably haven't seen Psycho or Midnight Cowboy. Errrmmm... I highly advice against seeing it. I'm sure Midnight Cowboy would be pushing NC17 in today's rating. There's another 60's one - The Wild Bunch - that I'm fairly certain is pushing NC17 in today's censor ratings as well. Midnight Cowboy is more on the sexual NC17 kind whereas The Wild Bunch is more on the graphic violence NC17 kind. All 3 of these movies were Academy Award Winners in their time.

The thing with the 60's is that there were no age-classification. If it passed censorship - anybody can view it in the theater - including children. So yeah, 6-year-olds could go watch Psycho if they wanted to.

I know that you are mistaken. I remember Midnight Cowboy. It was rated X, meaning no one under 18 was allowed to see it.

[Guest]

I know that you are mistaken. I remember Midnight Cowboy. It was rated X, meaning no one under 18 was allowed to see it.

The Philippines do not show X-rated films in theaters so we probably got a different version of the movie. Now, I wonder how much worse could the original have been!

My point, though, is Batman would be a mild movie in the 60's.

Edited July 26, 2012 by anatess