The Bale Experience: or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Be Professional

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, you’ve probably heard about the recording.

Yes. The recording. The one involving one of Hollywood’s hottest stars on the set of one of the year’s most-anticipated films threatening a crew member amidst a string of obscenities.

As soon as the audio hit the internet, something snapped. I think cyberspace tore a tendon. Everyone was buzzing about how Christian Bale freaked out on the set of Terminator: Salvation and cussed out a crew member who had interrupted his take. Links were posted. Within 48 hours, parody recordings and videos were made. Songs about the incident were professionally recorded. Stephen Colbert and Steve Martin reenacted what happened on an episode of The Colbert Report. Not since the Star Wars Kid have geeks had this much fun with leaked media.

Everyone seems to have an opinion. Many members of the media have attacked Bale and noted the irony of his implied “unprofessionalism.” Others, like Whoopi Goldberg and assistant director Bruce Franklin, have defended the actor, claiming that the acting craft is so challenging that it justifies an explosion like this.

Both sides are wrong.

Christian Bale is not a raging madman who will verbally assault people with every minor inconvenience. Steve Hurlbut is not an amateur incapable of lighting the broad side of an underground bunker. McG is neither the worst director in the business, nor a messianic franchise-rebooter like some seem to believe. They’re just human beings, plain and simple. And nobody has the moral high ground here.

Allow me to elaborate based personal experience. I do have some experience as a director. Granted, I’ve only done a few no-budget student films with non-professional actors. But I’ve also worked on the crew of bigger productions, and have communicated with others who have far more production experience than me. When it comes to workplace environment on a film set, what holds true for small productions seems to hold true for the larger ones. And if there’s anything I’ve learned in my interactions with the movie business, it’s this:

1. When the camera is rolling, everyone should shut up and do their job. The director should direct, the sound tech should listen, the actors should act, and the DP should make sure things look right. So on the one hand, Shane Hurlbut probably just thought he was doing his job, and essentially he was. He was doing what he felt he had to do as the director of photography to make sure the scene was properly lit. However, he should have made sure it was properly lit before the camera started rolling. Once the director yells “Action,” It doesn’t matter if the light needs tweaking – it can be fixed after the take. And if it really is important that something get fixed right away, it should be done quietly so no one notices. It sounds like in this situation Hurlbut just walked straight across the set like nothing was happening. This was a stupid mistake to make, and he did deserve to get called out on it. By the director. Not Bale, at least not to such an extent. Why? Because…
2. Actors, in the end, are just actors. There is no excuse for Christian Bale’s freakout. Yes, the DP messed up. Yes, it was an intense scene. Yes, he was probably tired and they had been filming for a long time. I understand that these factors probably played a role. But you know what? That’s part of filmmaking. Deal with it. Even in my limited production experience, there have been times when tempers were short and people were stressed. Just because things aren’t going as smoothly as desired doesn’t mean anyone has the right to flip out and throw a tantrum.

   If an actor has a problem, he should discuss it with the director in private, rather than make a big deal about it in front of everyone. If there’s one way to demoralize people, it’s to let them see some of their bosses or co-workers having a shouting match. And let’s think about this – which group of people has the most control over a film’s aesthetic quality? The crew. It doesn’t take a genius to see that humiliating one of their leaders in public probably isn’t the best idea in the world.

   Like most conflicts, disagreements between cast and crew can and should be solved diplomatically. Whoopi Goldberg and Bruce Franklin can blather on all they want about how acting is an art, and things that disrupt the craft shouldn’t be tolerated. But you know what? Lighting is an art. So is sound. So is editing. So is directing. Actors are only one small piece of the larger puzzle that is a film. They are no more important than any other major crew position.

   The fact that actors make more money than most of the other crew positions doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the fact that a film set is essentially no different from any other work environment. Suppose instead of being an actor, Christian Bale was a successful office manager. If he screamed profanities at his co-workers for four minutes straight, threatened to tear down their cubicles, and said he was going to kick their asses, he would be fired in an instant. Actors shouldn’t be given any special privileges. Unless “permission to stop production so I can yell at people for a while” is in their contract, that kind of action should not be tolerated. Who knows, maybe he’s really polite most of the time, but that doesn’t change the fact that for a few minutes there on the set Christian Bale crossed the line of proper workplace behavior.

3. The director is in charge. Period. What the director says, goes. If the director wants to make a big deal about something, then it’s a big deal. If he doesn’t, then it isn’t. It’s the director’s job to call out actors and crew members when they’re dropping the ball. And if the director ever encounters conflict between co-workers, it’s his responsibility to step up and mediate it. McG is arguably even more at fault for this situation than either Hurlbut or Bale. The fact that he let Bale rant and rave for 4 minutes straight indicates to me that he, as well as the rest of the crew, was intimidated. The director was intimidated by the actor, when if anything it should be vice versa. He should have stepped up, asked to discuss the situation with Bale and Hurlbut in private, and if Bale refused he should have nicely but sternly laid down the law in front of everyone and put hiim back in his place. Terminator: Salvation is his show to run, and he shouldn’t have allowed it to be upstaged by a frustrated actor. Even if that actor is Batman.
4. If the director doesn’t step up, someone else should. Admittedly, there may be more to the situation, but based on this audio clip alone, McG failed to properly mediate the situation. Not only that, but no one else stood up either. Christian Bale may be a famous actor, but that doesn’t mean he’s always right. Someone on the crew should have really been upfront with him about the immaturity of his actions. What’s he going to do, go on strike? Violate his contract? Wind up in court because some guy distracted him during a scene?

Everyone is at fault here. Hurlbut shouldn’t have walked across the set to change a light. Bale shouldn’t have exploded. McG and the rest of the crew shouldn’t have let him get away with it. There is no right and wrong in this situation, no matter what the studios or internet message boards might have you believe. This audio clip is a perfect example of what happens when not one, but every person on a film set acts unprofessionally.

Comments are closed.