Posted on 02/04/2009 6:48:35 PM PST by slomark
Most Christian Bale fans won’t know the name Orson Welles. So please allow us to contrast the two:
Welles was called The Boy Genius. Bale isn’t.
Welles was an Academy Award-winning actor, director, writer and producer. Bale isn’t.
Welles wrote, produced, directed and starred in Citizen Kane, often called the greatest film ever made. Bale played Batman.
Welles also had a magnificent voice. In the later years of his life, he was paid obscene amounts of money to use that voice in commercials. The attached audio track is famous. It’s made up of out-takes from a London recording session in which Welles picks some unfortunate English ad agency people to pieces. But unlike Bale, he does it without losing his dignity.
Orson Welles is dead and Christian Bale is alive. Definite proof that life isn’t fair.
Please see our previous story today called Christian Bale is a stinkin’ #%&*@ to hear Bale’s audio. Contrast the two.
Nice to hear that Classy, Dignified Voice,again .. Bale... for get it.
AHHHHH!
Unicron.
Why is welles being compared to bale?
What is the point of this?
Did Bale overreact? Unquestionably. Was it just a random thing? No. The director of photography had been told repeatedly to not do something he had continued to do. Something that is considered a serious no no to most people on film sets. I would guess most people have lost it when someone else’s failure to do their job correctly has made it impossible for them to do their job correctly.
I wish he hadn’t used Citizen Kane as the example of brilliance.
He could have cited The Third Man, again one of the best movies ever made; the truly extraordinary Macbeth, with Wagnerian sets and an unparalleled use of shadow; Touch of Evil, the ultimate, perfect Film Noir.
This was a guy who truly understood film based in acting and voice, dialogue, plot, music, scenery, cinematography, and direction. Film as art, even with a small budget, survives; where the immense budget, special effects extravaganzas are forgotten in a fortnight.
Right now, Hollywood could be making ten times as much money if it was making films the way they were once made, instead of relying entirely on big budget, formulaic crap. A $10M movie that makes $50M is worth a lot more than a $200M extravaganza that brings in only $220M in its short life. Even if 19 out of 20 small budget movies fail, if that 1 in 20 hits, they are still more profitable than one big turkey.
er Orson Welles IS dead. And (going out on a limb here) I expect Christian Bale will be.
Well, life is fair, Orson Welles is dead because he was old. Christian Bale is alive probably primarily because he’s not old. No unfairness there, just life taking its natural course.
That said, Orson Welles was in a Transformers movie. Christian Bale was not. This automatically makes Welles more awesome in my terms....
So Citizen Kane will always be Welles' most famous film and the one most cited when expounding upon his genius!
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