He is likely to win an Oscar at the end of the month for his turn as Dickie Eklund in The Fighter but
Christian Bale is still planning to abuse his body for the sake of his art. He is currently in the process of getting himself back into shape again for The Dark Knight Rises, but it's becoming clear that he plans to drop an unhealthy amount of weight soon after for a starring role in the film
Concrete Island. The picture would reunite Bale with director
Brad Anderson and writer
Scott Kosar who all collaborated together on The Machinist, a movie that Bale went crazily thin for and I can just imagine the look on the method man's face as he realised the physical implications of the story, as said by Anderson to
STYD:
"The best way to describe it is it's like an urban Robinson Crusoe story - a guy crashes a car into a highway interchange and is marooned in this weedy lot, injured, and can't escape and he's basically trying to survive in the middle of the big urban Metropolis. It's sort of a crazy, cool Ballard-esque type story, but Christian's on board to do that when we can fit it into his schedule, of course."
This role threatens to be even more extreme than Bale's preparation for The Machinist where he famously shed a third of his natural body weight on a diet of just tuna and apples. The film is based on the J.G.Ballard of the same name which apparently takes a strong psychological approach to the character's hardened situation and becomes increasingly surreal as the lead discovers companions on the island and makes the eventual decision to abandon his former life. Thematically the film would have great potential to explore the distinction between freedom and isolation and what both these values truly mean. Scott Kosar is currently in the process of adapting the source novel into a feature film screenplay and should Anderson and Bale fully commit to the project then we could be in for quite the treat.
Two of my favourite movies of the past year were 127 Hours and Buried which focused on the psychological consequences of being terrified in a desperate, fatal situation and which both managed to be cinematic despite their limited settings. Minimalistic films can be especially rewarding due to the overwhelming screen time of the lead protaginist and with the kind of form that Christian Bale is in at the moment he is the type of actor I could happily watch dominate two hours of screen time with no props or gimmicks. Speaking of Christian Bale, there is a rumour that he may not be present at this weekend's BAFTA awards owing to the sour memories of his homeland in which he endured a vicious confrontation with his mother who have apparently not been in contact with each other for almost two years. It would be a shame if Bale didn't show as Britain are heavily represented at the awards ceremony and are, as always with this award show, expected to prevail in a number of categories including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Lead Actor (Colin Firth), Best Supporting Actor (Christian Bale), and I wouldn't be surprised to see Helena Bonham Carter also triumph in the Supporting Actress category where she competes with one of Bale's co-stars from The Fighter, Amy Adams.