four letters from the truth

743crn @ 2006-11-25T23:55:00

2006-11-26T06:55:41Z

Hi, just wanted to drop by and say I saw the movie just tonight.
It was fabulous. I'm a huge fan of it now, though I'd never heard of it before. I love how it ties into the themes of Dostoyevsky and Kafka (whose works I have both read several of). Everything struck me as something more than just a run-of-the-mill thriller/suspense.

And I like that. Anyhow, I'll be around. This is one of my favourite movies now.

Updates

2006-11-07T14:48:11Z

I just wanted to say that for the Bale fans here, if you haven't seen The Prestige yet, I reccommend it! It's very twisty and thrilling. PLUS!, David Bowie! :) And I'm rather confident that I can also reccommend Harsh Times once it's released (this Friday 11/10), it looks like it will be yet another impressive role for Mr. Bale (some are reporting that it may be the role of his career, which seems unlikely when one consideres Trevor). I'd also like to reccommend Rescue Dawn but its release date is uhm, somehat elusive. In fact, we'll call it mythical. I've been dancing in my seat over this film for more than a year now!

As for the others, Trans Siberian is now on Brad Anderson's IMDB page, so I suppose that's official. Scott Kosar is said to still be working on that re-make of The Crazies, but more recently is supposed to be writing a version of The Bell Witch which may star Reese Witherspoon.

More Machinist related is this comment from Bale recently published in the Orlando Sentinel:

"My toughest piece of work, Machinist.... Maybe, now that I'm doing these bigger films, it will have a life and find an audience..."

And he says in another interview that he wishes he'd never answered any questions about his weightloss as it just sort of became "that skinny guy movie". Sad, really, because in a way it is true that the press have focused on his weightloss for the film, completely overlooking the brilliant performance, but it's too bad that fans haven't come out in force as they have with other films. That Newsies has a larger fanbase than this film confounds me. (Nothing against Newsies, mind you. *cough*)

743crn @ 2006-11-07T09:26:00

2006-11-07T14:26:19Z

I watched The Machinist again last night. It's probably been more than a year since I last saw it. Curiously enough, I am still finding little things I didn't notice on previous viewings! Or at least some ideas are coming together in ways they had not before, likely because I was looking too closely.

We've mentioned before the time in the airport, the way the clock goes back and forth flashing :01 to :02 and back again, indicating that Trevor is stuck in the time of the accident, but what I never noticed, or never considered significant, is that this only occurs with the local time. The clock beside it which tell Paris time, clicks on normally. And while we know Trevor continues to go to the airport out of some subconscious urge to "Escape!", this is an illustration of why... as the time elsewhere, outside of his delusions/dreams, continues normally.

The sign at the docks (?) where he "dumps" Ivan's body warns away tresspassers, and at the bottom says something about "Criminal Trespass."

I mentioned the suspected significance of pencils before, how Trevor always uses pencils to solve the hangman puzzle, and that this is because pencils are erasable and he wants to erase his crime. I was unsure of this theory, however, as Trevor once uses a pencil with no eraser (presumably because the crime *cannot* be erased). But I'm convinced now, that it's meaningful, and that the hesitation at the end, when he nearly chooses a pencil and instead grabs a marker, is a part of his final realization, not only in the obvious (and previously mentioned) sense that he was the one writing the stickies the whole time, but that he owns the non-erasable nature of his crime.

I don't know why I didn't catch this one before, I always thought it was an odd thing to say... When they are at the amusement park, Maria takes a photo of Trevor and Nicholas and says "that one's going on the fridge"... because Trevor *is* on the fridge... his own fridge, as the hangman.

I have to say, too, that this film absolutely holds up. I still love watching it, and I still get tense as hell at all the right parts (especially Miller's accident!). And no matter how many times I see him, I am still unsettled just watching Trevor.

Also, not from the film but the extras, having seen Session 9 I wonder if the chair in the hallway used for Scott Kosar's interview was not an intentional nod to that film. Granted, Session 9 is Anderson's film not Kosar's, but the imagery is eerily similar.

743crn @ 2006-07-25T14:06:00

2006-07-25T19:08:56Z

Hello, I just found this community. I bought the movie when it came out, but I hadn't watched it in a long time before today. Anyway, I was looking for a particular screencap. I looked in the tags for the community, but I couldn't find it there. Does anyone have a screencap of the overhead shot of him kneeling down cleaning his bathroom floor?

That's in the movie, right? I've had A LOT of coffee today. I might be thinking of something else.

743crn @ 2006-07-21T21:06:00

2006-07-22T02:10:16Z

So, what does everyone think about the left and right forks in the road?

I seriously love the in-depth detail they went to with this movie.
Every single thing in the movie was for some reason.
Or meant for something else.

Just wanted to see what everyone else thought of that.

Session 9

2006-07-10T18:03:11Z

I watched Session 9 last weekend. Excellent in many ways, but I was a little disappointed in the ending, particularly since The Machinist had such a great ending. It was otherwise a very good film. Intensely creepy but without relying on all that new horror quick edits/shaky/scratchy/flashy nonsense. I really think that if I could have seen it without comparing it to The Machinist, it would have been even better.

There was some discussion among my fellow viewers about its similarities to The Machinist, particularly that in both films the main character is the killer and doesn't know it. They are both films about what a person can convince himself he didn't do, creating alternate realities or repressing memories to protect themselves. I think the essential difference is that The Machinist, being primarily about the effects of guilt and the resulting insomnia and delusions, is far more internalized. There are entire scenes which may or may not be entirely in Trevor's mind. And as Trevor's guilt was accidental, there is some redmeption for him in the end. Session 9 however, is more external. We watch Gordon from the outside. Gordon hasn't forgotten himself, he's only forgotten an act, an act which he must have gone mad in the first place to have committed, so there is no redemption for him.

Of course, there are theories that all the guys working for Gordon were actually his own multiple personalities, but I don't think so. It would work, I suppose, for the murders, but I don't think his non-existant multiple personalities could have gotten that much work done! :) Apart from that, the guy who hired them, IIRC, he spoke to both Phil and Gordon at the same time, and refered to one in speaking to the other.

I think the reason this theory came about is that Anderson/Gevedon might have intended for the other characters to be personality types, anologous (somehwat) to those from Mary's sessions, adding layers to the story and a further parallel between Mary's story and Gordon's. Seems a very Anderson thing to do.

The more I think about and talk about it, the more I like it. I must see it again!

Have you seen the film? Any thoughts?

Crying for help!!

2006-06-10T10:17:13Z

A few days ago I've lost everything from my pc *cries*. I'm looking for a fan video of The Machinist (I can't remember who made or where I've saved from) it's a wonderful video, the song used for the video was "It's been awhile" (Staind), pls, I'm desperated!!!..anybody out there has this video to share with me?? PLEASE!!

Thank you in advance!

IMDB Poll

2006-04-28T15:07:18Z

tinymoonstar was kind enough to point out to me that IMDB recently had a poll on Film actor (male or female) who achieved the most dramatic body weight metamorphosis? Christian Bale came in first for The Machinist with 40.1% of the votes.

Runners up?
Robert De Niro – Raging Bull (15.6%)
Tom Hanks – Cast Away (9.7%)
Charlize Theron – Monster (8.8%)
Renee Zellweger – Bridget Jones's Diary (5.8%)
Edward Norton – American History X (4.2%)

This is, of course, public opinion and not based on actual weight loss/gain, but I'm pretty sure he'd win that, too.

cast, crew updates

2006-04-28T14:09:25Z

Notable cast and crew updates:

Brand Anderson is thought to be working on two films: The Edukators, "the story of three rebellious youths whose anti-capitalist politics leads them into a world of protest and crime" (a re-make of the German film of the same name), and a thriller called Trans-Siberian...

Brad Anderson aboard the 'Trans-Siberian'
26 Apr 2006

Variety reports that Brad Anderson will direct Trans-Siberian for Filmax. Set on the legendary express train as it travels from China to Moscow, the dark thriller is Anderson's second teaming with Filmax, which financed and produced his The Machinist, starring Christian Bale and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Trans-Siberian follows an American couple who board the train, make the acquaintance of a Russian police inspector on the trail of the killers of a drug dealer and are gradually immersed in Anderson's hallmark world of enclosed spaces, deception, grimy moral motives and murder.

The English-language film will shoot in Spain and Eastern Europe and be produced by Filmax chairman Julio Fernandez.

It is set to roll in late October with an international cast, which will determine its final budget and be announced shortly.

Anderson is currently scouting locations for the project in Eastern Europe.

Neither of these, however, have yet to appear on his IMDB page.

Christian Bale's a busy guy, but the only films yet announced to release this year are Harsh Times (finally!) on Sep 8, and The Prestige on Oct 27.

updates

2006-03-13T15:55:01Z

Just a few links to a few things of interest:

The Machinist now has its very own Wikipedia entry! But what is up with that poster? Seriously. (Bale has one, too! Check it out.)

Also, dgtall has posted a few icons to bale_daily:
Link to 15 Icons
Link to 5 icons and a WP
Link to 25 icons

And uh, that's about it, actually. :)

dynamic duo

2006-01-25T20:46:11Z

Just a headsup that Brad Anderson and Scott Kosar are teaming up again for a film titled The Crazies, a remake of Romero's 1973 flick of the same title.

"The military attempts to contain a killer man-made virus that causes death and permanent insanity in those infected."

Here's a bit more on the original, and a bit from Kosar on the re-make. The cast is yet to be announced.

related film recs--Hitchcock

2006-01-16T16:08:53Z

I was thinking about what other films had the same kind of feeling as The Machinist, and two by Hitchcock came to mind.

Vertigo
James Stewart as John "Scottie" Ferguson, a retired San Francisco police detective who suffers from acrophobia and Kim Novak as the lady who leads him to high places. Gavin Elster, a wealthy shipbuilder who is an acquaintance from college days, approaches Scottie and asks him to follow his beautiful wife, Madeliene (Novak). He fears she is going insane, maybe even contemplating suicide, because she believes she is possessed by a dead ancestor. Scottie is skeptical, but agrees after he sees the beautiful Madeleine.

Spellbound
The head of the Green Manors mental asylum, Dr. Murchison, is retiring to be replaced by Dr. Edwards, a famous psychiatrist. Edwards arrives and is immediately attracted to the beautiful but cold Dr. Constance Petersen. However, it soon becomes apparent that Dr. Edwards is in fact a paranoid amnesiac imposter. He goes on the run with Constance, who tries to help his condition and solve the mystery of what happened to the real Dr. Edwards.

Summaries found at www.imdb.com

The second one has some imagery clearly related to Salvador Dali's ideas about the subconscious and archetypal "nightmare symbols". Which makes me wonder what sort of art allusions there might be in The Machinist as well...

intro post

2006-01-12T19:48:09Z

Just the kind of comm I had been looking for--didn't think to check for the license plate. Thanks for the heads-up, Rev.

I saw the film over the holidays and was just caught up in it. I put my initial thoughts on my LJ here in this post.

Now I'm convinced that it's absolutely class film-making. I hope to post more soon.

Your Friendly Machinist Comm Directory!

2006-01-05T18:55:42Z

Here's a quick list of topics of particular interest:

Theories: about the film, the characters, the plot, motivations, the cast, the creators and more.

Observations: nifty things we've noticed.

Stills/screen caps: a lot of them.

Pics: other images from the film/production.

Icons: LJ user icons.

Fanart and Art

First time: first viewings or new member, often accompanied by a review.

Suggested reading (see also: books) and suggested everything else.

And the obligatory, though mostly painless, Admin posts.

Other tags:
alcohol, audio, bale, bleach, brothers, christopher, commentary, cowboy, dostoyevsky, drinking, foreshadowing, forgiveness, game, intro, ivan, Ivan's deat, justice, kafka, maria, miller,mother, nin, request, route 666, skinny, soundtrack, st. christopher, stickman, thiness, trent, video, white

Hello, I'm new

2005-12-01T00:57:42Z

Hi, I'm new on this community so I decided to drop some lines to introduce myself (the boring part..I know!..lol)..
I'm Rocio from Argentina (but everybody knows me as Rock) I'm 25 years old. I'm totally obsessed with The machinist, I think was extremely well done from the script, director, actors/actress..etc.
The few ppl who knows me thinks I'm totally crazy 'cause I swear God I can quote the whole movie, and that's why I put the dvd on every single night when I go to my bed trying to get some sleep (impossible mission for me!)..
In many aspect I can say I'm like Trevor (except for the fact I never killed somebody and ran away..yet..LOL) his problems to sleep..gee..would you believe the last time I've slep was three days ago? and only 4 hours?...
I don't want to make this post too long, so I'm going to stop here, but before I go here's some pics

Fan art is allowed in here? such as wallpapers and icons? 'cause I'm working in some right now..meaby I could share with you all if it's allowed.

Sorry about my bad english!

Peace
Rock

A "hello" and a request all in one!

2005-11-11T00:43:08Z

First the "Hello," I guess? Hello. I'm Deidra, pretty new to the comm, lovely meeting you all. *waves*

I have searched everywhere, and am hoping that one of you very lovely persons would be willing to help me out: I would love an icon, but I'm terrible at them, and can't even find the cap I'm looking for to boot. I'd like an icon from the very first time we meet Ivan, leaning on the car window, with that creepy smile on his face. That particular shot is just spooky and I love it.

Doesn't have to be anything fancy. Would anyone (please) be willing to avatar that, or even provide a still or a base?

Thanks, and again - nice to meet you!

caps for tiffachan

2005-10-27T01:13:46Z

tiffachan asked for caps of the scene in the bathroom when Trevor does the skinny dance to freak out Stevie.

an alternate soundtrack

2005-10-20T15:05:01Z

So, okay, I've recently been introduced to the expletively magnificent awesomeness of Nine Inch Nails and for the past two weeks of almost total immersion in Trentworld, Trev's been circling and lurking in the back of my mind.

Mainly because of ofnaivete's excellent post about the thematic links tween Reznor and Reznik and fuelled by that interesting fact that NIN were hoped for inclusion on the soundtrack. Obviously Brad Anderson decided against that. ~~Damn his eyes, I could have discovered Reznor so much earlier than I did!~~ *cough*

And I've been thinking: how about we put together our own NIN soundtrack to the movie? Not to detract anything from the excellence of the theremin, but just as an interesting alternate. I know we've got enough knowledgeable fans in this very comm. What would you include? Particular songs for particular scenes? Closer for the Stevie scenes? I thoroughly agree with ofnaivete on the significance of The Becoming and am equally intrigued by the possibilities of Only. Mmm, where? When?

Fan fiction be damned, we make fan soundtracks! Hee.

video

2005-10-18T23:42:20Z

I found a link to a machinist vid here:

http://www.noclockthing.de/other/thebalester/index.php?page=58

hope that goes through.

743crn @ 2005-10-09T12:02:00

2005-10-09T19:14:53Z

HI EVERYONE. I AM NEW. *WAVES*

I remember hearing about 'The Machinist' some time ago but I never got around to watching it in theatres. BUT I did check out the dvd from my local library and WOW it was wonderful so now it's on my shopping list. Sorry if I sound incoherent and slightly stupid but I'm rather bad at writing these sort of reviews. Did the movie remind anyone of 'Fight Club'? ANYHOW, 'The Machinist' was such a lovely movie. I really loved the grungy tinge to the whole movie; it made everything seem to mechanical and eerie. And all the symbolism involving his guilt and insanity *IS RENDERED SPEECHLESS* It also reminded me a lot of Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter with the whole internal-toxic-guilt eating away at him. Because it's just like a flesh wound. You can let it wallow, fester, and rot or you can address the problem and let it burn for all of 2 seconds from the hydrogen peroxide and then by jove you're on your way to healing.

Also, how does one go about taking screen captures? Do you have to have a special program? I've seen all the lovely ones that the_reverand has taken [I've used one for my icon as you can see. YAY.] but I'm looking for pictures that capture Trevor's thinness. Especially that one scene where he does that funky zombie-swivel after Stevie says "If you were any thinner you wouldn't exist". [...I hope people know what I'm talking about...] And does anyone know how long it took Christian Bale to lose all that weight? How long it took him to gain it back?

HAVE A NICE DAY.

icons.

2005-09-04T02:40:31Z

I'm new to this comm. and thought I would post some icons.
after some technical difficulties, i hope this works, lol.

+comment
+credit
+no hotlinking

Teaser:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

credits:
the_reverand for the wonderful caps.
lyrics:
3]Murder By Death "Until Morale Improves, The Beating Will Continue"
4]The Bronx "Notice Of Eviction"
6] Albert React ft. Sadaharu "Complications Of A Mid-Life Crisis"

Enjoy!
♥

It won't give up it want's me dead.

2005-08-24T12:03:59Z

Good Lord. I went on an icon making spree. I didn't sleep because of this.

o1. 21. 27.

I've never really made icons before, so bare with me. Nothing too fancy here. Some of them I know are completely ridiculous, some quite funny (to me atleast), some probably don't make much sense, some are downright fugly. But I think some of them came out alright. Just one of those things I had to get out of me before I did anything else. If by some force you are compelled to take any, be my guest, just comment and credit. :)

All text from various Nine Inch Nails songs and caps courtesy of the_reverand:

o1. o2. o3. o4. o5. o6.
o7. o8. o9. 1o. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
19. 2o. 21. 22. 23. 24.
25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.
31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

743crn @ 2005-08-19T04:02:00

2005-08-19T11:07:29Z

I seem to have gotten lucky this week, stumbling across some great Christian video clips.

Making of The Machinist clip--some yummy upclose Trevor shots

abnormally

2005-08-18T14:01:04Z

Something I've been meaning to mention but have not because I've gotten into the habit of not mentioning things, is that it's curious to me that Trevor tells Ivan in the bar "normally I don't even drink!" To which Ivan replies "what about abnormally?"

The thing is, we see Trevor drink several times. In the bar with Ivan, of course, and moments later when he is home and calls Reynold's ("how they bitin', Reynolds?") he's drinking again. The bottle's on the table when he walks into the kitchen. Of course, there's the possibility that he was never really in that bar, but merely drinking at home, alone, imagining himself in a bar with Ivan. (The only thing that makes me think he really was in that bar is the look the bartender gives him. Why would he imagine the bartender sees anything strange about his drinking with a buddy in the bar... unless he knows, subconsciously, that it is strange, because even in his fantasies he's delduing himself... I have to stop there. I'm getting confused.)

Later, he's drinking with Maria and that's harmless enough, but as she doesn't exist one has to wonder if he was drinking for both of them... but, at the very least, the wine was his idea, not hers. Or, you know, he gave her the idea... because she's a projection of his own subconscious... I think I'm getting confused again.

And, much later, when he finally works up the courage to check the freezer, we see a rather large bottle of what looks like wine beside the refrigerator.

My (needlessly protracted) point is that he lies to himself when he tells Ivan he doesn't normally drink! I mean, it's not the first lie he's told himself, but it's funny that he continues to lie to the entity his mind created to extract the truth from him. What's it matter if he does or doesn't normally drink? Makes me wonder if maybe it was more than the distraction of a cigarette lighter that day in his car...

And if nothing else, considering Ivan's question about how much Trevor drinks "abnormally", and the fact that he seems to be drinking regularly for someone who normally doesn't, it's at least a sign that something is, indeed, abnormal.