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This 16 mm spring-wound Bolex "H16" Reflex camera is a popular entry level camera used in film schools.

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. The process of filmmaking has developed into an art form and industry.

Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating – or indoctrinating – citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue into the language of the viewer.

Films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision, whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to a psychological effect called beta movement.

The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photo-play and flick. A common name for film in the United States is movie, while in Europe the term film is preferred. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema and the movies.

History[link]

A clip from the Charlie Chaplin silent film The Bond (1918)

Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film: scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, and scores. Much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scene (roughly, the entire visual picture at any one time). Owing to an absence of technology for doing so, moving visual and aural images were not recorded for replaying as in film.

In the 1860s, mechanisms for producing two-dimensional drawings in motion were demonstrated with devices such as the zoetrope, mutoscope and praxinoscope. These machines were outgrowths of simple optical devices (such as magic lanterns) and would display sequences of still pictures at sufficient speed for the images on the pictures to appear to be moving, a phenomenon called persistence of vision. Naturally the images needed to be carefully designed to achieve the desired effect, and the underlying principle became the basis for the development of film animation.

With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became possible to directly capture objects in motion in real time. An 1878 experiment by English photographer Eadweard Muybridge in the United States using 24 cameras produced a series of stereoscopic images of a galloping horse, is arguably the first "motion picture", though it was not called by this name.^[1] This technology required a person to look into a viewing machine to see the pictures which were separate paper prints attached to a drum turned by a handcrank. The pictures were shown at a variable speed of about 5 to 10 pictures per second, depending on how rapidly the crank was turned. Commercial versions of these machines were coin operated.

A frame from Roundhay Garden Scene, the world's earliest film produced using a motion picture camera, by Louis Le Prince, 1888

By the 1880s the development of the motion picture camera allowed the individual component images to be captured and stored on a single reel, and led quickly to the development of a motion picture projector to shine light through the processed and printed film and magnify these "moving picture shows" onto a screen for an entire audience. These reels, so exhibited, came to be known as "motion pictures". Early motion pictures were static shots that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques. The first public exhibition of projected motion pictures in America was shown at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City on the 23rd of April 1896.

Ignoring W. K. L. Dickson's early sound experiments (1894), commercial motion pictures were purely visual art through the late 19th century, but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Around the turn of the 20th century, films began developing a narrative structure by stringing scenes together to tell a story. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots of varying sizes and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were realized as effective ways to portray a story on film. Rather than leave the audience with noise of early cinema projectors, theater owners would hire a pianist or organist or a full orchestra to play music that would cover noises of projector. Eventually, musicians would start to fit the mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music for this purpose, with complete film scores being composed for major productions.

A shot from Georges Méliès Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902), an early narrative film.

The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I when the film industry in United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood, typified most prominently by the great innovative work of D. W. Griffith in The Birth of a Nation (1914) and Intolerance (1916). However in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang, in many ways inspired by the meteoric war-time progress of film through Griffith, along with the contributions of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and others, quickly caught up with American film-making and continued to further advance the medium. In the 1920s, new technology allowed filmmakers to attach to each film a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. These sound films were initially distinguished by calling them "talking pictures", or talkies.

The next major step in the development of cinema was the introduction of so-called "natural color", which meant color that was photographically recorded from nature rather than being added to black-and-white prints by hand-coloring, stencil-coloring or other arbitrary procedures, although the earliest processes typically yielded colors which were far from "natural" in appearance. While the addition of sound quickly eclipsed silent film and theater musicians, color replaced black-and-white much more gradually. The pivotal innovation was the introduction of the three-strip version of the Technicolor process, which was first used for short subjects and for isolated sequences in a few feature films released in 1934, then for an entire feature film, Becky Sharp, in 1935. The expense of the process was daunting, but continued favorable public response and enhanced box-office receipts increasingly justified the added cost. The number of films made in color slowly increased year after year.

In the early 1950s, as the proliferation of black-and-white television started seriously depressing theater attendance in the US, the use of color was seen as one way of winning back audiences. It soon became the rule rather than the exception. Some important mainstream Hollywood films were still being made in black-and-white as late as the mid-1960s, but they marked the end of an era. Color television receivers had been available in the US since the mid-1950s, but at first they were very expensive and few broadcasts were in color. During the 1960s, prices gradually came down, color broadcasts became common, and the sale of color television sets boomed. The strong preference of the general public for color was obvious. After the final flurry of black-and-white film releases in mid-decade, all major Hollywood studio film production was exclusively in color, with rare exceptions reluctantly made only at the insistence of "star" directors such as Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese.

Since the decline of the studio system in the 1960s, the succeeding decades saw changes in the production and style of film. Various New Wave movements (including the French New Wave, Indian New Wave, Japanese New Wave and New Hollywood) and the rise of film school educated independent filmmakers were all part of the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force in change throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. 3D technology increased in usage and has become more popular since the early 2010s.

Theory[link]

Film theory seeks to develop concise and systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art. It was started by Ricciotto Canudo's The Birth of the Sixth Art. Formalist film theory, led by Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, and Siegfried Kracauer, emphasized how film differed from reality, and thus could be considered a valid fine art. André Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory. More recent analysis spurred by Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytical film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory and others. On the other hand, critics from the analytical philosophy tradition, influenced by Wittgenstein, try to clarify misconceptions used in theoretical studies and produce analysis of a film's vocabulary and its link to a form of life.

Language[link]

Film is considered to have its own language. James Monaco wrote a classic text on film theory titled "How to Read a Film". Director Ingmar Bergman famously said, "[Andrei] Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." Examples of the language are a sequence of back and forth images of one actor's left profile speaking, followed by another actor's right profile speaking, then a repetition of this, which is a language understood by the audience to indicate a conversation. Another example is zooming in on the forehead of an actor with an expression of silent reflection, then changing to a scene of a younger actor who vaguely resembles the first actor, indicating the first actor is having a memory of their own past.

Montage[link]

Parallels to musical counterpoint have been developed into a theory of montage, extended from the complex superimposition of images in early silent film^{[citation needed]} to even more complex incorporation of musical counterpoint together with visual counterpoint through mise en scene and editing, as in a ballet or opera; e.g., as illustrated in the gang fight scene of director Francis Ford Coppola’s film, Rumble Fish.

Criticism[link]

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media.

Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only a day or two to formulate opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on films, especially those of certain genres. Mass marketed action, horror, and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of any film review can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas, the influence of reviews is extremely important. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.

The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. Some claim that movie marketing is now so intense and well financed that reviewers cannot make an impact against it. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily promoted movies which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent movies indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Others note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of the film. However, this usually backfires as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result.

It is argued that journalist film critics should only be known as film reviewers, and true film critics are those who take a more academic approach to films. This line of work is more often known as film theory or film studies. These film critics attempt to come to understand how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their works published in newspapers or appear on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals, or sometimes in up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities.

Industry[link]

Cate Blanchett at the Berlin International Film Festival. Around 20,000 professionals from over 130 countries attend the event in Berlin.

The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898^{[citation needed]} was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. By 1917 Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars.

From 1931 to 1956, film was also the only image storage and playback system for television programming until the introduction of videotape recorders.

In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai-centered Bollywood, the Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world.^[2] Whether the ten thousand-plus feature length films a year produced by the Valley pornographic film industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate.^{[citation needed]} Though the expense involved in making movies has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish.

Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are the most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, ostensibly based on their artistic merits.

There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts.

Associated fields[link]

Derivative academic Fields of study may both interact with and develop independently of filmmaking, as in film theory and analysis. Fields of academic study have been created that are derivative or dependent on the existence of film, such as film criticism, film history, divisions of film propaganda in authoritarian governments, or psychological on subliminal effects of a flashing soda can during a screening. These fields may further create derivative fields, such as a movie review section in a newspaper or a television guide. Sub-industries can spin off from film, such as popcorn makers, and toys. Sub- industries of pre-existing industries may deal specifically with film, such as product placement in advertising.

Terminology used[link]

Although the words "film" and "movie" are sometimes used interchangeably, "film" is more often used when considering artistic, theoretical, or technical aspects, as studies in a university class and "movies" more often refers to entertainment or commercial aspects, as where to go for fun on a date. For example, a book titled "How to Read a Film" would be about the aesthetics or theory of film, while "Lets Go to the Movies" would be about the history of entertaining movies. "Motion pictures" or "Moving pictures" are films and movies. A "DVD" is a digital format which may be used to reproduce an analog film, while "videotape" ("video") was for many decades a solely analog medium onto which moving images could be recorded and electronically (rather than optically) reproduced. Strictly speaking, "Film" refers to the media onto which a visual image is shot, and to this end it may seem improper for work in other "moving image" media to be referred to as a "film" and the action of shooting as "filming", though these terms are still in general use. "Silent films" need not be silent, but are films and movies without an audible dialogue, though they may have a musical soundtrack. "Talkies" refers to early movies or films having audible dialogue or analog sound, not just a musical accompaniment. "Cinema" either broadly encompasses both films and movies, or is roughly synonymous with "Film", both capitalized when referring to a category of art. The "silver screen" refers to classic black-and-white films before color, not to contemporary films without color.

The expression "Sight and Sound", as in the film journal of the same name, means "film". The following icons mean film: a "candle and bell", as in the films Tarkovsky, of a segment of film stock, or a two faced Janus image, and an image of a movie camera in profile.

"Widescreen" and "Cinemascope" refers to a larger width to height in the frame, compared to an earlier historic aspect ratios.^[3] A "feature length film", or "feature film", is of a conventional full length, usually 60 minutes or more, and can commercially stand by itself without other films in a ticketed screening.^[4] A "short" is a film that is not as long as a feature length film, usually screened with other shorts, or preceding a feature length film. An "independent" is a film made outside of the conventional film industry.

A "screening" or "projection" is the projection of a film or video on a screen at a public or private theater, usually but not always of a film, but of a video or DVD when of sufficient projection quality. A "double feature" is a screening of two independent, stand-alone, feature films. A "viewing" is a watching of a film. A "showing" is a screening or viewing on an electronic monitor. "Sales" refers to tickets sold at a theater, or more currently, rights sold for individual showings. A "release" is the distribution and often simultaneous screening of a film. A "preview" is a screening in advance of the main release.

"Hollywood" may be used either as a pejorative adjective, shorthand for asserting an overly commercial rather than artistic intent or outcome, as in "too Hollywood", or as a descriptive adjective to refer to a film originating with people who ordinarily work near Los Angeles.

Expressions for Genres of film are sometimes used interchangeably for "film" in a specific context, such as a "porn" for a film with explicit sexual content, or "cheese" for films that are light, entertaining and not highbrow.

Any film may also have a "sequel", which portrays events following those in the film. Bride of Frankenstein is an early example. When there are a number of films with the same characters, we have a "series", such as the James Bond series. A film which portrays events that occur earlier than those in another film, but is released after that film, is sometimes called a "prequel", an example being Butch and Sundance: The Early Days.

Credits is a list of the people involved in making the film. Before the 1970s, credits were usually at the beginning of a film. Since then, the credits roll at the end of most films.

A Post-credits scene is a scene shown after the end of the credits. Ferris Bueller's Day Off has a post-credit scene in which Ferris tells the audience that the movie is over and they should go home.

Preview[link]

A preview performance refers to a showing of a movie to a select audience, usually for the purposes of corporate promotions, before the public film premiere itself. Previews are sometimes used to judge audience reaction, which if unexpectedly negative, may result in recutting or even refilming certain sections (Audience response).

Trailer[link]

Trailers or previews are film advertisements for films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film programme. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the theater after the films ended, but the name has stuck. Trailers are now shown before the film (or the A movie in a double feature program) begins.

Film, or other art form?[link]

Film may be combined with performance art and still be considered or referred to as a "film", for instance, when there is a live musical accompaniment to a silent film. Another example is audience participation films, as at a midnight movies screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where the audience dresses up in costume from the film and loudly does a karaoke-like reenactment along with the film. Performance art where film is incorporated as a component is usually not called film, but a film, which could stand-alone but is accompanied by a performance may still be referred to as a film.

The act of making a film can, in and of itself, be considered a work of art, on a different level from the film itself, as in the films of Werner Herzog.

Similarly, the playing of a film can be considered to fall within the realm of political protest art, as in the subtleties within the films of Tarkovsky. A "road movie" can refer to a film put together from footage from a long road trip or vacation.

Education and propaganda[link]

Film is used for education and propaganda. When the purpose is primarily educational, a film is called an "educational film". Examples are recordings of lectures and experiments, or more marginally, a film based on a classic novel.

Film may be propaganda, in whole or in part, such as the films made by Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany, US war film trailers during World War II, or artistic films made under Stalin by Eisenstein. They may also be works of political protest, as in the films of Wajda, or more subtly, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky.

The same film may be considered educational by some, and propaganda by others, such as some of the films of Michael Moore.

Production[link]

At its core, the means to produce a film depend on the content the filmmaker wishes to show, and the apparatus for displaying it: the zoetrope merely requires a series of images on a strip of paper. Film production can therefore take as little as one person with a camera (or without it, such as Stan Brakhage's 1963 film Mothlight), or thousands of actors, extras and crewmembers for a live-action, feature-length epic.

The necessary steps for almost any film can be boiled down to conception, planning, execution, revision, and distribution. The more involved the production, the more significant each of the steps becomes. In a typical production cycle of a Hollywood-style film, these main stages are defined as:

1. Development
2. Pre-production
3. Production
4. Post-production
5. Distribution

This production cycle usually takes three years. The first year is taken up with development. The second year comprises preproduction and production. The third year, post-production and distribution.

The bigger the production, the more resources it takes, and the more important financing becomes; most feature films are not only artistic works, but for-profit business entities.

Crew[link]

A film crew is a group of people hired by a film company, employed during the "production" or "photography" phase, for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The crew interacts with but is also distinct from the production staff, consisting of producers, managers, company representatives, their assistants, and those whose primary responsibility falls in pre-production or post-production phases, such as writers and editors. Communication between production and crew generally passes through the director and his/her staff of assistants. Medium-to-large crews are generally divided into departments with well defined hierarchies and standards for interaction and cooperation between the departments. Other than acting, the crew handles everything in the photography phase: props and costumes, shooting, sound, electrics (i.e., lights), sets, and production special effects. Caterers (known in the film industry as "craft services") are usually not considered part of the crew.

Technology[link]

Film stock consists of transparent celluloid, acetate, or polyester base coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive chemicals. Cellulose nitrate was the first type of film base used to record motion pictures, but due to its flammability was eventually replaced by safer materials. Stock widths and the film format for images on the reel have had a rich history, though most large commercial films are still shot on (and distributed to theaters) as 35 mm prints.

Originally moving picture film was shot and projected at various speeds using hand-cranked cameras and projectors; though 1000 frames per minute (16⅔ frame/s) is generally cited as a standard silent speed, research indicates most films were shot between 16 frame/s and 23 frame/s and projected from 18 frame/s on up (often reels included instructions on how fast each scene should be shown).^[5] When sound film was introduced in the late 1920s, a constant speed was required for the sound head. 24 frames per second was chosen because it was the slowest (and thus cheapest) speed which allowed for sufficient sound quality. Improvements since the late 19th century include the mechanization of cameras – allowing them to record at a consistent speed, quiet camera design – allowing sound recorded on-set to be usable without requiring large "blimps" to encase the camera, the invention of more sophisticated filmstocks and lenses, allowing directors to film in increasingly dim conditions, and the development of synchronized sound, allowing sound to be recorded at exactly the same speed as its corresponding action. The soundtrack can be recorded separately from shooting the film, but for live-action pictures many parts of the soundtrack are usually recorded simultaneously.

As a medium, film is not limited to motion pictures, since the technology developed as the basis for photography. It can be used to present a progressive sequence of still images in the form of a slideshow. Film has also been incorporated into multimedia presentations, and often has importance as primary historical documentation. However, historic films have problems in terms of preservation and storage, and the motion picture industry is exploring many alternatives. Most movies on cellulose nitrate base have been copied onto modern safety films. Some studios save color films through the use of separation masters: three B&W negatives each exposed through red, green, or blue filters (essentially a reverse of the Technicolor process). Digital methods have also been used to restore films, although their continued obsolescence cycle makes them (as of 2006) a poor choice for long-term preservation. Film preservation of decaying film stock is a matter of concern to both film historians and archivists, and to companies interested in preserving their existing products in order to make them available to future generations (and thereby increase revenue). Preservation is generally a higher concern for nitrate and single-strip color films, due to their high decay rates; black-and-white films on safety bases and color films preserved on Technicolor imbibition prints tend to keep up much better, assuming proper handling and storage.

Some films in recent decades have been recorded using analog video technology similar to that used in television production. Modern digital video cameras and digital projectors are gaining ground as well. These approaches are preferred by some moviemakers, especially because footage shot with digital cinema can be evaluated and edited with non-linear editing systems (NLE) without waiting for the film stock to be processed. Yet the migration is gradual, and as of 2005 most major motion pictures are still shot on film.

Independent[link]

Independent filmmaking often takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems. An independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from a major movie studio. Creative, business, and technological reasons have all contributed to the growth of the indie film scene in the late 20th and early 21st century.

The Lumière Brothers

On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also leads to conservative choices in cast and crew. There is a trend in Hollywood towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987).^[6] A hopeful director is almost never given the opportunity to get a job on a big-budget studio film unless he or she has significant industry experience in film or television. Also, the studios rarely produce films with unknown actors, particularly in lead roles.

Before the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was also a hurdle to being able to produce, direct, or star in a traditional studio film.

But the advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-resolution digital video in the early 1990s, have lowered the technology barrier to movie production significantly. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based personal computer. Technologies such as DVDs, FireWire connections and non-linear editing system pro-level software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas and Apple's Final Cut Pro, and consumer level software such as Apple's Final Cut Express and iMovie, and Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker make movie-making relatively inexpensive.

Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized. Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a movie, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut on a home computer. However, while the means of production may be democratized, financing, distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system. Most independent filmmakers rely on film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. The arrival of internet-based video outlets such as YouTube and Veoh has further changed the film making landscape in ways that are still to be determined.

Open content film[link]

An open content film is much like an independent film, but it is produced through open collaborations; its source material is available under a license which is permissive enough to allow other parties to create fan fiction or derivative works, than a traditional copyright. Like independent filmmaking, open source filmmaking takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems.

Fan film[link]

A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book or a similar source, created by fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the more notable films have actually been produced by professional filmmakers as film school class projects or as demonstration reels. Fan films vary tremendously in length, from short faux-teaser trailers for non-existent motion pictures to rarer full-length motion pictures.

Distribution[link]

When it is initially produced, a feature film is often shown to audiences in a movie theater or cinema. The identity of the first theater designed specifically for cinema is a matter of debate; candidates include Tally's Electric Theatre, established 1902 in Los Angeles,^[7] and Pittsburgh's Nickelodeon, established 1905.^[8] Thousands of such theaters were built or converted from existing facilities within a few years.^[9] In the United States, these theaters came to be known as nickelodeons, because admission typically cost a nickel (five cents).

Typically, one film is the featured presentation (or feature film). Before the 1970s, there were "double features"; typically, a high quality "A picture" rented by an independent theater for a lump sum, and a "B picture" of lower quality rented for a percentage of the gross receipts. Today, the bulk of the material shown before the feature film consists of previews for upcoming movies and paid advertisements (also known as trailers or "The Twenty").

Historically, all mass marketed feature films were made to be shown in movie theaters. The development of television has allowed films to be broadcast to larger audiences, usually after the film is no longer being shown in theaters.^{[citation needed]} In 1967, videocassettes of movies became available to consumers to watch in their own homes.^[10] Recording technology has since enabled consumers to rent or buy copies of films on VHS or DVD (and the older formats of laserdisc, VCD and SelectaVision – see also videodisc), and Internet downloads may be available and have started to become revenue sources for the film companies. Some films are now made specifically for these other venues, being released as a television movie or direct-to-video movies. The production values on these films are often considered to be of inferior quality compared to theatrical releases in similar genres, and indeed, some films that are rejected by their own movie studios upon completion are distributed through these markets.

The movie theater pays an average of about 50-55% of its ticket sales to the movie studio, as film rental fees.^[11] The actual percentage starts with a number higher than that, and decreases as the duration of a film's showing continues, as an incentive to theaters to keep movies in the theater longer. However, today's barrage of highly marketed movies ensures that most movies are shown in first-run theaters for less than 8 weeks. There are a few movies every year that defy this rule, often limited-release movies that start in only a few theaters and actually grow their theater count through good word-of-mouth and reviews. According to a 2000 study by ABN AMRO, about 26% of Hollywood movie studios' worldwide income came from box office ticket sales; 46% came from VHS and DVD sales to consumers; and 28% came from television (broadcast, cable, and pay-per-view).^[11]

This section requires expansion with: optical disc distribution.

Animation[link]

Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed at a speed of 16 or more frames per second, there is an illusion of continuous movement (due to the persistence of vision). Generating such a film is very labor intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.

Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry.

Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered by UPA and popularized by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television.^[12]

Although most animation studios are now using digital technologies in their productions, there is a specific style of animation that depends on film. Cameraless animation, made famous by moviemakers like Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film, and then run through a projector.

Future state[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

While motion picture films have been around for more than a century, film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon^{[clarification needed]} of fine arts. In the 1950s, when television became widely available, industry analysts^[who?] predicted the demise of local movie theaters.^{[citation needed]} Despite competition from television's increasing technological sophistication over the 1960s and 1970s^{[citation needed]} such as the development of color television and large screens, motion picture cinemas continued. In fact with the rise of television's predominance, film began to become more respected as an artistic medium by contrast due the low general opinion of the quality of average television content.^{[citation needed]} In the 1980s, when the widespread availability of inexpensive videocassette recorders enabled people to select films for home viewing, industry analysts again wrongly predicted the death of the local cinemas.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1990s and 2000s, the development of DVD players, home theater amplification systems with surround sound and subwoofers, and large LCD or plasma screens enabled people to select and view films at home with greatly improved audio and visual reproduction.^{[citation needed]} These new technologies provided audio and visual that in the past only local cinemas had been able to provide: a large, clear widescreen presentation of a film with a full-range, high-quality multi-speaker sound system. Once again industry analysts predicted the demise of the local cinema. Local cinemas will be changing in the 21st century and moving towards digital screens, a new approach which will allow for easier and quicker distribution of films (via satellite or hard disks), a development which may give local theaters a reprieve from their predicted demise.^{[citation needed]} The cinema now faces a new challenge from home video by the likes of a new high definition (HD) format, Blu-ray, which can provide full HD 1080p video playback at near cinema quality.^{[citation needed]} Video formats are gradually catching up with the resolutions and quality that film offers; 1080p in Blu-ray offers a pixel resolution of 1920×1080, a leap from the DVD offering of 720×480 and the 330×480 offered by the first home video standard, VHS.^{[citation needed]} Ultra HD, a future digital video format, will offer a resolution of 7680×4320. However, the nature and structure of film prevents an apples-to-apples comparison with regard to resolution.^[13] The resolving power of film, and its ability to capture an image which can later be scanned to a digital format, will ensure that film remains a viable medium for some time to come.^{[citation needed]} Currently the super-16 format is seeing use as a capture medium, with digital scanning and post-production providing good results.^[14][15] Despite advances in digital capture, film still offers unsurpassed ability to capture fine detail beyond what is possible with digital image sensors. A 35 mm film frame, with proper exposure and processing, still offers an equivalent resolution in the range of 500 mega pixels.^[13]

Despite the rise of all-new technologies, the development of the home video market and a surge of online copyright infringement, 2007 was a record year in film that showed the highest ever box-office grosses. Many^[who?] expected film to suffer as a result of the effects listed above but it has flourished, strengthening film studio expectations for the future.^{[citation needed]}

See also[link]

• Genre
• Fiction film basic genre
• Documentary basic genre
• Docufiction hybrid genre

• Lists

Film portal

• List of film awards
• List of film festivals
• List of film journals and magazines
• List of film topics
• List of video-related topics
• List of years in film
• Lists of films

Related topics

• Cinematic techniques
• Digital cinema
• Lost film
• Web film

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

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Blind Dating (also known as Blind Guy Driving) is a 2006 romantic comedy film directed by James Keach and starring Chris Pine, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Anjali Jay, Jane Seymour, and Jayma Mays. The movie is produced by David Shanks and James Keach and is distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films LLC.

During its release, the film received mixed-to-negative reviews. The publication City Weekly proposed that actor Chris Pine receive a special award for "Best Performance in an Otherwise Inexplicable Film."

Plot[link]

Danny Valdessecchi (Chris Pine) is an intelligent, handsome, charming boy who happens to be blind. Having been blind from birth, he volunteers for a risky experimental procedure that may restore his sight -- having a microchip installed in the visual cortex of his brain that connects to a camera that would give him only, at best, fuzzy black and white images. During the tests he meets a beautiful Indian nurse, Leeza (Anjali Jay). Meanwhile, because Danny is a virgin at 22, his brother Larry (Eddie Kaye Thomas), who runs a limousine service, gets him a string of hilariously disastrous blind dates in between rentals. When Danny finally realizes that he is falling for Leeza, she tells him she cannot see him anymore because she has been promised in an arranged marriage. Believing that Leeza did not pursue their relationship because of his being blind, Danny becomes depressed and stops taking the necessary tests for his brain surgery. Danny's family, his eccentric psychotherapist Dr. Evans (Jane Seymour) and eye doctor Dr. Perkins (Stephen Tobolowsky) advise him to continue because it is his only chance of seeing, and soon Danny is successfully operated on. He sees his family's faces for the first time, but not Leeza's, who was away, reluctantly preparing for her marriage. Soon the experiment proves to be a failure, as the fragile prosthesis in his brain moves, clouding his already weak vision, and Danny goes back to being blind. Realizing that he really loves Leeza, he bursts into the wedding, professing his love for her and saying "Love is how you speak to me. Love is how you touch me...and guide me showing me the way to go. And when we kiss, when we kiss, it moves me to my soul." The couple kiss. At this the marriage is called off and Danny and Leeza start over, learning more about each other's family and culture.

Cast[link]

External links[link]

• Blind Dating at the Internet Movie Database

This film article about a 2000s comedy is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Christian Bale
Bale in June 2009
Born	Christian Charles Philip Bale (1974-01-30) 30 January 1974 (age 38) Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1982–present
Spouse	Sandra Blažić (2000–present)
Children	1
Parents	David Bale, Jenny (née James) Bale
Family	Gloria Steinem (Step-Mother)

Christian Charles Philip Bale (born 30 January 1974) is an English actor.^[1] Best known for his roles in American films, Bale has starred in both big budget Hollywood films and the smaller projects from independent producers and art houses.

Bale first caught the public eye at the age of 13, when he was cast in the starring role of Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun (1987). He played an English boy who is separated from his parents and subsequently finds himself lost in a Japanese internment camp during World War II.^[2] He is also notable for his role as serial killer Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (2000), and for portraying Bruce Wayne/Batman in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008) and the upcoming finale The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

In 2010, Bale portrayed Dicky Eklund in the biopic The Fighter. He received critical acclaim for his role and won several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role.

Early life[link]

Bale was born in Wales to parents of English descent. His South African–born father, David Bale, was an entrepreneur, commercial pilot and talent manager, and his mother, Jenny (née James), was a circus performer.^[3][4][5][6] He spent his childhood in England, Portugal, and the United States.

Bale's first foray into acting was a commercial for the fabric softener Lenor in 1982.^[7] A year later, he appeared in a Pac-Man cereal commercial playing a child rock star. In 1984, he made his stage debut in The Nerd, opposite Rowan Atkinson.^[8]

Career[link]

1986–1998[link]

A 14-year-old Bale in Stockholm, Sweden in February 1988 while promoting Empire of the Sun

Bale made his film debut as Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia in the made-for-television film Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna in 1986, which was followed by leading roles in the miniseries Heart of the Country and the fantasy adventure Mio in the Land of Faraway, in which he appeared with Christopher Lee and Nick Pickard.

Bale's performance as Jim Graham in Empire of the Sun earned him widespread critical praise and the first ever "Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor" award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.^[9] The attention the press and his schoolmates lavished upon him after this took a toll on Bale, and he contemplated giving up acting until Kenneth Branagh approached him and persuaded him to appear in Henry V in 1989.^[9] In 1990, he played the role of Jim Hawkins opposite Charlton Heston (as Long John Silver) in Treasure Island, an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic book.

In 1992, Bale starred as Jack Kelly in the Disney musical Newsies, and followed it up in 1993 with another release, Swing Kids, a film about teenagers who secretly listened to forbidden jazz during the rise of Nazi Germany.^[10] Bale was recommended by actress Winona Ryder to star in Gillian Armstrong's 1994 film Little Women.^[9] Bale provided the voice for Thomas, a young compatriot of Captain John Smith, in Disney's Pocahontas (1995) and in 1997 played Arthur Stuart in Velvet Goldmine, Todd Haynes' tribute to glam rock.^[10] In 1999, Bale contributed to an all-star cast, including Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Stanley Tucci and Rupert Everett, portraying Demetrius in an updated version of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.^[10]

1999–2001[link]

In 1999, Bale played serial killer Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, director Mary Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' controversial novel. Bale was briefly dropped from the project in favour of Leonardo DiCaprio, but DiCaprio eventually dropped out to star in The Beach, and Bale was cast once again. He researched his character by studying the novel and prepared himself physically for the role by spending months tanning and exercising in order to achieve the "Olympian physique" of the character as described in the original novel.^[11] He went so far as to distance himself from the cast and crew to maintain the darker side of Bateman's character. American Psycho premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival to much controversy. Roger Ebert condemned the film at first, calling it pornography,^[12] and "the most loathed film at Sundance,"^[13] but gave it a favourable review, writing that Harron "transformed a novel about bloodlust into a film about men's vanity." Of Bale's performance, he wrote, "Christian Bale is heroic in the way he allows the character to leap joyfully into despicability; there is no instinct for self-preservation here, and that is one mark of a good actor."^[14]

On 14 April 2000, Lions Gate Films released American Psycho in cinemas. Bale was later approached to make a cameo appearance in another Bret Easton Ellis adaptation, The Rules of Attraction, a film loosely connected to American Psycho, but he declined out of loyalty to Harron's vision of Bateman, which he felt could not be properly expressed by anyone else.^[15] In 2000, he again played a wealthy murderer, this time in John Singleton's Shaft.

Bale has played an assortment of diverse characters since 2001. His first role after American Psycho was in the John Madden adaptation of the best-selling novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Bale played Mandras, a Greek fisherman who vied with Nicolas Cage's title character for the affections of Pelagia (Penelope Cruz). Captain Corelli's Mandolin was Bale's second time working with John Hurt, after All the Little Animals.

2002–2004[link]

From 2002 to 2003, Bale starred in three feature films. Laurel Canyon (2002) was generally well received by critics.^[16] This film also marked the second time he worked with actress Kate Beckinsale, his costar in Prince of Jutland (1994). Critics generally focused on star Frances McDormand's performance over the rest of the cast, however.^[17]

Reign of Fire was Bale's first action vehicle and had, compared to all his previous work, an immense budget estimated at US$95,000,000.^[18] Bale entered into negotiations about starring in the film with reservations, but director Rob Bowman convinced him to take the lead role.^[19] Bale starred as Quinn Abercromby opposite Matthew McConaughey's Denton Van Zan. Bale and McConaughey trained for their respective roles by boxing and working out.^[19]

Equilibrium was Bale's third film of 2002, costing US$20 million to produce but earning just over US$5 million worldwide.^[20] In Equilibrium, Bale played John Preston, an elite law enforcer in a dystopian society. Equilibrium featured a fictional martial art called Gun Kata that combined gunfighting with hand-to-hand combat. According to moviebodycounts.com, the character of John Preston has the third most on-screen kills in a single movie ever with 118, exactly half of the movie's total of 236.^[21]

After a year's hiatus, Bale returned in 2004 to play Trevor Reznik, the title character in the psychological thriller The Machinist. Bale gained attention for his devotion to the role and for the lengths to which he went to achieve Reznik's emaciated, skeletal appearance. He went without proper rest for prolonged periods, and placed himself on a crash diet of generally coffee and apples,^[22] which reduced his weight by 63 pounds (4 st 4 lb/27 kg) in a matter of months.^[23] By the end of filming Bale weighed only 121 pounds (8 st 9 lb/55 kg),^[22] a transformation he described as "very calming mentally"^[24] and which drew comparisons to Robert De Niro's alternate weight-gaining regimen for his role as Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film Raging Bull.^[25] Bale claimed that he had not worked for a period of time before he was cast in the film. "...I just hadn't found scripts that I'd really been interested in. So I was really dying for something to arrive. Then when this one did, I just didn't want to put it down. I finished it and, upon the kind of revelation that you get at the end, I immediately wanted to go back and re-visit it, to take a look at what clues I could have gotten throughout".^[26] The Machinist was a low-budget production, costing roughly US$5 million to produce, and was given only a limited US release. It was well received, with the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes reporting that 75% of the critics' reviews tallied were positive.^[27]

Bale, an admirer of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away,^[15] was then cast as the voice of the title character, Howl, in the English language dub of the Japanese director's fantasy anime adventure Howl's Moving Castle, an adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones's children's novel. Its gross in the US was US$4,711,096, a fraction of its worldwide gross (US$235,184,110).^[28]

Batman: 2005–present[link]

Bale in 2005

It was reported that Bale had previously auditioned for the role of Robin in Batman Forever (1995) and later Batman and Robin (1997), but lost out to Chris O'Donnell. However, this rumour was later dispelled by Bale himself in a magazine interview in 2008.^[29] In 2004, after completing filming for The Machinist, Bale won the coveted role of Batman and his alter ego Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, a reboot of the Batman film series. Bale beat out Jake Gyllenhaal, the closest competition for the role.^[30]

Still fresh off The Machinist, it became necessary for Bale to bulk up to match Batman's muscular physique. He was given a deadline of six months to do this. Bale recalled it as far from a simple accomplishment: "...when it actually came to building muscle, I was useless. I couldn't do one push up the first day. All of the muscles were gone, so I had a real tough time rebuilding all of that."^[23] With the help of a personal trainer, Bale succeeded in meeting the deadline, gaining a total of 100 lb (45 kg) in six months. He went from about 130 lbs to 230 lbs.^[31] He then discovered that he had actually gained more weight than the director desired, and dropped his weight to 190 lbs by the time filming began.^[32]

Bale had initial concerns about playing Batman, as he felt more ridiculous than intimidating in the Batsuit. He dealt with this by depicting Batman as a savage beast.^[23] To attain a deeper understanding of the character, Bale read various Batman comic books. He explained his interpretation of the young boy: "Batman is his hidden, demonic rage-filled side. The creature Batman creates is an absolutely sincere creature and one that he has to control but does so in a very haphazard way. He's capable of enacting violence — and to kill — so he's constantly having to rein himself in." For Bale, the most gruelling part about playing Batman was the suit. "You stick it on, you get hot, you sweat and you get a headache in the mask," he said. "But I'm not going to bitch about it because I get to play Batman."^[33] When promoting the film in interviews and public events, Bale retained an American accent to avoid confusion.^[34]

Batman Begins was released in the U.S. on 15 June 2005 and was a U.S. and international triumph for Warner Bros., costing approximately US$135 million to produce and taking in over US$370 million in returns worldwide.^[35] Bale earned the Best Hero award at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards for his performance.^[36]

Bale reprised his role as Batman in the Batman Begins sequel The Dark Knight. He trained in the Keysi Fighting Method, and performed many of his own stunts.^[37] The Dark Knight was released in the U.S. on 18 July 2008 and stormed through the box office, with a record-breaking $158.4 million in the U.S. in its first weekend.^[38] It broke the $300 million barrier in 10 days, the $400 million mark in 18 days and the $500 million mark in 43 days, three new U.S. box office records set by the film.^[39] The film went on to gross over $1 billion at the box office worldwide, making it the fourth-highest grossing movie worldwide of all time, before adjusting for inflation.^[40]

Bale will reprise his role in The Dark Knight Rises which will be released on 20 July 2012,^[41] making Bale the actor who has played Batman the most times in feature film. Bale has given the same opinion as Nolan that, if the latter was forced to bring Robin into the films, he would never again play Batman; even though one of his favourite Batman stories, Batman: Dark Victory, focuses on Robin's origin.^[42]

2006–2009[link]

Bale in 2008

After Batman Begins, Bale returned to appearing in independent films. He was cast as one of the two leads in the South Central David Ayer-helmed crime drama Harsh Times, co-starring Freddy Rodriguez and Eva Longoria. Bale played Jim Luther Davis, a grim Afghanistan War veteran afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder, approached by the Department of Homeland Security and hired as a federal agent. Harsh Times premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival and had a wide release on 10 November 2006.^[43]

Terrence Malick directed The New World, a period piece inspired by the stories of Pocahontas, and Bale was cast as John Rolfe. He shared the screen with Colin Farrell and Q'Orianka Kilcher, who played John Smith and Pocahontas. The majority of screen time was devoted to Farrell and Kilcher; Bale was a secondary character, and only appeared during the last third of the film. The film was a failure at the U.S. box office and its worldwide total (US$29,506,437) fell short of turning a profit (the production budget was placed at US$30 million).^[44]

In 2006, Bale took on four projects. Rescue Dawn, by German filmmaker Werner Herzog, had him playing U.S. Fighter pilot Dieter Dengler, who has to fight for his life after being shot down while on a mission during the Vietnam War. Bale left a strong impression on Herzog, with the director complimenting his acting abilities: "I find him one of the greatest talents of his generation. We made up our own minds long before he did Batman."^[45]

In The Prestige, an adaptation of the Christopher Priest novel about a rivalry between two Victorian stage magicians, Bale was reunited with Batman Begins' Michael Caine and director Christopher Nolan. The cast of The Prestige also included Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, Piper Perabo, and David Bowie. I'm Not There, a film in which Bale again worked alongside Todd Haynes and Heath Ledger (who would go on to play The Joker in The Dark Knight), is an artistic reflection of the life of Bob Dylan. He starred opposite Russell Crowe in a commercially and critically successful Western film, 3:10 to Yuma.

Bale was originally cast to play George W. Bush in Oliver Stone's film W., but dropped out due to the prosthetics involved.^[47] Bale played John Connor in Terminator Salvation^[48] and FBI agent Melvin Purvis in Michael Mann's Public Enemies.^[49]

[edit] Terminator Salvation incident

In July 2008, Bale flew into an angry tirade on the sets of Terminator Salvation, while filming in New Mexico.^[50] In February 2009, the audio recording of the incident was released.^[51][52] The tirade was directed at Shane Hurlbut, director of photography for the film. According to Bale, Hurlbut had, for the second time, ruined his concentration by walking onto the set during a scene.^[50][53][54] The recording is of a highly agitated Bale directing profanities at Hurlbut, threatening and belittling him, and finally threatening to quit the film if Hurlbut repeated his offence without being fired for it.^[53] It was reported that Warner film executives sent the tape to the insurer of the film in case Bale decided to quit the movie.^[55] In an interview with E! Online, assistant director and producer of Terminator Salvation, Bruce Franklin, said it was an isolated incident. "If you are working in a very intense scene and someone takes you out of your groove ... It was the most emotional scene in the movie ... [A]nd for him to get stopped in the middle of it. He is very intensely involved in his character. He didn't walk around like that all day long. It was just a moment and it passed," Franklin said.^[56]

Actors Whoopi Goldberg and Terry Crews,^[57][58] directors Darren Aronofsky^[59] and Ron Howard,^[60] as well as Ain't It Cool News website creator Harry Knowles^[61] have also publicly defended Bale's actions, some of them citing the practice that crew members are to remain still while the camera is rolling. The incident also inspired experimental band The Mae Shi to write the song, "R U Professional", which features samples from the recording;^[62] similarly, Lucian Piane's remix "Bale Out" is composed almost entirely of audio from the incident. Stephen Colbert parodied the incident on 4 February 2009 episode of The Colbert Report, in which guest Steve Martin repeatedly walked in front of the camera and was berated by Colbert.^[63] The incident was re-enacted on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, with Inside the Actor's Studio host James Lipton giving performances of both Bale and the crewmember.^[64] An episode of the animated comedy series Family Guy also mixed in the voice of Peter Griffin interacting with Bale and reacting to Bale's comments as if they were directed at him to comedic effect.

After remaining silent for most of the week, Bale gave a public apology on 6 February 2009, to a Los Angeles radio station, KROQ. He stated that the outburst was "inexcusable" and that it was motivated by the day's shooting intensity.^[65] Bale said he "acted like a punk", and that he and Hurlbut talked after the incident and "resolved this completely".^[66] Bale acknowledged that the two worked together for several hours after the incident, and "at least a month after that... I've seen a rough cut of the movie and he has done a wonderful job. It looks fantastic".^[66]

2010–present[link]

Bale starred alongside Mark Wahlberg in the David O. Russell-directed 2010 drama The Fighter, for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and thirty other awards in 2011.^[67] Near the end of his acceptance speech during the televised Golden Globes awards ceremony, Bale complimented Robert DeNiro by saying he was "the shit". The comment was censored by NBC.^[68]

Writer/director Joe Carnahan confirmed in November 2007 that Bale is also involved in the upcoming movie Killing Pablo in which he is to play Major Steve Jacoby.^[69] According to a Nuts magazine interview, Bale stated that he will be in the running to play the role of Solid Snake in a film adaptation of Metal Gear Solid.^[70] Niels Arden Oplev, director of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, is to have Bale as lead in his current project The Last Photograph, which Oplev hopes to start filming early 2011.^[71] In December 2010, it was announced that Christian Bale would be starring in the historical drama war film The Flowers of War, directed by Zhang Yimou.^[72]

While filming The Flowers of War in December 2011, Bale and a CNN crew attempted to visit Chen Guangcheng, a blind "barefoot lawyer" under unofficial house arrest for his activism against China's One Child Policy. While on camera, Bale was punched, shoved, and denied access by dozens of Chinese security guards who failed to recognize him.^[73] Bale later stated that he had wanted "to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is".^[74][75] Video footage also showed Bale and the CNN crew having stones thrown at them, and a minivan then chased their car for more than 40 minutes.^[73]

Bale is set to appear in two Terrence Malick directed films to be shot in 2012, Lawless and Knight of Cups.^[76][77]

In early 2012, it was confirmed that Bale was portraying the character Russell Baze in Scott Cooper’s upcoming thriller Out of the Furnace.^[78][79][77]

Personal life[link]

On 29 January 2000, Bale married Sandra "Sibi" Blažić (born 1970), a former model, make-up artist and personal assistant to Winona Ryder; the couple have a daughter, Emmeline,^[80] who was born on 27 March 2005 in Santa Monica, California.^[81][82] Since 1992, Bale has resided in Los Angeles.^[83]

Like his late father, Christian Bale actively supports environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund.^[7] Feminist activist Gloria Steinem became Christian Bale's stepmother on 3 September 2000;^[84] it was her first marriage (at the age of 66), and the couple were together until David's death.^[5]

Film and television credits[link]

Awards and nominations[link]