The Machinist
Encyclopedia
The Machinist is a 2004
English-language Spanish psychological thriller
film directed
by Brad Anderson and written
by Scott Kosar
.
The film stars Christian Bale
and features Jennifer Jason Leigh
, John Sharian
, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón
, and Michael Ironside
. It was produced by the Fantastic Factory label of Filmax and Castelao Productions.
) is a machinist
who has had chronic insomnia
for a year and has lost weight to the point where he has become severely emaciated. His alarming appearance and strange behavior cause his co-workers to keep away; they eventually turn on him after he is involved in a machine accident that costs his colleague Miller (Michael Ironside
) his left arm. Trevor, who was distracted by an unfamiliar co-worker named Ivan (John Sharian
), bears the blame for the accident. No one at the factory knows of Ivan and there are no records of him as an employee. Trevor seems to find peace only in the arms of Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh
), a prostitute who develops genuine affection for him, or in the company of Maria (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón
), a waitress at the airport diner where he spends many of his nights.
Trevor is haunted by brief flashes of recurring imagery, and everyday objects take on a menacing air, like the car cigarette lighter. A mysterious series of post-it note
s that appear on his refrigerator depict a game of hangman
; these vaguely threatening incidents send Trevor further into paranoia
. He nevertheless attempts to establish a tentative romantic relationship with Maria. Meeting her at an amusement park, Trevor accompanies her son Nicholas on a grotesque funhouse
ride called "Route 666" whose flashing lights cause the boy to suffer an epileptic
seizure.
Trevor is no longer able to think clearly and begins to suspect that the bizarre events in his life are a concerted effort to drive him insane. These ideas are fed to him in small random clues. One of them takes the form of a picture of Ivan fishing with one of Trevor's co-workers which he discovers in Ivan's wallet when it's momentarily left behind in a pub. Another near-accident at work causes Trevor to lash out in rage at his co-workers and as a result he is immediately fired. Growing increasingly distracted and alienated, Trevor forgets to pay his utility bills and his electricity is disconnected. A dark, viscous liquid begins trickling out of the freezer, eventually coating the refrigerator door with streaks of what appears to be blood.
After several unsuccessful attempts at confronting Ivan, Trevor tries to trace him through his license plate. He follows Ivan's car to read its license plate just before his petrol runs out. When a DMV
clerk insists that he cannot release personal information unless a crime has been committed, Trevor throws himself in front of a car in order to accuse Ivan of committing a hit and run
. After filing a police report with Ivan's plate number on it, the battered Trevor is dumbfounded when the investigator tells him that the car in question is his own; Trevor reported the vehicle destroyed in a wreck one year ago. He runs from the policemen and goes to see Stevie, who clothes and washes him. But then Trevor finds the fishing picture of Ivan and Reynolds now framed in her home and accuses her of conspiring against him. Stevie is confused and says the picture is of Reynolds and him and not Ivan but Trevor refuses to look at it. Following a short, intense bout of name-calling Trevor is thrown out. He goes to find solace at the airport diner but when he asks about Maria, an unfamiliar waitress tells him they never had an employee there by that name.
In the film's climax Trevor sees Ivan take Nicholas, who appears to have been kidnapped, into Trevor's apartment. Fearing the worst, Trevor sneaks inside. Nicholas is nowhere to be seen and does not respond to Trevor's calls. Trevor confronts Ivan in the bathroom, and asks him what he has done with Nicholas. Trevor struggles with and ultimately kills Ivan. He then flings open the shower curtain, expecting to see Nicholas' dead body, but the bathtub is empty. He goes to his refrigerator and opens it to find rotting fish and other spoiled foods come tumbling out. His mind then flashes back to the fishing photo which now shows a heavier, healthier Trevor standing near his co-worker Reynolds just as Stevie claimed. Ivan was never in the photo; it was all a part of Trevor's hallucination.
The scene then returns to one which occurred during the opening credit roll, in which Trevor tries to dispose of someone's corpse (presumably Ivan's), rolling it in a rug and struggling to cast it into the ocean. When the rug unravels, there is nothing inside. Ivan - alive - appears holding a flashlight and laughing. Trevor, suddenly home again and staring at himself in a mirror, begins to repeat "I know who you are." He then recalls his own role in a hit-and-run accident a year earlier, in which he ran over and killed a boy identical to Nicholas after taking his eyes off the road for a moment to use the car's cigarette lighter. The boy's mother, whom he later fantasizes as Maria the waitress, was at the scene; Trevor decided to drive away. He fills in the missing letters for the hangman game on his refrigerator to spell "killer".
Upon recovering this deeply repressed memory he briefly considers going to the airport and escaping. Instead he drives to police headquarters, accompanied by an encouraging but silent Ivan, who bids him an approving farewell from outside the station. At the police station's front desk Trevor confesses to his hit and run. Two police officers escort Trevor to a cell, where he states he intends to go to sleep, then appears to fall asleep successfully for the first time in a year.
Despite its setting in a West Coast
American
city, the film was shot in its entirety in and near Barcelona
, Spain
.
Christian Bale starved himself for over four months prior to filming, as his character needed to look drastically thin. Allegedly, his eating consisted of one cup of black unsweetened coffee and an apple
(or a can of tuna
) each day (approximately 275 calories, or 1155 kilojoules). According to the DVD commentary, he lost 28 kilograms (61.7 lb), reducing his body mass to 54 kilograms (119 lb). Bale wanted to go down to 45 kilograms (99.2 lb), but the filmmakers would not let him due to health concerns. He later regained the mass, plus an additional 27 kilograms (59.5 lb) through weightlifting and proper eating, in preparation for his role in Batman Begins
.
Brad Anderson
hurt his back during filming and directed much of the film while lying on a gurney
.
, the founder and primary creative force behind the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails
, and the original script had NIN lyrics on the first page. Other NIN tributes include the reversed N on the movie poster and early press articles describing Reznik as experiencing a "downward spiral
". Coincidentally, in the Czech language
, "Řezník" stands for "butcher".
However, the strongest influence is the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In the DVD
commentary, Scott Kosar states that he was influenced by Dostoyevsky's The Double: A Petersburg Poem
. The character Reznik is shown reading Dostoyevsky's The Idiot
early in the film. When Reznik is riding the "Route 666" attraction, one of the faux movie marquees reads Crime and Punishment
.
1) Entering the ride "Route 666" with narrator's voice saying on the loudspeaker: "You're Going Straight To Hell on Route 666". Trevor takes the road to hell, a road of guilt, insomnia, paranoia, and starvation by not owning up to his hit and run accident that killed the boy Nicholas while running a red light on Route 66.
2) They are travelling on a mini-red sports car, similar to the car Trevor drove when he ran the red light and killed Nicholas. Nicholas is holding an ice-cream cone like the one he was holding when he got killed.
3) Man dying of heat exhaustion, starvation and insanity parallels Trevor's own demise, to which he adds "Looks like someone had a bad crack-up!". The man also has the same thumb/pinky hand (his left one) as Ivan (who represents Trevor's guilty subconscious).
4) Cowboy gas technician is wearing a similar "monkey" mechanic suit that Trevor wears at work, and has a similar ghastly appearance as Trevor does, especially later in the film after he gets hit by the car purposely.
5) Lady serving food on a tray has similar appearance to both Maria at the counter when she is working in the cafe and, more significantly, Stevie making eggs for him.
6) Indian holding a severed right arm/hand paralleling the severed left arm/hand that Miller lost in the machine.
7) Devil carrying a bin of severed arms and legs also paralleling Miller's accident.
8) Mourning lady in black laying flowers on a grave (the size of a child's body) represents Maria laying flowers on the grave of her son Nicholas, presumably 1 year after his death. (Reference to a deleted scene.)
9) Man hanging represents Trevor hanging himself by admitting his guilt (sign "guilty" on tree) and similar to the game of hangman (resulting in "killer" -- Trevor's recognition of being the killer of Nicholas).
10) Sheriff's office with Devil like Sheriff and corpse like prisoner, the latter representing Trevor after he finally admits his crime by turning himself into the police at the end of the film.
11) Shady Lady Motel represents Stevie's apartment, a prostitute who provides temporary distraction and relief from Trevor's guilt for his crime, the operative word being "temporary". The two images are of Stevie's prostitution job, S&M (her black eye from one of her clients) and oral sex (what she does for Trevor).
12) Crime and Punishment
sign is a reference to Trevor's dilemma and to the novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
13) Cop saying stop hints at what Trevor should have but did not do: stop after hitting Nicholas with his car. The boy cut-out getting hit by the red car they are riding in is an obvious parallel to the actual accident.
14) Dead body of a boy run-over represents Nicholas' dead body after Trevor ran him down with his red sports car. The screams and cries heard parallel Maria's cries when she sees that her son has been run over and is dead. The burning flames coming from the crashed red car parallels Trevor's totalling of his own red sports car (to destroy the evidence of the hit and run) and the lighter he was reaching for when he ran the red and killed Nicholas.
15) The proverbial fork in the road--Highway to Hell (Left) or Road to Salvation (Right). Despite Trevor's plea to Nicholas to turn right (an admission of what he should have done a year ago--stay at the scene of the crime), Nicholas disobeys and turns left to show the reality of what actually happened to him. This fork in the road also represents Trevor's choice at the end of the film, when he attempts to flee after recovering his memory of the hit-and-run. To drive left (to flee town) is to continue harboring his secret, allowing his guilt to further corrode his sanity, whereas to drive right (to the police) station is to finally be accountable for his actions, relieving his guilt.
16) Repeated images of crossed lights (fork in road), red stop light (the light Trevor drove through), the car speedometer (the speed he was travelling at when running the red), open gasping mouth (Trevor when he realizes he is going to hit Nicholas with his car), and the post-seizure Nicholas (paralleling how he looked at the crime scene prior to dying with blood coming from his mouth).
17) Trevor carrying Nicholas out of the ride and asking for help (how he should've handled the accident--staying at the scene, offering to call an ambulance, pleading for help, encouraging Nicholas to stay strong, etc. Maria running to Nicholas as he is having a seizure parallels her running to Nicholas after he was hit by Trevor).
a) "ER"
The letters "ER" as the clue to six-letter word end in "ER" for the game Hangman allows for the possibilities of TUCKER (Trevor's boss), MILLER (the colleague that lost his arm), MURDER, MOTHER, FISHER and finally KILLER (the actual answer).
b) Left
The direction "left" represents the bad choice, the choice of lying, denial, deceit, escape from punishment. There are many things in the movie that emphasize this. Miller loses his left arm, Ivan replaces the fingers of his left hand, the "Highway to Hell" direction in the Route 666 ride requires veering left, the kitchen at Maria's place is "at the end of the hall, to the left", Nicholas holds the ice cream cone with his left hand, Trevor holds his cigarette with his left hand, Trevor is on the left side of the photo, Stevie's left eye is bruised, in the sewers, Trevor chooses left (A) instead of right, (B), just as he is later tempted to choose left (Airport, fleeing, denial) over right (Downtown, police station, justice), etc.
c) The time "1:30"
The time of 1:30 was the time of the accident. This time is emphasized many times in the film. The clock in Maria's apartment says 1:30, the clock in Trevor's kitchen, the clock at the airport diner, etc.
d) The fish
The accident (most probably) happened while returning from a fishing trip with his co-worker which is how the image is linked to the accident. The fish may be referring to Trevor's guilt and is present in form of show pieces or paintings whenever he's hallucinating. In the climax, when he opens up the freezer, the rotting fish (which he may have caught on the trip) fall on him which is the portrayal of his guilt slapping on his face which was rotting inside him for a year. This incident also brings him to realize that it was himself in the picture.
reporting that 75% of the critics' reviews were positive.
2004 in film
The year 2004 in film involved some significant events. Major releases of sequels took place. It included blockbuster films like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Meet the Fockers, Blade: Trinity, Spider-Man 2, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill Vol...
English-language Spanish psychological thriller
Psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the broad ranged thriller with heavy focus on characters. However, it often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre, along with the typical traits of the thriller genre...
film directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by Brad Anderson and written
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
by Scott Kosar
Scott Kosar
Scott Kosar is a screenwriter whose films include The Machinist, the 2003 remake of the classic horror film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror.-Life and career:...
.
The film stars Christian Bale
Christian Bale
Christian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. 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....
and features Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts...
, John Sharian
John Sharian
John Sharian is an American actor whose film credits include The Machinist and Saving Private Ryan and whose television credits include CSI: Miami and Spooks.-Education:...
, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón
Aitana Sánchez-Gijón
Aitana Sánchez-Gijón is a Spanish-Italian film actress.Best known for playing dramatic roles in Spain, Sánchez-Gijón is known in the United States for her portrayal of Victoria Aragon, a pregnant and abandoned Mexican-American winegrower's daughter who is helped by travelling salesman Paul Sutton ...
, and Michael Ironside
Michael Ironside
Michael Ironside is a Canadian-born actor. He has also worked as a voice actor, producer, film director, and screenwriter in movie and television series in various Canadian and American productions. He is best known for playing villains and "tough guy" heroes, though he has also portrayed...
. It was produced by the Fantastic Factory label of Filmax and Castelao Productions.
Plot
Trevor Reznik (Christian BaleChristian Bale
Christian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. 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....
) is a machinist
Machinist
A machinist is a person who uses machine tools to make or modify parts, primarily metal parts, a process known as machining. This is accomplished by using machine tools to cut away excess material much as a woodcarver cuts away excess wood to produce his work. In addition to metal, the parts may...
who has had chronic insomnia
Insomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...
for a year and has lost weight to the point where he has become severely emaciated. His alarming appearance and strange behavior cause his co-workers to keep away; they eventually turn on him after he is involved in a machine accident that costs his colleague Miller (Michael Ironside
Michael Ironside
Michael Ironside is a Canadian-born actor. He has also worked as a voice actor, producer, film director, and screenwriter in movie and television series in various Canadian and American productions. He is best known for playing villains and "tough guy" heroes, though he has also portrayed...
) his left arm. Trevor, who was distracted by an unfamiliar co-worker named Ivan (John Sharian
John Sharian
John Sharian is an American actor whose film credits include The Machinist and Saving Private Ryan and whose television credits include CSI: Miami and Spooks.-Education:...
), bears the blame for the accident. No one at the factory knows of Ivan and there are no records of him as an employee. Trevor seems to find peace only in the arms of Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts...
), a prostitute who develops genuine affection for him, or in the company of Maria (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón
Aitana Sánchez-Gijón
Aitana Sánchez-Gijón is a Spanish-Italian film actress.Best known for playing dramatic roles in Spain, Sánchez-Gijón is known in the United States for her portrayal of Victoria Aragon, a pregnant and abandoned Mexican-American winegrower's daughter who is helped by travelling salesman Paul Sutton ...
), a waitress at the airport diner where he spends many of his nights.
Trevor is haunted by brief flashes of recurring imagery, and everyday objects take on a menacing air, like the car cigarette lighter. A mysterious series of post-it note
Post-it note
A Post-it note is a piece of stationery with a re-adherable strip of adhesive on the back, designed for temporarily attaching notes to documents and other surfaces. Although now available in a wide range of colours, shapes, and sizes, Post-it notes are most commonly a square, canary yellow in colour...
s that appear on his refrigerator depict a game of hangman
Hangman (game)
Hangman is a paper and pencil guessing game for two or more players. One player thinks of a word and the other tries to guess it by suggesting letters.-Overview:...
; these vaguely threatening incidents send Trevor further into paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
. He nevertheless attempts to establish a tentative romantic relationship with Maria. Meeting her at an amusement park, Trevor accompanies her son Nicholas on a grotesque funhouse
Funhouse
A funhouse or fun house is an amusement facility found on amusement park and funfair midways in which patrons encounter and actively interact with various devices designed to surprise, challenge, and amuse the visitor. Unlike thrill rides, funhouses are participatory attractions, where visitors...
ride called "Route 666" whose flashing lights cause the boy to suffer an epileptic
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
seizure.
Trevor is no longer able to think clearly and begins to suspect that the bizarre events in his life are a concerted effort to drive him insane. These ideas are fed to him in small random clues. One of them takes the form of a picture of Ivan fishing with one of Trevor's co-workers which he discovers in Ivan's wallet when it's momentarily left behind in a pub. Another near-accident at work causes Trevor to lash out in rage at his co-workers and as a result he is immediately fired. Growing increasingly distracted and alienated, Trevor forgets to pay his utility bills and his electricity is disconnected. A dark, viscous liquid begins trickling out of the freezer, eventually coating the refrigerator door with streaks of what appears to be blood.
After several unsuccessful attempts at confronting Ivan, Trevor tries to trace him through his license plate. He follows Ivan's car to read its license plate just before his petrol runs out. When a DMV
Department of Motor Vehicles
In the United States of America, a Department of Motor Vehicles is a state-level government agency that administers vehicle registration and driver licensing. Similar departments exist in Canada...
clerk insists that he cannot release personal information unless a crime has been committed, Trevor throws himself in front of a car in order to accuse Ivan of committing a hit and run
Hit and run (vehicular)
Hit-and-run is the act of causing a traffic accident , and failing to stop and identify oneself afterwards...
. After filing a police report with Ivan's plate number on it, the battered Trevor is dumbfounded when the investigator tells him that the car in question is his own; Trevor reported the vehicle destroyed in a wreck one year ago. He runs from the policemen and goes to see Stevie, who clothes and washes him. But then Trevor finds the fishing picture of Ivan and Reynolds now framed in her home and accuses her of conspiring against him. Stevie is confused and says the picture is of Reynolds and him and not Ivan but Trevor refuses to look at it. Following a short, intense bout of name-calling Trevor is thrown out. He goes to find solace at the airport diner but when he asks about Maria, an unfamiliar waitress tells him they never had an employee there by that name.
In the film's climax Trevor sees Ivan take Nicholas, who appears to have been kidnapped, into Trevor's apartment. Fearing the worst, Trevor sneaks inside. Nicholas is nowhere to be seen and does not respond to Trevor's calls. Trevor confronts Ivan in the bathroom, and asks him what he has done with Nicholas. Trevor struggles with and ultimately kills Ivan. He then flings open the shower curtain, expecting to see Nicholas' dead body, but the bathtub is empty. He goes to his refrigerator and opens it to find rotting fish and other spoiled foods come tumbling out. His mind then flashes back to the fishing photo which now shows a heavier, healthier Trevor standing near his co-worker Reynolds just as Stevie claimed. Ivan was never in the photo; it was all a part of Trevor's hallucination.
The scene then returns to one which occurred during the opening credit roll, in which Trevor tries to dispose of someone's corpse (presumably Ivan's), rolling it in a rug and struggling to cast it into the ocean. When the rug unravels, there is nothing inside. Ivan - alive - appears holding a flashlight and laughing. Trevor, suddenly home again and staring at himself in a mirror, begins to repeat "I know who you are." He then recalls his own role in a hit-and-run accident a year earlier, in which he ran over and killed a boy identical to Nicholas after taking his eyes off the road for a moment to use the car's cigarette lighter. The boy's mother, whom he later fantasizes as Maria the waitress, was at the scene; Trevor decided to drive away. He fills in the missing letters for the hangman game on his refrigerator to spell "killer".
Upon recovering this deeply repressed memory he briefly considers going to the airport and escaping. Instead he drives to police headquarters, accompanied by an encouraging but silent Ivan, who bids him an approving farewell from outside the station. At the police station's front desk Trevor confesses to his hit and run. Two police officers escort Trevor to a cell, where he states he intends to go to sleep, then appears to fall asleep successfully for the first time in a year.
Cast
- Christian BaleChristian BaleChristian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. 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....
as Trevor Reznik - Jennifer Jason LeighJennifer Jason LeighJennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts...
as Stevie - John SharianJohn SharianJohn Sharian is an American actor whose film credits include The Machinist and Saving Private Ryan and whose television credits include CSI: Miami and Spooks.-Education:...
as Ivan - Aitana Sánchez-GijónAitana Sánchez-GijónAitana Sánchez-Gijón is a Spanish-Italian film actress.Best known for playing dramatic roles in Spain, Sánchez-Gijón is known in the United States for her portrayal of Victoria Aragon, a pregnant and abandoned Mexican-American winegrower's daughter who is helped by travelling salesman Paul Sutton ...
as Maria - Michael IronsideMichael IronsideMichael Ironside is a Canadian-born actor. He has also worked as a voice actor, producer, film director, and screenwriter in movie and television series in various Canadian and American productions. He is best known for playing villains and "tough guy" heroes, though he has also portrayed...
as Miller - Anna MasseyAnna MasseyAnna Raymond Massey, CBE was an English actress. She won a BAFTA Award for the role of Edith Hope in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner’s novel Hotel du Lac.-Early life:...
as Mrs. Shrike - Larry Gilliard, Jr. as Jackson
- Reg E. CatheyReg E. CatheyReginald "Reg" E. Cathey is an American stage, film and television actor.Cathey is a native of Huntsville, Alabama and a graduate of J.O. Johnson High School. He spent his childhood in West Germany. His favourite band is Blur....
as Jones - James DePaul (uncredited)
Production
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
city, the film was shot in its entirety in and near Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
Christian Bale starved himself for over four months prior to filming, as his character needed to look drastically thin. Allegedly, his eating consisted of one cup of black unsweetened coffee and an apple
Apple
The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family . It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans. Apple grow on small, deciduous trees that blossom in the spring...
(or a can of tuna
Tuna
Tuna is a salt water fish from the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus. Tuna are fast swimmers, and some species are capable of speeds of . Unlike most fish, which have white flesh, the muscle tissue of tuna ranges from pink to dark red. The red coloration derives from myoglobin, an...
) each day (approximately 275 calories, or 1155 kilojoules). According to the DVD commentary, he lost 28 kilograms (61.7 lb), reducing his body mass to 54 kilograms (119 lb). Bale wanted to go down to 45 kilograms (99.2 lb), but the filmmakers would not let him due to health concerns. He later regained the mass, plus an additional 27 kilograms (59.5 lb) through weightlifting and proper eating, in preparation for his role in Batman Begins
Batman Begins
Batman Begins is a 2005 American superhero action film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson,...
.
Brad Anderson
Brad Anderson (film director)
Brad Anderson is a film director. A director of thriller and horror films and television projects, he is best known for having directed The Machinist , starring Christian Bale, as well as producing and directing several installments of the FOX science-fiction series Fringe.-Early life:Anderson was...
hurt his back during filming and directed much of the film while lying on a gurney
Gurney
A gurney, known as a trolley in British medical context, is the U.S. term for a type of stretcher used in modern hospitals and ambulances in developed areas. A hospital gurney is a kind of narrow bed on a wheeled frame which may be adjustable in height. For ambulances, a collapsible gurney is a...
.
Influences
The name Trevor Reznik is derived from Trent ReznorTrent Reznor
Michael Trent Reznor is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer, and leader of industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. Reznor is also a member of How to Destroy Angels alongside his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, and Atticus Ross. He was previously associated with bands Option 30,...
, the founder and primary creative force behind the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
, and the original script had NIN lyrics on the first page. Other NIN tributes include the reversed N on the movie poster and early press articles describing Reznik as experiencing a "downward spiral
The Downward Spiral
The Downward Spiral is the second studio album by American industrial rock act Nine Inch Nails, released March 8, 1994, on Interscope Records. It is a concept album detailing the destruction of a man, from the beginning of his "downward spiral" to his climactic attempt at suicide...
". Coincidentally, in the Czech language
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, "Řezník" stands for "butcher".
However, the strongest influence is the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
commentary, Scott Kosar states that he was influenced by Dostoyevsky's The Double: A Petersburg Poem
The Double: A Petersburg Poem
The Double: A Petersburg Poem is a novella written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The novella was first published on January 30, 1846 in Fatherland Notes....
. The character Reznik is shown reading Dostoyevsky's The Idiot
The Idiot (novel)
The Idiot is a novel written by 19th century Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published serially in The Russian Messenger between 1868 and 1869. The Idiot is ranked beside some of Dostoyevsky's other works as one of the most brilliant literary achievements of the "Golden Age" of...
early in the film. When Reznik is riding the "Route 666" attraction, one of the faux movie marquees reads Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. This is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his...
.
Route 666 Ride Sequence
The Route 666 Ride is basically Trevor's subconscious coming to full tilt, and every part of the ride is a part of his buried subconscious, namely the hit and run murder of Nicholas that we find out at the end of the film. The ride parts in sequence (and their significance), in order of appearance:1) Entering the ride "Route 666" with narrator's voice saying on the loudspeaker: "You're Going Straight To Hell on Route 666". Trevor takes the road to hell, a road of guilt, insomnia, paranoia, and starvation by not owning up to his hit and run accident that killed the boy Nicholas while running a red light on Route 66.
2) They are travelling on a mini-red sports car, similar to the car Trevor drove when he ran the red light and killed Nicholas. Nicholas is holding an ice-cream cone like the one he was holding when he got killed.
3) Man dying of heat exhaustion, starvation and insanity parallels Trevor's own demise, to which he adds "Looks like someone had a bad crack-up!". The man also has the same thumb/pinky hand (his left one) as Ivan (who represents Trevor's guilty subconscious).
4) Cowboy gas technician is wearing a similar "monkey" mechanic suit that Trevor wears at work, and has a similar ghastly appearance as Trevor does, especially later in the film after he gets hit by the car purposely.
5) Lady serving food on a tray has similar appearance to both Maria at the counter when she is working in the cafe and, more significantly, Stevie making eggs for him.
6) Indian holding a severed right arm/hand paralleling the severed left arm/hand that Miller lost in the machine.
7) Devil carrying a bin of severed arms and legs also paralleling Miller's accident.
8) Mourning lady in black laying flowers on a grave (the size of a child's body) represents Maria laying flowers on the grave of her son Nicholas, presumably 1 year after his death. (Reference to a deleted scene.)
9) Man hanging represents Trevor hanging himself by admitting his guilt (sign "guilty" on tree) and similar to the game of hangman (resulting in "killer" -- Trevor's recognition of being the killer of Nicholas).
10) Sheriff's office with Devil like Sheriff and corpse like prisoner, the latter representing Trevor after he finally admits his crime by turning himself into the police at the end of the film.
11) Shady Lady Motel represents Stevie's apartment, a prostitute who provides temporary distraction and relief from Trevor's guilt for his crime, the operative word being "temporary". The two images are of Stevie's prostitution job, S&M (her black eye from one of her clients) and oral sex (what she does for Trevor).
12) Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. This is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his...
sign is a reference to Trevor's dilemma and to the novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
13) Cop saying stop hints at what Trevor should have but did not do: stop after hitting Nicholas with his car. The boy cut-out getting hit by the red car they are riding in is an obvious parallel to the actual accident.
14) Dead body of a boy run-over represents Nicholas' dead body after Trevor ran him down with his red sports car. The screams and cries heard parallel Maria's cries when she sees that her son has been run over and is dead. The burning flames coming from the crashed red car parallels Trevor's totalling of his own red sports car (to destroy the evidence of the hit and run) and the lighter he was reaching for when he ran the red and killed Nicholas.
15) The proverbial fork in the road--Highway to Hell (Left) or Road to Salvation (Right). Despite Trevor's plea to Nicholas to turn right (an admission of what he should have done a year ago--stay at the scene of the crime), Nicholas disobeys and turns left to show the reality of what actually happened to him. This fork in the road also represents Trevor's choice at the end of the film, when he attempts to flee after recovering his memory of the hit-and-run. To drive left (to flee town) is to continue harboring his secret, allowing his guilt to further corrode his sanity, whereas to drive right (to the police) station is to finally be accountable for his actions, relieving his guilt.
16) Repeated images of crossed lights (fork in road), red stop light (the light Trevor drove through), the car speedometer (the speed he was travelling at when running the red), open gasping mouth (Trevor when he realizes he is going to hit Nicholas with his car), and the post-seizure Nicholas (paralleling how he looked at the crime scene prior to dying with blood coming from his mouth).
17) Trevor carrying Nicholas out of the ride and asking for help (how he should've handled the accident--staying at the scene, offering to call an ambulance, pleading for help, encouraging Nicholas to stay strong, etc. Maria running to Nicholas as he is having a seizure parallels her running to Nicholas after he was hit by Trevor).
Repeated Images/Symbols
There are many repeated symbols/images/metaphors in this film that tie into the theme of guilt and retribution/punishment for evil:a) "ER"
The letters "ER" as the clue to six-letter word end in "ER" for the game Hangman allows for the possibilities of TUCKER (Trevor's boss), MILLER (the colleague that lost his arm), MURDER, MOTHER, FISHER and finally KILLER (the actual answer).
b) Left
The direction "left" represents the bad choice, the choice of lying, denial, deceit, escape from punishment. There are many things in the movie that emphasize this. Miller loses his left arm, Ivan replaces the fingers of his left hand, the "Highway to Hell" direction in the Route 666 ride requires veering left, the kitchen at Maria's place is "at the end of the hall, to the left", Nicholas holds the ice cream cone with his left hand, Trevor holds his cigarette with his left hand, Trevor is on the left side of the photo, Stevie's left eye is bruised, in the sewers, Trevor chooses left (A) instead of right, (B), just as he is later tempted to choose left (Airport, fleeing, denial) over right (Downtown, police station, justice), etc.
c) The time "1:30"
The time of 1:30 was the time of the accident. This time is emphasized many times in the film. The clock in Maria's apartment says 1:30, the clock in Trevor's kitchen, the clock at the airport diner, etc.
d) The fish
The accident (most probably) happened while returning from a fishing trip with his co-worker which is how the image is linked to the accident. The fish may be referring to Trevor's guilt and is present in form of show pieces or paintings whenever he's hallucinating. In the climax, when he opens up the freezer, the rotting fish (which he may have caught on the trip) fall on him which is the portrayal of his guilt slapping on his face which was rotting inside him for a year. This incident also brings him to realize that it was himself in the picture.
Reception
The Machinist was well received by critics with the review aggregating website Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reporting that 75% of the critics' reviews were positive.