memorable tv           

TELEVISION

MUSIC

MORE STUFF

CHRISTIAN BALE ON RESCUE DAWN

To play Dieter Dengler would be to follow him into some of the most extreme human experiences – from enduring torture to eating snakes to jumping into rapids – while irreverently defying the clutches of death the whole way. So when Werner Herzog first approached Christian Bale he did so with a potentially ominous warning. “Before we entered into this adventure, I told Christian this role is going to be extremely demanding, very physical, and you will plow through the jungle like no man before you,” recalls Herzog. “Of course, he showed up very committed and prepared and it was clear that we both meant business.”

Perhaps fittingly, Bale originally read the script while he was literally at the ends of the earth, in Tierra Del Fuego at the southernmost tip of Patagonia. He thought he was reading it with a supporting role in mind, but when Herzog asked him if he would play Dieter, he was more than game. “Werner makes movies like he’s wrestling them to the ground,” comments Bale. “He has such great dreams and ideals and I wanted to work with someone like that.” Despite all that the role would entail, it was Dieter’s overwhelmingly positive nature that initially drew Bale. “I never saw the film as being intense because Dieter is anything but intense. He’s the most unlikely of war heroes, with his prankster nature and his goofy grin. He’s definitely not your typical image of a Special Forces, eats-nails-for-breakfast tough guy. And yet it’s his crazy optimism that I think allowed him to survive and also to keep others alive,” he observes.

That notion of a fierce and wondrous “crazy optimism” lay at the very heart of Bale’s portrait. “I think you could take a lot of different people in the same circumstances as Dieter and it would all come out very differently,” says Bale. “I have to think that Dieter’s way of seeing the world was in part a product of his seeing the chaos of World War II through a child’s eyes. He developed that kind of tunnel vision that a child has, not needing anything except to keep going without ever stopping and that I think that alone can make you a fantastic survivor. I think it is that part of Dieter that Werner always found so alluring because of their similar background.”

Bale was saddened to learn that the real Dieter Dengler had passed away before Herzog had a chance to make RESCUE DAWN, but was grateful to have the opportunity to speak with Dengler’s sons, brother and ex-wife. The moving footage from Herzog’s documentary was also an invaluable research tool, as was Werner himself who had come to know Dengler and his stories so intimately. “I built a sense of who he really was, but as with any film character, there was also artistic license,” notes Bale.

Heading into the Thai jungle in a purposefully depleted state would also come to have an impact on Bale’s performance. But no matter what frightening scenarios Herzog painted, Bale was completely undeterred. On the contrary, the notion of an intensely physical, unpredictable production that would take him into the most primal of conditions exhilarated him.

“One of the first things Werner and I talked about was that there would be swimming in snake-infested waters and the eating of maggots – but that all sounded like a great opportunity to me,” confesses Bale. “Werner never had to push me to do these things because I was happy to do them – and I would do it all over again. I think much of why I like doing what I do was represented by my experience on this movie.”

Naturally, Bale had heard the colorful rumors and stories about the various trials and tribulations of Herzog’s previous productions – particularly his volatile relationship with the similarly intense German actor Klaus Kinski -- but they did not concern him, and he formed his own quite different view of Herzog’s style. “Werner can be, I say can be, a gentle soul,” he observes. “I definitely heard all the stories, and quite enjoyed them, but not once did I feel that things crossed any kind of line. Werner cares a great deal and I think he is driven only by what he believes is necessary to tell a great story.”

Bale especially enjoyed the distinctively raw, spontaneous, unadorned atmosphere of Herzog’s set. He explains: “Werner is accustomed to living with the people he makes movies with – you’re all eating, breathing, and doing everything together, so that the entire project is an experience beyond the filming. There can be a great deal of intimacy in this case, whether it be fantastically happy days together or people losing their tempers and screaming at one another. It’s all part of the experience. The other thing about Werner is that he always seem to provoke, without intending to, a reaction from people. You simply can’t have no reaction to him. He’s a like a little tornado who sends people bouncing all over the place.”

In the jungle, where both cast and crew were frequently bruised and battered, Bale drew further insight into what Dengler must have experienced even after having escaped the POW camp. “I think the absolute worst thing for him must have been always hoping that freedom was around the next corner, but there was often simply new dangers,” Bale says. “Even worse, he and Duane literally found themselves going around in circles, getting nowhere, knowing the whole time that the end was very near.”

It was during these nightmarish days, that Dieter found himself developing an extraordinarily close friendship with his sole companion Duane – a friendship so stripped of artifice that it becomes one of the most moving elements of the film. Bale and Zahn approached the friendship as having less to do with affection than with raw need. “When everything becomes narrowed down to sheer survival, you don’t give as much of a damn about so-called dignity or pride,” comments Bale, “and you see everybody with their skin peeled back, completely exposed. It goes beyond whether you even like somebody or whether you would be friends under other circumstances. I think there’s simply a profound kinship that comes from sharing that life-or-death predicament, which is what existed between Dieter and Duane.”

In the end, Bale believes Dieter saw the jungle as having shades of both malevolence and transcendent beauty – because it was at once his trap and his salvation. “You can always see the jungle as either romantic or cruel,” Bale says. “If you’re faring badly, it can be quite a terrifying place, but if you’re Dieter and you see a helicopter up above, nothing is more beautiful.”

back to articles | home

RSS FEEDS AND EMAIL NEWSLETTER

Subscribe to memorable tv for updates,comp news and more or Via Email