The Machinist (2004)
distributed
by PARAMOUNT CLASSICS
Director
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How do you wake from a nightmare if you aren't asleep?
The Story
THE
MACHINIST is the story of Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale), a lathe-operator
who is dying of insomnia. In a machine shop, occupational hazards are bad enough
under normal circumstances; yet for Trevor the risks are compounded by fatigue.
Trevor has lost the ability to sleep. In fact, he hasn’t slept for a
year… This is no ordinary insomnia…
Yet Trevor won’t seek help. He hides his illness like some dark and shameful secret. Whatever it is that’s wrong with him, he’d rather not know.
Trevor
has two women in his life. One is a prostitute (Jennifer Jason Leigh) he visits
in the dead of night. The other is a waitress (Aitana Sánchez-gijón)
who moonlights in an airport coffee shop to support an ill child. Trevor sees
these women for different reasons. The prostitute satisfies his carnal instincts,
the waitress eases his loneliness.
As his insomnia continues, Trevor becomes afflicted by vivid and violent hallucinations. He loses control of his thoughts an actions. He fears he’s going insane. Yet he does his best to hide this from others. After all, he doesn’t want to lose his job.
One day Trevor meets a new employee at the shop. This is Ivan. There’s something repulsive about this man. Something disturbing. That afternoon, Trevor is involved in a shop accident that costs a man his arm. His co-workers blame him for the accident. They feel he has become a liability to others. Now they want him out.
Trevor refuses
to resign. He fights to hang onto his job and his sanity. Yet he’s
losing his grip. Especially when he’s told that this new employee
Ivan doesn’t exist. Is this true? Or is there a plot afoot to force
Trevor from the shop?
Now Trevor must find Ivan if he hopes to keep his job (and his sanity). Yet this is no easy task. Ivan is a cunning opponent. And the more Trevor learns about him, the less he wants to know.
Commentary by Brad Anderson
The
Machinist is a dark, moody thriller. It is the story of a man running
from a guilty conscience that is literally consuming him alive, uncertain,
unaware even, of what crime he's committed. It’s literary models are
the classic fiction of Kafka and Dostoievsky. Its film touchstones are Hitchcock,
Polanski and Lynch. In other words, it is a story of overwhelming paranoia
and foreboding.
The look of the film was inspired by the austere expressionism of early horror films - like THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI, NOSFERATU, and VAMPYR and the shadowy films of producer Val Lewton like I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and THE SEVENTH VICTIM. We hope to create a "subtle nightmare" with this film, one that pulls it’s dramatic suspense and horror from everyday situations.