WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!
The reasons why both characters suffer from this disorder is
from the guilt of accidentally killing a person. However, how these events
unfold are different in terms narrative, and the victim who died at their hand.
In "The Machinist" Trevor (Christian Bale) runs over a child in front
of his Mother after taking his eyes off the road to use the car's cigarette.
Disturbed by this sight, he flees from the scene rather than confronting it.
Because of his guilt for what he has done, with the thought of how the boy's
Mother must feel about his death after being reminded of his own Mom who he
loved so dearly, he develops a terrible case of insomnia. Sounds like an
interesting lead-in to the plot, except we don’t know this information until
the climax. All we get are hints and clues to the accident before the film’s
conclusion, causing us to relate to Bale’s confusion of the things he sees. If
this film explained the reason for his insomnia from the start, the film would
fail to be intriguingly suspenseful since we already know what he has forgotten
as we’re impatiently waiting for is for him to remember. It’d be like if a
Hitchcock film or “Twilight Zone” episode started with the twist ending before
the story unfolds, it would lose all the suspense and wonder.
Nolan’s remake of "Insomnia" is very
straight forward where it’s not the mystery that’s the focus. The focus is how
the main character Detective Will Dormer (Al Pacino) is caught between the
crossroads unsure of where to turn as he’s driven into madness and guilt (just
like Trevor at the end of "The Machinist" except his struggle with
making the decision is happening constantly). During a pursuit for a murderer
in the dark and foggy woods of Alaska, Will believing the man in the distance
is the criminal he seeks shoots him only to discover that he had shot and
killed his partner Detective Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan). Unlike how Trevor
just covers-up his involvement in the accident just because of his guilt, there
is more at stake involving Will's actions. The man he killed wasn't some
ordinary detective he was partnered-up with. Hap was going to testify against
him at an investigation conducted by Internal Affairs for convicting criminals
by using questionable evidence as soon as his current case is over. Will knows
that Hap's testimony will undo all his work and credibility as a detective and
should anybody know that he's the man responsible for his death, his
involvement would look suspicious. After pinning his crime on the man they were
hunting down, Will feels guilt for his crime, but also fear if anybody should
find out what really happened. And for staying in an environment where the sun
is always shining during a certain time of year, insomnia starts to take a
great effect on him.
From not being able to sleep, Will gains a cranky attitude
by lashing out irrationally at people during the investigation including his
superiors. While having the energy to have sudden outburst at people, Will
still feels weak from his insomnia where he doesn't contain the stamina nor the
strength when being required to take physical action in his job. Making things
more difficult for Will when trying to finish this case is his lack of focus.
For not feeling as awake or active before the death of Hap, he has trouble
acknowledging the dangers in his surroundings that nearly get him or others
killed. There are times where he'll hallucinate things he fears that bring
him deeper to his insanity of guilt. He tries to keep himself awake by chewing
gum, but no matter how hard he tries he can't break free from his insomnia. It
becomes insufferable to the point where a dark room that has little light
becomes too bright for him causing him to blockade the windows with everything
he has.
Trevor struggles with Insomnia are much worse than what Will has to grow through. Unlike how Will's Insomnia lasted for the last couple of days in his life (though is still strongly felt through Nolan's intense direction), Trevor's lasts him a whole entire year. After being awake for such a long period time and still not being able to get any sleep, his body becomes abnormally thin, making him resemble a walking skeleton for pale and bony his body appears. For losing his mind over the accident and the fact he can't sleep, he develops some strange habits like washing his hands with bleach and writing himself notes on the refrigerator to remind himself to do simple things.
What drives Trevor into pure insanity that harms himself and
the people around him (just like Will) are his hallucinations. Through his
insomnia he was able to repress his memories of the accident, but his
sub-conscience refuses to let him completely forget about it by having his
hallucination tying into the accident take the form of people we see him meet
and greet for the first time. The Mother for example is imagined as a waitress
named Maria (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón) at an airport diner he usually hangs at with
a son resembling the boy he killed. But the figment in Trevor's imagination who
is always following him is a carefree punk named Ivan (John Sharian),
representing the dark side of Trevor for his accident. Due to Ivan's presence,
Trevor (unknown that he isn't real) being so focused on figuring out who he is,
and why he's suddenly part of his life causes to him to go into a violent rage
for whenever he feels comfort and content with his surroundings. By focusing on
Ivan at his job for never seeing him working in the building before, he
accidentally causes one of his co-workers to lose his arm when fixing a piece
of machinery. But after he and his co-worker bury the hatchet, when Trevor
almost gets killed by one of the machines at work he believes one of
his-coworkers did it as revenge after showing great disgust for his accident,
and starts angrily assaulting the workers and his manager, which gets him
fired. After finding peace by given the opportunity to live with a prostitute
named Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who he knows will lead him to happiness for
how the two share a personal connection outside of just having sex, and is
willing to end her career now that she find someone she can settle down, Ivan
comes back to haunt him. Only rather than appearing in front-of him, Trevor
only sees his boots and a framed picture of him fishing, leading to him to
furiously snap at her believing that she was part of his game of Cat-and-Mouse,
consequently losing her forever by getting kicked-out of her apartment. Unless
Trevor finally turns himself to the authorities, Ivan will go on taunting him
for the rest of his life serving as his punishment that may even lead to
suicide since at one point in the movie he nearly kills himself in order to
report him to the DMV so he can find information on him.
Serving as Will's punishment isn't someone from his
imagination but is the criminal he's been tracking down. The man responsible
for the murder is an author who writes crime stories Walter Finch (Robin
Williams). Much like Ivan, Walter serves as a reflection of Will's inner-demons
for the crime he covered-up. Like Will, Walter was a good man who simply wanted
to comfort the teenage girl Kay after finding out that her abusive boyfriend
Randy (Jonathan Jackson) was cheating on her. When Walter kisses her, she starts
laughing at him due to her intoxication from alcohol and doesn't stop. Feeling he’s
being disrespected, he beats her, feeling she will respect him the same way she
respects Randy through this treatment, only to find himself killing her,
therefore hiding the evidence to cover up his accident. Now that Will knows who
he is, Walter plans to partner up with Will by framing the murder on Randy
because of his abusive nature, rationalizing this act of fraud by saving the
life of a person he will eventually kill from his brutality. Will finds the
whole act to be immoral, but with Walter witnessing his murder in the fog and
having tape recorded evidence of him confessing his crime to him, he'd rather
aid a criminal to keep his reputation than to see his life’s work go to waste.
His participation in keeping his crime a secret only adds to his guilt than it
does relieve him from it. The more time he helps and speaks to Walter, the more
he realizes that he is no different to him. With Walter planting evidence to have
an innocent man behind bars, Will's memory of framing a man who he believes
killed a boy comes back to haunt his recollection. Learning that Walter
committed a crime similar to his that brings him to a state of insomnia,
hearing how he was able to see him commit his murder through the fog, and how
he enjoyed killing the girl after it was over; a confused Will is unsure if
murdering Hap was really an accident or not. It becomes clear that Walter is
the dark side of Will that he refuses to accept, who in the end both get shot
at the same time when firing their guns at each other. Will is given only a few
moments of redemption by making sure a young local detective doesn't hide the
evidence of his crime before finally getting the sleep he needs that's guaranteed
not to wake him up.
Despite both films having opposite narratives and contain a
different style when it comes to creating atmosphere (despite both looking
dark), they share as much in common as “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and “The
Most Dangerous Game”. They both have
character's suffering from insomnia through guilt, having an antagonist reflecting
the main character who shadows them to almost no end, and showing the
characters struggles with insomnia in a matter so intense that you'll be dying
to sleep once these films are over. They're both top notch thrillers that
deserve to be seen. You'll get to see Nolan succeed at creating a modern
Hitchcock film, and witness one of Bale's most powerful performances in his
career.
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