"Swing Kids" (1993) was kind of a "Flashdance" for Nazi Germany-era jitterbuggers. Bale plays the weak-minded hothead kid in the swing clique, who is eventually brainwashed by the nationalistic narcissism and brotherly calisthenics of the Hitler Jugend. He is a hypnotizing, wonderful dancer, easy, loose and sarcastic -- his character transforms into an equally convincing stupid, wrathful Nazi, who in one scene brutally strangles a co-star whose multiple first names I can never remember properly (hence, I call him and about six other guys Michael Sean Patrick Scott Leonard).

Probably to come off as not jarringly different from his co-stars, Bale utilizes a perfect -- I mean undetectable -- American accent; something that most British actors, including Ewan McGregor and the entire cast of Monty Python, really can't do (granted, it sounds a little Bronx-y from time to time, but hell, he'd just come off "Newsies"). For me, the thing he displayed in this movie, besides great dancing, is super-advanced, black-belt self-control. Some of this had to be direction, but it is evident that even as a flailing, hormone-squirting teen, Bale could go hugely comic and over the top, or play ultra-subtle, eyebrow-flinching minutiae with equal credibility, and weave both into the weft of his overall character ... this, to me, given his age, is freaky.

The film of Bale's that surprised me the most, and gave him a great trunk of emotion to unpack in a finely embroidered arena of human experience, was "Little Women" (1994), where he is darling Laurie, the rich boy next door and playmate of the March girls, whose heart is eventually broken by tomboy Jo. Both Bale and Winona Ryder (in a role that reminds you she had talent for something besides grand larceny) are incandescent in their deep, familiar, civilized affection for each other. In their roughhousing they look as sweet and natural as puppies; joy circulates between their faces. Bale throws on the nitrous-oxide switch and zooms into the stratosphere with the proposal scene; I have (I hate to say it) never seen its equal: a visible human heart presented glowing and vibrating on a silver plate with a brave confession of love -- then a crushing rejection -- and a recovery, from that rejection, which is so tender, and so moving in its being too of a piece with that fine and delicate character in that lovely little world to be concealed or defensive, at all.

I enjoyed the strange Danish movie "Royal Deceit" (1994), in which Bale plays Amled, Prince of Jutland (from the original Saxo-Grammaticus ur-text of "Hamlet"). It's a weird but not unsatisfying flick, with Helen Mirren, Gabriel Byrne and Bale running around in burlap tunics in 6th century Denmark. Bale, the young prince, pretends to be insane in order to avenge the death of his father and gets to goon out and drool and rave non sequiturial Dutch japes about ducks and ride a horse backward and engage in other puzzling medieval Anglo-Saxon antics, before swooping in for the kill and bedding Kate Beckinsale. What is a little arm-hair raising, here, is that Bale, at age 20, has an easy rightful Kingliness to his bearing that is as compelling as Dame Judy Dench's stranglehold on the inner state of Queenliness.

Then there was "Metroland" (1997). The book had to be better; there must have been more nuance. But the on-screen adaptation reduces Julian Barnes' meditation on ... uh, the compromises of maturity, I guess ... into seeming like a sentimental old fuck waxing self-congratulatory about his overprivileged sexual heyday in France while trying real hard to imitate the "Alexandria Quartet." Here Bale shows a mask that he will wear several times in his film career -- that of the goofy, marshmallow-white, repressed feeb. It is so utterly convincing, it can give the uninitiated Bale viewer the impression that he is that guy -- some hapless, pasty, sexually anxious dork. He actually turns down the volume on his charisma for these roles, something I find incredibly satisfying to watch -- he has absolutely nothing to prove by not serving the character.

This film also marked the arrival of another aspect of Bale that audiences would soon see a lot of: his ass. There is a lot of sex in this movie, though painfully Caucasian and unsteamy; Bale has no apparent fear of nude scenes, with unclothed actresses or otherwise. And unsurprisingly, given his bastard-child-of-Charles-Berlitz-and-Meryl-Streep ear for language and accents, he speaks exquisite French.

The next time he played an uptight honky was in "Velvet Goldmine" (1998), the first movie I ever saw Bale in. I remember thinking, Who is this drip? Is he Todd Haynes' boyfriend or something? Why is he in this movie?

He looks kind of dumb, greasy and awful; the '70s androgyne shag and bad eye makeup is counterproductive to his naturally square, masculine face. He plays a journalist reflecting back on his glam-rock days as a young English dolt suffering a squirmingly awkward, self-conscious gay awakening. Again, he opts for muted charisma. He does slide a lot of humor in this role, but it's so subtle that American audiences probably missed it entirely (I did, on first viewing), such as the scene in which he's clumsily prettying himself with cosmetics, grumping at his mate with a brogue-y accent: "Oy, wait a muhnut, oym puttin' on moy oyloynah."

On closer scrutiny I wonder if Bale intrinsically disliked playing gay. But you have to admire him for taking that career bungee jump.

Naturally, after "Velvet Goldmine," Bale was cast as Jesus.

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