Why "The Machinist" then ?

I quite like the title myself, it's very industrial. But yeah it doesn't give any clue as to what the movie is about and could lead you to think it's something else entirely.

Why they went with it? Maybe as it's one of the only things about reznick we know to be true. That's his job. If none of this other stuff was going on he'd just be like anyone else, just going to work and living a normal life. Well, quite a mundane life, really.

I think that makes sense haha

Yes its true, The machinist is a really intringuing name after seeing the movie. I think they got the name idea of the movie based on the personnality of Trevor. The only thing we know about the life of Trevor is that his profession is to be a machinist. A machinist is someone who by his work make repetitive operations.We can clearly see in some scene that Trevor is focus on his tasks and out of his mind making repetitive work that let him awake. I think this is his way to escape his felony and a methaphore to project his machinist work to his life. The other things we know that he repeatedly do is washing his hand with bleach, going to work, go make love with stevie and go eat at the aeroport. This is his tasks to stay awake and out of his mind but his true self try to convice him to comeback to reality like by making post-it. At the end, we understand that he know who he really are. He accepts his reality by sleeping and be free of his machinist tasks that was making him die inside and physically.

Much like whole movie the title was incomprehensible

Some interesting thoughts guys but I have my own feeling as to why it is called the 'Machinist'.

It is called the machinist because to me it is about repetitive cycles in the story, almost machine like, and it is the catalyst for provoking his ‘insane’ character. The industrial incident where the guy loses his hand is as a result of Trevor’s negligence. This is the same negligence that we found out caused him to run over the child earlier in his life. The accident at work came about due to the effects of his insomnia and this industrial accident essentially reignites the same feelings of guilt that had crippled him into this insomnia in the first instance from the hit and run. So, after Miller loses his hand Trevor descends into further and further guilt ridden insomnia… as a metaphor to me ‘it’s like Trevor’s own hand is caught in the machine’. The only way to save his own hand is to hit the breaker, I think this is the equivalent of ‘going to sleep’, but Trevor cannot hit the breaker. He cannot go to sleep. Eventually at the end of the film, when he hands himself in and sleeps, he has finally hit the breaker and his hand is saved. This is all metaphorical of course. Technically he will be in the crap now due to what he has to confess about the hit and run but the feelings of guilt won’t eat away at him in the same way because he has finally confessed… after all it was an accident. Ultimately he was no real criminal and that is why the guilt ate away at him literally turning him into a living skeleton that barely functioned as a human being.
He was just an ordinary routine guy, ‘a machinist’.

Put simply... a routing guy, 'a machine', can sometimes do something out of the ordinary and malfunction by accident. You have to hit the breaker and reset it. If you don't it will keep going wrong. The victim might lose their life not just their hand!

What do you think?

The title is an analogy.

Machinist is someone who operates tool or machinery. These people go through the same repetitions daily/weekly/yearly etc. which in reaction turns them into cold emotionless workers due to the lack of diversity within their job.

Christian Bales' character was cold and had kind of a flat line with his emotional state due to his guilt of killing the child.

Not to mention, Machinist are sometimes involved in accidents between themselves and the machines due to negligence which is how Christian Bale killed the child, by being negligent.

Machinist also holster a lot of guilt sometimes by logging too many hours in the factory which results in isolation from their families.

Christian Bale was isolated from most of his emotional ties after his accident, except the prostitute because he felt they were on the same level when it came to how society seen them. Prostitutes are seen as trash, just like child killers are seen as trash.

A bright light can hollow the deepest of nothingness.