From my experience with OSHA, like many Federal agencies, they only act when a potential or real violation is reported. While filming a movie, there are supposed to be Safety Officers onsite (who are well-versed in OSHA rules and requirements) to ensure the OSHA regulations aren’t violated. They’re first in line of scrutiny and liability if an accident occurs. That doesn’t mean they don’t turn their heads when promises of money or blackballing is offered/threatened.
Even more so than in a regular workplace, it’s even easier for cast and crew to be removed from a movie shoot since the director, producer or anyone in a position of power can claim “artistic incompatibilities” which hampered or just didn’t fit the production.
Not Hollywood, but Korean director Kim Ki Duk was accused last year of striking an actress (who was replaced) during the making of his 2013 film Moebius. He claimed it was to bring out her acting skills. He was fined for the assault. The actress also accused Kim of forcing her to film sex scenes crucial to the film. Charges for this accusation were dropped for lack of evidence.
During the filming of his 2008 film Dream, lead actress Lee Na Young nearly died because everyone thought she was acting during the climatic hanging scene. She actually went unconscious during the scene which called for her to fall limp while hanging from the rope. Some reports are that Na Young insisted on not using a safety harness for the sake of realism. Other reports are the that Kim (who is a stickler for realism in his films) was the one who didn’t want the harness. Kim Ki Duk was so shaken by the accident he became a literal hermit in the mountain for a while.
Possibly apocryphal anecdote that I’ve told before…
Burt Reynolds, in the film Deliverance, has a scene where his character goes over a waterfall. They shot the scene with a dummy, and asked the director “How did that look?” The director said, “Like a dummy going over a waterfall.”
So Reynolds tried the scene himself. He nearly drowned, but they managed to drag him out of the water before too late. Reynolds asked the director, “How did that look?”
There’s also the financial liability (insurance) to factor in, personal, production and studio. If an unqualified/certified person person other than a stuntperson performs a stunt and suffers an injury, all insurance claims for medical and legal may be denied. If there’s major legal costs or a major legal financial judgement, it may bankrupt everyone, the person, the production company and the studio.
On Mythbusters, there were several instances (shown on-screen) where the main cast wanted to perform something themselves, but were told a the last minute that their insurance wouldn’t cover the action and someone else had do the test. Outside of medical costs, a stuntman out of work for a few months may cost 10’s of thousands of dollars in lost time, but a major star could run into the millions.
Bottom line, any director knowingly forcing anyone into a known potentially dangerous situation may not only be criminally liable, but be committing career suicide if something goes wrong, not limited to injuries. Sometimes people get sued for having knowingly or even unknowingly putting an actor or someone else in the production in a potentially unsafe situation.
I think the correct report is that the safety harness broke and was not completely neglected. I think it was also reported (hard to look up past references because of the language barrier and translations) Lee Na Young was so convincing in rehearsals that everyone thought she was just acting during the incident.
From The Fabulous Baker Boys (summary courtesy of TV Tropes):
I’m guessing this sort of thing happens a lot in filmmaking - a good actor feigning pain and injury can be indistinguishable from an actor actually suffering pain and injury. And that’s not even getting into fight scenes which undoubtedly have a few punches that connect from time to time.
Viggo Mortensenbroke his toes kicking a helmet in The Two Towers. I think he was just enthusiastic about portraying his frustration at thinking Merry and Pip were dead when he kicked the helmet, but the wail of anguish afterward was apparently real. Kudoes to him for staying in character despite the pain.
I heard the same thing about Leonardo Dicaprio in Django Unchained where he cut his hand badly enough for stitches but kept going thru the scene. Talk about method acting.
Michael Dorn (Worf) was injured when filming the scene where he is forced to walk the plank in “Generations.” You can actually see the blood on his pants leg in the movie.
Akira Kurosawa used expert archers to fire real arrows at Toshiro Mifume in a pivotal scene from Throne of Blood. Of course, this was a Japanese shoot, so OSHA and SAG rules didn’t apply.
That happened to Michael J. Fox on the set of Back To The Future II. IIRC, the safety harness slipped, and he was nearly unconscious before anyone realized he wasn’t acting.
And then there was the fight scene in Darker Than Amber, proving that committed thespians sometimes do things to thwart their own safety and well-being.
From IMDB:
“The fight between Rod Taylor and William Smith quickly turned into a real slugfest after Taylor purposefully punched Smith in the jaw after he was body slammed very hard against the wall. Smith retaliated by breaking Taylor’s nose with a punch that sent him bouncing off another wall. Now we are all lucky that the director kept the cameras rolling. Any other director, I am sure, would have yelled, “Cut!” And put a stop to it. We see Taylor delivering blows to the chest that actually broke three of Smith’s ribs.,Smith threw Taylor across the room, shattering a mirror and Taylor breaks a lamp on him. Smith actually broke a wine bottle on Taylor’s head. There was real blood everywhere. These were two very tough men. Smith was a boxer and world arm wrestling champ in real life and Taylor was, well, Australian…”
NOTE: the vid is mildly NSFW and I have separated the last two letters of the link to be in accordance with the “two-click” rule. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0igiQA5j vI
Dolph Lundgren put Sly Stallone in the hospital for 4 days after punching him for real during the filming of Rocky IV. Stallone, though, had suggested that they really go at it in the ring; and Stallone was the director, so I’m not sure who he would have blamed.
Laurence Olivier really gets shot with an arrow in Richard III (1955) in the final battle scene. The arrow was supposed to go into padding on the horse’s side, but instead it hit him in the leg (you can see him react to it) but he continued to play the scene.
James Cagney in Angels With Dirty Faces was supposed to stand beside a window in the final gun battle while a marksman fired an SMG at it to break the glass. Cagney thought this was too dangerous and insisted that the shot be assembled in an optical printer instead. When the shooter cut loose the bullets ricocheted and Cagney would have been killed if he had been standing where the director had wanted him.
Don’t forget about the guitar, ffs. I had already given up on him and his movies by then, but that really made me actively want him to fail and for his life to turn to shit. He’s a terrible person.
Even then, blanks can be dangerous. Brandon Lee was famously killed on set by a blank that propelled a bullet that became dislodged from a dummy cartridge.
There was an 80s TV actor who also accidently killed himself goofing off with a gun loaded with blanks.
a) Andy Serkis still needs work
b) CGI still isn’t quite the same level as real life in all instances. CGI is best used to enhance scenes filmed with practical effects (i.e. like much of Road Warrior: Fury Road)