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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Fight Club

18:43 / 03.04.04

Ok. So I basically proposed a recent thread about Fight Club for deletion because I was sure we had an older one and that the person concerned hadn't done their homework and looked in the vault. Except it turns out that we don't have a thread about it and never have! I'd just like to apologise for deleting the thread in question and I'm starting this one in its place.

Fight Club, directed by David Fincher, was an extraordinary experience for me. Having never read the books, I watched it with a certain amount of eagerness but no idea what it was about and it seemed quickly to be the best thing I had ever seen - an investigation into male aggression that actually allowed you to revel in it (rather than be ashamed of it), an actually interesting engaging look at what appeared to be anarchist cells or groups of people who wanted to change themselves and the world around them in the most extreme ways possible and were doing it, and also a group of people who - bluntly - seemed to feel quite a lot like I did and like a lot of my friends did about the increasing blandness and monotony of the world, Ikea, brain-numbing jobs and the like. It was a very Invisibles-ish film - it celebrated the rebellion of individuals within the enormous arcane Metropolis-like machinery of the world, and it seemed to be quite prepared to drag in 1984 and Brave New World and every piece of revolution-flavoured anarchist ideology that it could find. Plus it had Marla.

And then halfway through it became a film about a nutter fighting himself and all the interesting scary ideas were put away in a little 'barking' box and blown away.

So - what did people think of it? Did they find it an indictment of modern consumerism, an elegant and thoughtful examination of masculinity, anarchism or revolutionary thinking - or did they think (as I increasingly did) that it's the hip Total Recall it's OK to like?

21:26 / 03.04.04

I love the film, and think it's got some really amazing concepts. The opening half is by far the stronger chunk of it, because it's one of the most biting social commentaries done on film, and all carried in a really stylish way. Norton's lack of feeling and "de-masculization" really seemed accurate.

The whole film was just full of interesting visuals, and a really crackling style. The second half gets a bit too close to conventional action movie territory, but that last image was absolutely phenomenal.

My main problem with the movie is the idea that at the core of every male is this violent person, struggling to get out. There's other ways to make yourself feel alive than through violence.

But, it really is a special film. Panic Room and The Game were pretty bad, but with Fight Club, Fincher makes up for all that.

21:27 / 03.04.04

And just to add, on the re-watch, the two persons are one thing held together quite well, which I didn't think was possible, after seeing the film for the first time.

D Terminator XXXIII

08:46 / 04.04.04

After the car crash, Durden and - ah - Norton both emerge out of the vehicle, both from the opposite side than before.

Anything that has such a beautiful attention to small detail like that is close to a masterpiece. I'd elaborate, but your comments about Total Recall, The Game, and Panic Room were so intentionally hurtful, I'd rather not.

Yoday, anyway.

09:44 / 04.04.04

and he's him all along! wow!

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

17:41 / 04.04.04

Two things : CRACKING script, really, so full of hip it has to wear enormous trousers (I haven't read the book, so have no idea how much of this is Chucky boy); and "Where Is My Mind" as the playout end credits music, firing up as tall buildings collapse in spectacular explosions and a guy with a bullet hole in his face awkwardly cuddles his fucked up gf.

I love this film.

Anecdote : it was scheduled play on Channel 5 on September 14th 2001, but, for some unexplained reason, was changed at the last minute. Hmmm.

19:30 / 04.04.04

It's funny. I loved this film when it came out at the cinema. Bought it on video when it came out, but I haven't really felt the need to re-watch it much.

20:14 / 04.04.04

I'd have to take exception to the idea that the second half invalidates the "scary" ideas of the first...I don't think that Norton's revelation as a nutjob makes the view of society expressed in the first half any less relevant. It just kinda asks what makes you think blowing shit up is really a better idea, by demonstrating that gurus of "revolution" are not necessarily any more trustworthy than the people they're setting themselves up to replace.

Indirectly, Tyler foreshadows the film's ending when he tells the Space Monkeys that "our war is a spiritual war" -- the real flaw in the narrator's life is that he's allowed others to make his decisions for him, which is why he's so dissatisfied; but even so, when he does attempt to live on his own terms, his programming is so deeply-ingrained that he has to create an alter ego who tells him what to do in order for him to do any of the things he desires. But destroying society as it stands doesn't achieve self-determination if you still need a Tyler to tell you what to do next. For that reason, I actually think the second half contains an even more troubling notion than the first -- because, even though the narrator has (seemingly) achieved autonomy, the Space Monkeys/agents of "revolution" are still standing there with six-packs in their hands, waiting for the great man with a self-inflicted hole in his face to tell them where to go from here. When you clear away all the Starbucks installations and the pointless drone jobs and the bullshit, you still have the mindset that allowed the triumph of banality in the first place. Change the mindset and there's no longer a need to destroy everything; destroy everything without changing the mindset, and all you are is a moron who breaks things because he can't think of anything better to do.

PS: Uh...I think someone needs to go watch The Game and Panic Room again. If you really think these are bad movies, I'd advise watching them after a double feature of Scooby Doo and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Good God, man.

20:25 / 04.04.04

If you really think these are bad movies, I'd advise watching them after a double feature of Scooby Doo and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Good God, man.

Yes, but this is akin to saying to an upset child: "You think that's pain? You think that graze is pain? Go to your room and hammer rusty nails through your dick, that's pain, my son".

You will think they're not bad movies, but you'll also take a liking to Purple People Eater and The Money Pit.

I mean, really.

01:03 / 05.04.04

Heh heh. I'm just saying, if you think *those* are bad movies, you obviously don't see a whole lot of movies, because....damn.

01:20 / 05.04.04

I guess I've held Fincher to a higher standard since Fight Club. The end of The Game was completely inplausible, and absurd, and that's coming from someone who usually will let little inconsistencies go as long as the plot is strong. There were just so many things that had to happen exactly to ensure that the game played out as it did, and it's just too absurd to accept.

It's been a while since I've seen Panic Room, but I remember being a solid, but unexceptional thriller. I've seen a lot of movies, and Panic Room and The Game were solid thrillers, that really didn't have a lot to say. So, they're not bad in the sense of a Scooby Doo, but they're also not particularly exceptional in any way. Fight Club worked because it had a lot to say, and was much more interesting visually than either of the afforementioned Fincher films.

01:33 / 05.04.04

I walked out of the theater not knowing whether it was a good movie ... and so many years later, I still don't.

On the one hand, it could be interpreted as an Invisible-ish movie about liberation of individual and society from homogeneity, self-hate, modernity, etc.

On the other hand, I found that the Fight Club was really no better than any of the other self-help groups that Norton's character attended. He wasn't really doing anything with his life that he necessarily wanted to do--he wasn't even figuring out what he wanted to do--he was just participating in someone else's life as a way of distracting him from his own. Additionally, I found the Fight Club itself, on many levels, to be no different from any number of other "mens groups," exploring their masculinity and identity by sadly beating on drums in the wilderness in American Indian headdress. What, really, did even Tyler have to say about the nature of being a man that couldn't be summed up in a simplistic indictment of poor parenting--absent fathers and overbearing mothers?

Moreover, the members of Fight Club were only liberating themselves from all of the things listed above by adopting someone else's proposed lifestyle and taking orders from a pretty, tough, smart, seemingly wise authoritarian Big Brother. In case anyone missed it, that's not liberation, it's the Mass Psychology of Fascism.

Unfortunately, I still haven't read the book, but I infer from the comments of others that Palahniuk was angling more toward the latter, parodying those who look to groups to tell them what to do, how to think, what to believe, how to be well, etc.

I still can't tell which story Fincher was trying to tell. I do know, however, that lots of people, including a lot of men, came away from the movie rhapsodizing about the first reading of it. I could applaud Fincher for the ambiguity, since I'm generally a fan of not having everything wrapped up at the end. In this case, though, I think the ambiguity makes it a bit of a failure as a film.

01:35 / 05.04.04

I meant to add at the end, though, that those first few minutes in which Norton's apartment is turned into an Ikea catalog were very effective. I liked that a lot.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

07:17 / 05.04.04

Stylistically Fight Club looks great. Fincher then goes on to use many of the same tricks in Panic Room which only emphasised for me how lame that film was. But it's a fairly good critique of nihilism, though the whole 'bullet bouncing of a back tooth' thing to explain Jack not blowing his brains out was rather weak. I would have much prefered some sort of imagining of him pulling the trigger being sufficient to kill Tyler, the moment when he truly realises he doesn't need him any more.

D Terminator XXXIII

07:53 / 05.04.04

The end of The Game was completely inplausible, and absurd,

Yes, because what happens before the end is completely plausible and a lot less absurd...

They're movies, folks. They can and will take liberties. Do you see?

10:35 / 05.04.04

People might want to check out the Chuck Palahniuk thread over in the Books section.

I enjoyed Fight Club and am still really looking forward to some of Chuck's other books being made into films.

This is from the Chuck Palahniuk website:

'Invisible Monsters: Yes, it seems young writer/director Jesse Peyronel finally got the funding he needed from Miramax. So they can finally go into production and begin casting and crewing. So expect to hear a lot of news pouring in soon on this one.

Choke: Chuck always said that if he were positive which novel of his would see the big screen next (after Fight Club), it would be Choke. So I don't know which movie will see the greenlight first, but Chuck says Bandeira Entertainment (the company that put out Requiem For A Dream) finally has a finished script from writer Clark Gregg (What Lies Beneath) that they're ready to move on.

Diary: Yep, it seems Diary beat Lullaby to the finish line and will soon go into production. Like the rest, no cast or crew is attached. We don't even know who's writing this one. But I do know that the company that owns the rights to it currently is the same company that put out American Beauty. '

16:29 / 05.04.04

the GAME was Okay
Panic Room was not . . .

my 2¢

Fightclub however is one of my favorate movies!!!

It's a wonderful indictment of FauxAnarchy and seemed to capture the Zeitgeist of that year. Anyone remember the "bombed" starbucks durring the "riots" in Seattle? Weither "they" took the idea from the movie or not, it seemed that the movie worked to capture the mythology behind such efforts.
While the "switch" part way through the film underscored the flaw in the freedom of the spacmonkeys... or the continued lack of freedom that was Tylor(Jack)'s; it didn't, to me, take away from dynamic as exemplified by the stealing of that store clerk (wannabe Vet)'s Licence. Later on when a glimpse of Tylor's bedroom door is shown and it's covered with licences I wondered how many people had them stolen in a similar manner?
To me, it as those smaller acts that where more significnat than the blowing-up of buildings. More so, the effort to create an alternative economy where interesting in this case the manufactoring of soap. If they had desided against turning soap into bombs would thay have been doomed to become a successful soap company? Could there have been a suitable 3rd option? I dunno... but the movie made it fun to explore...

what was the signifance of a penguin being Jack's Power Animal?

Then there was MARLA!!!

Some fun reads on the movie can be found here & here.

16:45 / 05.04.04

The genius of the film cannot be denied whether it's the commentary, the acting, the look of the film.

I read the novel after I'd seen the film five times and it kind of ruined the novel for me.

I prefer the ending in the novel. That one works. The film one doesn't.

I think it's the manliest film ever made. It's quite like the Invisibles in the sense that it screams "CHANGE YOUR LIFE."

Who can forget that scene with Raymond K. Hessel (sp?) when Tyler's about to shoot in the back of a convenience store?

20:41 / 05.04.04

john brown, i think fight club's ambiguity ensures that it doesn't get preachy, in which case the film would suck.

i like the ending of the book, for a book. i like the ending of the movie, for a movie.

i don't think the fact that norton turns out to be nuts invalidates his/tyler's feelings at all; i think it says living this sort of empty, consumeriffic life could drive a man crazy.

you know the movie's not preaching stuff like project mayhem as a cure-all when he goes to another city and hears all the guys going, "his name is robert paulson. his name is robert paulson." hilarious.

it seems obvious i know, but could someone put "spoilers" in the title or abstract of this thread? yeah prob'ly everyone who's gonna see it already has, but you never know.

i love this movie, a lot. quite often androcentrism bothers me, but in this case it's so pivotal to the story.

19:52 / 06.04.04

if you read the book you'd know that the bullet doesn't bounce off his tooth but that he just shot off his remaining cheek, and then I remember someone asking Chuck in some chat room why they didn't have names in project mayhem and his reply was something like that was their training and that after that they'd be able to go on by themselves and do their own projects.