Ten years after its release, there are still plenty of people who will not get David Fincher's "Fight Club" because they refuse to see what is in front of their eyes. They think it's about a cult of men who get together to punch each other, which is like saying "Citizen Kane" is about a sled. Fundamentally, it's an uncannily accurate depiction of depression and delusion -- capturing a uniquely (post-?)modern strain of anomie to which perhaps older baby boomers and their seniors find it difficult to connect because it's beyond their frame of reference. (I don't know -- that's just a hunch.)
"People get scared, not just of violence and mortality, but viewers are terrified of how they can no longer relate to the evolving culture," "Fight Club" author Chuck Palahniuk told Dennis Lim recently in the New York Times:
Some older audiences prefer darker material in conventional forms; they "really truly want nothing more than to watch Hilary Swank strive and suffer and eventually die -- beaten to a pulp, riddled with cancer, or smashed in a plane crash."
In that Times piece, Lim dubbed "Fight Club" "the defining cult movie of our time."
Back in 1999, I described it as "a grim fairy tale for adults, a consumerist revenge fantasy, a portrait of a disintegrating personality, and, for all its hyper-active stylization, an astonishingly vivid portrait of the berserk materialist wasteland in which (like it or not) billions of city dwellers live today." (It can also be seen, in retrospect, as a prescient 9/11 nightmare.)
Also from Lim's article:
"The critical reaction was polarized," said Edward Norton, who plays the film's nameless narrator, "but the negative half of that was as vituperative as anything I've ever been a part of."
In one of the more apoplectic slams, Rex Reed, writing in The New York Observer, called it "a film without a single redeeming quality, which may have to find its audience in hell." More than one critic condemned the movie as an incitement to violence; several likened it to fascist propaganda. ("It resurrects the Führer principle," one British critic declared.) On her talk show an appalled Rosie O'Donnell implored viewers not to see the movie and, for good measure, gave away its big twist.
And director David Fincher picked up on something I noticed when the film was first released: that "women picked up on the humor faster." Perhaps they understood certain inherent ironies about male behavior (or consumer capitalism?) that were too close to some men for them to see themselves. (Not unlike "Jack" and Tyler.)
It's amazing to think that a movie that dive-bombed at the box office, that Hollywood executives found so threatening some considered it unreleasable,¹ that so many critics beat up so viciously (the subject of my article here could be considered such an important and influential film only ten years later.
My take on the movie is condensed into a few minutes in the above clip. I see it as a classic romantic comedy, a late-20th-century love story in the anarchic spirit of "Brining Up Baby."² To quote Lim's piece again:
Reached by e-mail, [novelist Chuck] Palahniuk went further and called the film "the best date flick ever." "The 'Fight Club' generation is the first generation to whom sex and death seem synonymous," he said, pointing out that the "meet-cute" between the characters played by Mr. Norton and Helena Bonham Carter occurs in a support group for the terminally ill. Having grown up with an awareness of AIDS, younger readers and viewers, he added, "could identify with the implied marriage of sex and death; and once that fear was acknowledged those people could move forward and risk finding romantic love."
Or as Norton himself pithily observed in the DVD commentary, it's the story of a guy who had to destroy the world so he could have a relationship with a woman. Does modern love require anything less?
(Finding and reposting many video essays lost when iKlipz went under. The one above was originally published here.)
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¹ From producer Art Linson's book, "What Just Happened?: Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line":
What I hadn't anticipated was the dramatic response from those who were uncomfortable with it. They almost wanted to punish those responsible for this "heinous" act. I remember a couple months after the picture was released, I ran into Robbie Friedman, a high-ranking executive at Paramount Pictures, and a friend of mine. All he could do was shake his head.
"How could you," he asked.
"Huh?"
I was about to start with "Don't blame us producers, we're just the monkeys that do th dishes," or better yet, the more confrontational approach, "You stupid bastard, it's a brilliant movie and anyways, you must admit it's darkly funny," but by that time I'd already been down that road too many times.
² One film ends with the lovers holding hands and the collapse of a dinosaur skeleton, the death of the male protagonist's past life. The newer film ends with the lovers holding hands and the collapse of skyscraper skeletons, the death of the male protagonist's past life.
"Fight Club" has just been released in a 10th Anniversary "You Are Not Special" Edition:
53 Comments
Jim, you persuade me to take a 6th(?) look at "Fight Club" in yet another attempt to decide whether I like it. My stance has basically been: love the completely original and outrageously funny first act, the twist is brilliant, direction is groundbreaking, we all wanna take down capitalism, not sure about the rest.
But maybe I've finally aged to the frustrated point in my life where I can 'get it' and laugh deliriously like so many others have seemed to. In the anarchic spirit of "Bringing Up Baby"... I like that.
I know one mistake I originally made was, as you say, not realizing it was a joke. But even after I clued into that, I still felt lost in the second half. I wanted more Marla. I didn't want the dark comedy that is "Fight Club", I just wanted two guys hanging out in a broken down house, reading books, on the fringes of society, truly nonconformist. I also wanted more Marla. The movie had other plans and perhaps I should start living with what it did do instead. Might even see why...
I have to admit, even after I wrote off the movie, I couldn't sell the DVD I owned. I don't feel done with it yet. The one problem I have with that Norton interpretation, true as it may seem, is that Jack really didn't have to do that in the movie. He just had to get over himself... Is that the point? Yeah, I still don't get it. I will watch again soon though, I've been in an anarchic sort of mood these days...
This will continue to go down as one of the biggest disagreements I have with you, Jim. I fully "get" what "Fight Club" is going for, but to my mind it ends up being hypocritical and muddled in its attack on consumer simplicity (and you can say "well, Tyler is SUPPOSED to not be providing the answers", but I think the film has it both ways with some of its snide moments, such as its jokily dismissive treatment of cancer patients early in the film). Added to my philosophical dislike for the film, I also simply don't find it that interesting aesthetically or even that funny...but to each their own. I still haven't taken the time to write a lengthy dissertation on what I see as some of the fundamental flaws of "Fight Club", but suffice it to say: I think that great art expands our perceptions of the world, while failed art compresses them. Even if "Fight Club" isn't about men beating each other up, it is certainly about a certain detachment, purposeless and emptiness that young, male, twenty-something, Generation X North Americans feel. I just don't feel that "Fight Club" ever achieves enough critical distance from the Narrator, if you will...it doesn't demonstrate the inherent self-indulgence of his quest.
It's a big problem I have with another 1999 movie that was embraced by most male teenagers and twenty-somethings: "The Matrix". Like "Fight Club", I think it panders to teenaged apathy and (for lack of a better term) numbness, without ever expanding perception to, say, the genuine suffering of (to use just one example) starving children in Africa. I'm not saying that a movie needs to raise awareness of all of the world's problems, but for some reason, I find it difficult to identify with feelings of "cultural emptiness" (or as you interpreted it, out-and-out depression, which runs in my family quite strongly actually) when they are coming from Edward Norton or Keanu Reeves. I find the dismissiveness of everything in "Fight Club" to be almost offensive...nothing has genuine weight in it, and (IMO anyway) there isn't enough humour to fill that gap.
BTW, funny you should bring up "Fight Club", because I actually have been recently re-watching and analyzing David Fincher's "Se7en", which I have always thought was great but now am convinced is almost a flat-out masterpiece. I think what really elevated the film in my mind is a piece I read arguing that "Se7en", so often dismissed as a nihilistic film, actually argues strongly AGAINST apathy...and in a way, Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is the antagonist of the film. When viewed through that prism, it really is amazing how "Se7en" transforms into a morality play, with the opposing viewpoints of Mills and Somerset set against each other by the actions of John Doe. Also, the ending of the film, justly renowned and remembered for its shocking nature, resonated with me in a way it never had before...the SADNESS of the whole thing seeped through, so I wasn't just watching the brilliant twist ending to a thriller, but also a brutal way for Somerset's worldview to come back to haunt him.
Fincher is one of my favourite working directors, which is why I will always be willing to return to "Fight Club" and give it a chance to win me over, but I can not deny that it remains one of my least favourite of recent "classic" films.
JE: Alex, you have your reasons for not liking "Fight Club" -- and it's a really, really unlikeable film. I understand what you're saying (though I think you're missing what's funny about the narrator's self-pity when it comes to the cancer support groups; he's the butt of the joke, not the real cancer patients. The key is when he gets so mad at Marla and calls her a "Tourist!"). Anyway, it's about being so numb and depressed that he wants to be close to death -- not about terminally ill people. Remember it's all taking place inside his head, and it's meant to be tasteless and uncomfortable. That's why I said I wouldn't expect everybody to enjoy it, but hate it for what it is. I'm talking in my opening sentences about people who missed the metaphors entirely and thought it was about fist-fighting, or who labeled it a "fascist" film, when it's so explicitly against Operation Mayhem. Likewise, I haven't been able share your enthusiasm for "The Matrix." But someday I'll give it another shot, too...
Jim, ever considered comparing the movie to Lindsay Anderson's "If..."? There seems to more than a few similarities in themes/characters/satirical intentions, also in terms of critical reaction. Might be of some use...
JE: Right you are, Karlos! Criterion finally released "If..." in 2007 and I was able to revisit it. (Holds up real well, too.) Yes, I think there are many fruitful comparisons to be made...
I was never the biggest fan of this film, but it's themes and metaphors are spot on. Like you, Jim, I find it puzzling that intelligent film critics so blatantly dropped the ball on this one.
Postmodernism isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it is something that has pervaded the arts for almost 30 years now (maybe even earlier than that if you count Duchamp's urinal)...so I just find it baffling that so many people missed the point of the movie. No matter what my dislike for the final act of the film (or its soggy middle) may be I still always find a way to show the film to my students in my Lit. class. The Ikea moment is still the most brilliant thing in the film, and always elicits a good chuckle out of the students I show it to. The irony, though, is never lost as they all inform me (in the way high school students inform you of things) they've seen the film already, and have it downloaded on their 5th generation, "new and improved" iPod.
I can't wait to see how film critics react when a capable director gets their hands on a Martin Amis adaptation (I'm still waiting for Money -- which would be the most hilariously vulgar film to come out in some while -- but it'll never happen; however, Cronenberg is all set to do London Fields, and I can't wait for that!).
Great stuff here, Jim. Your enthusiasm for this film is well documented, and although I am lukewarm on this film, your love of the film (and of talking about it) is something that always brings me back to the moments that really resonate with me.
I just read the link to "Punching in the Dark"---your superb rebuttal to the baseless criticisms of FIGHT CLUB---and I think that this is one of the singlemost important reviews ever written on the subject of film and film violence. Lindsay Anderson's "If...," Scorsese's "Taxi Driver," and Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust" (dare I mention it) all could have benefited if you were there to stand in their defense. I'm with Kevin on the lukewarm feelings toward F.C. but I attribute that to problems of digital. Doublethink: though, now that I consider it celluloid--the hot medium--probably would have made the violence and violence as spectacle more alluring. I don't know. What do you think?
P.S. Consider the opening shots/sequences of Fight Club, Taxi Driver, and, I don't know, let's say... Peeping Tom... What do we have? Artists who wish to acquaint us with a skewed reality (in fight club its literally explored through the digital micro-micro-micro-microscopic kino-racing with neurons and firing synapses; in Taxi Driver its itinerant, weary eyes and, what those eyes see, New York city streets in a surrealistic, vibrant colors of some unnatural film stock; in Peeping Tom, the same model---Scorsese loves Powell). Artists shouldn't hold back. Tell it as it is. The subject might be grim but, at least, don't lie. Hmmm... such musings might lead us to reconsiderations of some ostensibly toxic films!
God, Jim, keep doing what you're doing. Your criticism is inspiring, sir.
Alex,
I think you are onto something with that analysis of "Seven".
What I've seen running throughout Fincher's films is an interest in level-headed thinkers... His heroes (Benj. Button, Graysmith in "Zodiac", The Narrator when he finally stands up to Tyler, the reserved but serious Somerset), when in their element, are caring but also "easy come, easy go" as they. They may have a bleak outlook, they be obsessive boyscouts, they may be eccentric and even have a split personality or be aging backwards, but at their best they have an upbeat spirit to them, without overlooking the ugliness or flaws in a system or whatever it might be that they can't ignore. So Fincher is not just a technical master after all, he's putting together interesting thematic coherency between the characters in his works.
I'm very excited about what he might do with "The Social Network"... With "Fight Club" in mind, he seems the man for the biopic and we're overdue for a movie about Facebook/ online chat culture and how that's redefined conceptions of society as we know it. Maybe "Social Newtork" film will lead the revolution...
[Spoilers herein, as if anyone reading this post hasn't seen the film already.]
Jim,
While I loved "Fight Club" when I first saw it, with each subsequent viewing I find that I like it less and less. I think the answer is in the twist. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work, at least from a logistical standpoint.
There are simply too many discrepancies with Tyler and "Jack" being in two places at once and so on. Unlike a film like "The Sixth Sense", the film twist doesn't hold up under scrutiny. So, having seen it multiple times, it really starts to feel cheap and easy.
Your thoughts?
Thanks,
Rev. Adam McKinney.
JE: I've probably seen it five or six times, but since the film doesn't insist on making a distinction between what's "real" or "unreal" -- only that it all happens in Jack's head -- I don't have any problem with physical inconsistencies. It's right there in the first few minutes of the film, which literally starts inside Jack's brain: "I know this because Tyler knows this." Whenever we see Tyler we're seeing his idea of Tyler, not anybody else's.
I think, the problem I have with Fight Club (the film) is that no one seems to acknowledge the genius of Chuck Palahniuk. Yes, I do agree that it was the film that brought the author into prominence, brought him zillions of readers and probably lent a minor helping hand with his seven books. But whenever it is I talk of Fight Club, it is always the film that seems to be the object of affection. Like, David Fincher is the man. You know what, I don’t think so. I’m Jack’s crusading unflinching mind, and for me Fincher and co. and everybody involved in the film are what I would club under a very respectable title – the technical experts. The man is of course Chuck Palahniuk. And much of what will follow will straddle a haphazard line between the two versions, which essentially are one and the same. Call the film a superb illustration of one of the funniest books I have ever read.
And only an illustration. No more, no less. And in this transfer, their creeps in a significant defect that is inherent to the medium, and one that Fincher and co. didn’t probably notice.
Palahniuk, in most of his novels, uses the first person’s narrative as a necessary ingredient because he uses it to present an inherently defective narration. We’ve a flawed narrator, otherwise called an unreliable narrator, or an imperfect observer. When we read the words the narrator is speaking, printed on the pages of the book, that is the only reality we’re privy to. Hence, effectively, we’re standing inside him. But cinema is a different medium, a visual medium, and there’s an objective reality to it that doesn’t quite exist in case of books. When we see our narrator in the frame we’re essentially standing besides him. Fight Club is a comedy, and it could have worked if the film juxtaposed the reality against the narration, but because of its twist ending, it relies on us watching it from a third person angle. One of its tricks is for it to make us believe Tyler and the narrator are two different people. Hence, for all its expertise in the technical department, I think the film’s final act feels a gimmick, a twist in the tale, rather than the eventuality of a state of mind. What works for the book, is exactly what doesn’t for the film.
Believe it or not, Jim, but I was once invited to join an actual Fight Club in Amsterdam. It was a weekly event taking place in the cellars beneath a very hip restaurant, which name I will not mention here. "I have a feeling you have it in you," I was told by someone I knew quite well. "Try and join us. You'll get a kick out of it. It really makes you feel alive, you know?" I offered a friendly smile and wished him and his fellow-clubbers all the best...
Alex: I was one of the editors who worked on that piece you read, claiming that Se7en argues strongly against apathy and nihilism. It's written by Michael Crowley and was originally published at 24LiesASecond.com. The essay is currently part of The House Next Door, as are all the 24Lies essays:
http://www.thehousenextdooronline.com/search/label/24LiesASecond%20Essays
JE: Yes, I believe I read that Chuck Palahniuk was inspired by the existence of actual fight clubs to explore it as a metaphor in his novel. As for your own experience: It's the beard, Peet. It's like wearing visible testosterone cologne...
Jim: I've softened on Fight Club a bit, but the reason the movie rubs me the wrong way has nothing to do with its violence or an inability to see its humor (and genuinely find it humorous). In brief, because I've already ranted about it at length, what bothers me is how true this is: "Ten years after its release, there are still plenty of people who will not get David Fincher's "Fight Club" because they refuse to see what is in front of their eyes." So many of the films fans miss that by idolizing Tyler and quoting his theories at length they become exactly the thing he preaches against. Over time I've been able to accept the film a bit more by enjoying Tyler as a colorful character made by someone who I think understands his contradictions. But I'd argue that many of the Tyler-adoring people who helped make this film a cult hit don't really get the movie either.
JE: Yes! My opening sentence applies as much to some of the movie's immature fans -- Fight Club Zombies, if you will -- as to its haters. Both are denying the inconvenient parts of the movie that don't fit their blinkered views. And it's a movie about repression and denial, so you have to take in the whole picture.
To me, Fight Club the novel is the direct descendant of American Psycho. The protagonist in both stories has a vivid fantasy life. Both prominently feature misogyny and a love/hate relationship with capitalism. Both are whiny, white-guy masturbatory exercises.
The films, however, are night and day.
Fincher gives us an amazingly calculated opening shot / title sequence that the rest of the film cannot live up to; then proceeds to masterfully dupe the dupe-able into believing the pent-up white-guy / urban rage which leads to Big Bomb. Big yawn is more like it.
Mary Harron, on the other hand, shows Fincher up at nearly every turn--except maybe that opening shot. She gets the humor . . . like you said, maybe its easier for women to see the humor in that context.
Fight Club gets its big 10 year anniversary edition because it was huge on video. 12 year-old boys who wanted to emulate Brad Pitt thought it was cool--and why wouldn't they, the way Fincher coats those bloody torsos in greens and yellows and moisture?
American Psycho has no such similar sheen. Its a cold surgeon's scalpel that dissects the same issues and arrives at the same conclusion. The difference is tone, and Harron nail(gun)s it while Fincher just can't hold it together.
I think Fight Club is not only the best movie of the 90's and one of the best movies of all time, but one of the movies that can define a culture. I liken it to Taxi Driver of the 70's and The Apartment of the 60's in it's insight into the male psyche. I like your assertion that Fight Club being about men pummeling each other the same way Citizen Kane is about a sled. That is very true.
Once a month, our church shows a culturally relevent film at a local cinema, sometimes a classic and sometimes more recent. Afterwards we have a discussion about what the film is trying to say. We showed Fight Club a couple of months ago and had a great discussion. My assertion was there were a few times Tyler stopped and talked about his philosophy and the main one was the "We are the middle children of history" speech. Mainly the idea that we our War, our Vietnam if you will, is a Spiritual War and our Great Depression is our lives. I look at it as this, our generation can do just about anything and it is OK. We can't really stand out and protest against anything that the media(not Fox, but the rest of the media) isn't alrady protesting, i.e. Iraq, global warming. We can also do just about anything we want. Look at the Narrator. He went to self help meetings for diseases he didn't have. The only person that ever caught him was Marla and she didn't care. So, he stepped it up to physical violence. No one told him No. In fact, the police and the clergy appear to join in. He had to resort to larger and larger acts of terrorism in order to be heard at all.
[Spoiler warning]
It took me a while to figure out why I don't like the movie. I don't dislike "Fight club" because it's violent; that's too easy and obvious. I didn't like the movie because it was using a cannon (post-modern anomie, cultural emasculinization, anarchy) to slay a gnat (man is schizoid). It works the first time when it has the benfit of surprise, but each time I've seen it since then (in the company of others, typically) it becomes less like a movie and more like an extended parlor trick. It's like the guy who wears his pants backwards because he thinks that's a nifty fashion statement.
My biggest objection to the film is that to accept so much of what goes on, we must also accept things that are not logical even by the movie’s own perverse standards of logic. We are asked to believe that the only time Marla calls the narrator by name (thus blowing the gaffe) is when the plot demands it. We are asked, with a straight face, to accept that if we came across someone beating themselves up in a parking lot we might be inclined to join him. When spelled out that bluntly, most of the movie’s mystique dissolves into smirks and giggles. Maybe it would have been more credible if Fincher hadn’t tipped his hand and given us those silly objective POV shots of Edward Norton punching his own face and throwing himself into walls.
People like the movie because it's clever, because it's well-made (scarcely any movie these days isn't), because it shows a director firing on all cylinders and going for broke, etc. I wouldn't try to argue anyone out of their admiration for it, since that's a losing game, but there are plenty of good reasons for not liking the movie other than it being "violent" or "controversial". "Contrived" and "smug" are good ones.
Jim E says: "I've probably seen it five or six times, but since the film doesn't insist on making a distinction between what's "real" or "unreal" -- only that it all happens in Jack's head -- I don't have any problem with physical inconsistencies"
By coincidence, I just watched this last night for (only!) the 2nd time. I think I enjoyed it more the this time, but I still think it falls apart in the last act.
It fails in part because I think you're wrong in that the film DOES insist on what is "real" or "unreal", at least at times. The clearest example would be Fincher showing you the physical fight between "Jack" & Tyler through the objective eye of security cameras. These little bits of objectivity thrown in do invite you, explicitly at times, to re-interpret everything in literal terms, to keep track of where "Jack"/Tyler have been, etc.
Well, they invite me to do so, at least.
Jim said: "And director David Fincher picked up on something I noticed when the film was first released: that "women picked up on the humor faster." Perhaps they understood certain inherent ironies about male behavior (or consumer capitalism?) that were too close to some men for them to see themselves."
Fincher's observation makes me wonder how a new male audience would take to the black humour of Fight Club. After all, since the release of the film, the emergence of "metrosexuals" has helped to re-shape the image of man in modern capitalist culture. Perhaps females were better able to identify with the sarcastic wit of Fight Club because of the gender politics on display: "Jack" and Tyler board a metro bus and make jokes about an advertisement depicting a man with a well-defined, muscular physique - the irony of this scene is that both characters reject an image that they have clearly adopted for themselves. The film is commenting on the power of media and how it essentially shapes our lives - no matter how much we (want to) criticize the shallow substance of such ads, they invariably impact how we perceive ourselves. A trend of the last decade has been the increaingly "objectified" portrayals of men in ads, television and film. The body image of males is becoming as distorted as images of women in media. In this context, "Jack" and Tyler are incapable of escaping the trappings of their culture, no matter how much or hard they rebel against it. As a consequence, the "ideology" behind their violence becomes meaningless it cannot transcend the deeply rooted mechanisms of capitalism.
When I first saw "Fight Club" in college, I had mixed feelings. The first two acts were exhilarating, but I did feel the third act offered up fascism as a solution. At the same time, I knew the film couldn't be dismissed. Having watched the film a few times since that time, I feel the movie makes more sense if I view what I perceive as fascism as part of the film's continuum. The film begins with a portrait of a lone individual trapped within an individualistic society that promotes self-loathing and capitalistic gratification. It then progresses to a (relatively) "healthier" state in which each individual is accepted as an individual within the club. The fight clubs allow individuals to define themselves through their own actions in sight of others and reward a kind of public accomplishment. Eventually, however, the group mentality takes over and everyone's individuality is destroyed. What we learn is that the idea of "one" in a society is a bad thing, whether that one manifests itself in the isolated, self-centered individual or in a single-minded group that demands militaristic conformity. The fight clubs in this movie, while extreme, are the best forms of human existence because they balance the demands of the individual and the group.
Great piece as usual. I remember seeing Fight Club with friends (more than once) at the theater and we knew it was a classic. 20 something year old males that we were. I wonder why Baby Boomers tended to hate the movie. And as you point out really HATE the movie. Like deeply, personally. Maybe cause it is the world they so invested in and helped create and it is obvious what a far cry it is from many of their ideals and the way they like to see themselves?
Yes, thank you! People always laugh when I describe this movie as a romantic comedy, but that's what it is. Everyone overlooks the importance of Marla Singer. Edward Norton even comes right out and says it: [all of this] "has something to do with a girl named Marla Singer." It's the most important line in the whole movie, yet it's the one people pay the least amount of attention to.
"I've probably seen it five or six times, but since the film doesn't insist on making a distinction between what's "real" or "unreal" -- only that it all happens in Jack's head -- I don't have any problem with physical inconsistencies. It's right there in the first few minutes of the film, which literally starts inside Jack's brain: "I know this because Tyler knows this." Whenever we see Tyler we're seeing his idea of Tyler, not anybody else's."
I agree with what you say here but to my mind this is exactly what makes the film cheap and easy. The unreliable narrator is just one of those literary devices that's very hard to translate convincingly to the screen. I appreciate the lengths to wich Fincher goes to sell it but outside of something like the Blair Witch Project, the camera is by default a third person perspective and there's nothing Fincher can do to change that.
For me, it's not enough to say that "Fight Club" takes place inside Jack's head, and that explains the film's somewhat jaded and snide worldview. One of my favourite films, "Taxi Driver", lets us see the world through the eyes of someone who is paranoid, racist, and warped in his views of humanity...yet Scorsese masterfully balances Travis Bickle's point-of-view with enough distance that we can be immersed in the subjective experience without ever feeling that Travis' view is one endorsed by the filmmakers. Whereas when the film shows Meatloaf sobbing, I perceive a condescension that extends beyond that felt by just Jack.
(BTW, not sure if you misunderstood me or I misunderstood you, but just to be clear: I have no enthusiasm for "The Matrix", I was mentioning it as a film like "Fight Club" that seemed to strike a chord with other members of my generation but left me cold).
JE: Ah, I think I did misunderstand you. Apologies. I see what you're saying, and to some extent the film does have it both ways, but it turns itself around on you. Jack IS smug, jaded, snarky, cynical, cruel, angry, self-loathing (depressed, sleep-deprived, incapable of feeling, etc.). This is his (still cynically) redemptive journey to the moment when he can hold hands with Marla and begin an actual relationship as himself. I think there's a lot of truth to the way Jack sees the world as empty and phony (Holden Caulfield word) -- but it's comically exaggerated in the film. I think you're supposed to be amused AND appalled by his sharp, clever observations, to have the illusion that in his psychotic state he's seeing things clearly -- and then the bottom drops out from under him (and you) and you see the consequences of taking his view to its illogical extreme: fascism and terrorism. I can understand some don't think the movie pulls it off, but that's what it's up to. In that sense, its morality is quite traditional and conventional. It ends with the couple holding hands at the altar, facing a new world...
"Vituperative?" Wow, they DO teach English at Yale!
There is still a lot of hate for this movie (although some of the venom has shifted from the movie itself to fans of it), and I've rarely encountered a movie where the detractors seemingly saw the exact opposite movie that I did. It's pretty amazing for a movie that is really not subtle at all. The craziest complaint I've heard is that it's too narcissistic. That's the point! That's the point! That's the point!
i'm one of the few who hates Fight Club, and i believe i hate it for what it is - teasing me with brilliance in it's opening passages, and having a final act that's only a few steps above Looney Tunes. by the time i saw Edward Norton beating up himself, i threw my hands up in the air. if Shamalyan had directed the movie, it would not be so well respected and loved today - people would make as much fun of the lame-ass "twist" (which was telegraphed too easily by Fincher's directorial choices) as The Village. but it's sad, because i think the opening 30 minutes are some of the best of the decade. after that, it's all downhill. when it comes to Fincher, i'll take Seven, Zodiac, and hell, even Benjamin Button instead.
Ten years ago, I was obsessed with "Fight Club". Even before it came out, I had created a shrine in my dorm room with every magazine clipping I could found. I was 19, and pissed off at the world for reasons I could not explain. Perhaps it was just because I was 19. And the film came out and did not disappoint. Here was a film I could relate to, that spoke to my generation. My friend Al and I used to speak the dialogue in unison. Not because we were zombies ala Project Mayhem, but because we loved the humor and it fully expressed our dissatisfaction with the stupidity of the world we live in. Now, ten years later, I cannot relate to the film in quite the same way. Too much has happened. The "no Great War" conjures up images of Iraq and Afghanistan, of torture, of the selling out of my generation to the greed and hypocrisy they once so despised. And I think of that speech and think, "Before the kind of world you wish for." I'm not a beautiful snowlake, I am still not my khakis, but there is something to be said for comfort and not having a war of any kind and I am no longer that angry young man. Nay, I am a "Zodiac" man.
JE: Sounds like you went through your adolescent Holden Caulfield phase with "Fight Club." (It is a kind of "Catcher in the Rye" for a new generation.) You're in a better position to see what the movie is doing now than you were then. As for "Zodiac," there's no reason to have to choose one or the other. "Zodiac" will be on my list of best films of the '00s, I'm sure.
What I don't understand is why so many of the people who say they dislike the film point to the finale or the "twist" at the end. Jim made the perfect analogy when he said that saying the film is about "a cult of men who get together to punch each other" is comparable to saying that""Citizen Kane is about a sled." This same statement can be used with Fight Club's twist ending in place of the fighting men. The twist at the end is not the defining take-away of the film and any potential illogic that it causes in the film's plotting isn't really important.
We need to remember that the film is being narrated by the protagonist and that we cannot completely trust the way he sees things. The flashback at the end of Fight Club is the flashback that is happening in the narrator's mind--we can't read it as an omniscient view of what actually happened during the course of the film. Taxi Driver has been mentioned several times and it really is the perfect film to point to. Taxi Driver is also narrated by its protagonist, a man whose view (what we literally see through the camera) cannot be trusted.
The twist that the narrator is really Tyler goes beyond the one-off excitement that comes with a clever use of deus ex machina. This "twist" is important because it shows us that the narrator created Tyler as a new identity for himself; an identity outside of the identity he'd created for himself through corporate products. In our culture, part of our identity is created by the corporate brands we choose to buy into and endorse. The narrator's identity was made up of Starbucks, Ikea, etc. (remember how devastated he was about losing all of his "stuff" in the apartment fire?). Tyler's mission is to destroy brands and our identification with them. But by attempting to destroy this system, the narrator/Tyler has himself created a brand ("Fight Club") that he and all of his followers identify with and follow without question and that Tyler has become the personification of that brand. He says "You are not your latte," etc., but he is "Fight Club" to those very people he is preaching to. The narrator becomes both a consumer of the "Fight Club" brand and the personification of it. Supplanting the existing corporate brands with a new one (and supplanting the narrator's identity with Tyler's) is not an improvement--the situation is largely the same, only the brand name has changed.
Fight Club is one of those movies that I feel like I should love, but for whatever reason I'm just luke warm on it. I never bought the transition the characters make from the Fight Club to Project Mayhem (was there even a transition?). And I agree with those who say the twist, while great the first time, doesn't always hold up to scrutiny.
However, hearing the movie defined as a love story has actually changed my thinking a bit, and I may revisit it soon with this new perspective.
It reminds me of another "love story" in disguise, Robert Bresson's Pickpocket. Another movie that seems to be about something else entirely, and only reveals itself as a love story in its closing shots. There is an undeniable power in that.
interesting.. for a film I felt like I did not love, I am buying into some of this discussion - much more so than the never ending discussion that was had about Inglourious Basterds. the "love story" idea sounded so ridiculous at first that I had typed up a comment to debunk it, but after some consideration, I can buy into it a little bit. the film just seems too "busy" to me - the fighting, the anti-consumerism, the help groups, etc.. one day I will revisit the film, but for the moment I am beginning to see how the ideas are related.
he is with Marla at the end, yes? (rhetorical) I had forgotten that fact. I always focused on the anti-consumerism and wondered what the hell that had to do with starting a fight club. the movie reminds of A Clockwork Orange. I always felt that neither film really did a very good job at saying what it had set out to say about society and lashing out against it by way of violent acts.
Somewhere back in the New York Press archives -- which are too tedious to navigate, otherwise I'd go find the link -- I wrote a 1999 piece about "Fight Club" as the story of a guy who's gay and won't admit it. There's an intensely homoerotic streak to the film -- homoerotic in the same way that Kenneth Anger's "Fireworks" was erotic; men reveling in the beauty of other men, and acknowledging that beauty and dealing with their desire to admire and perhaps possess (in every sense) other men's bodies, by beating the living crap out of each other. It's like an "aw, shucks" shoulder punch amplified by a factor of a thousand.
That scene on the bus where they're looking at the ad plays into it. And the whole business with the love triangle between the narrator/Jack/Marla is really the apotheosis of the whole thing; this guy knows he's supposed to want to fuck a girl like Marla, but he can't, maybe because he doesn't feel manly enough, or more likely because he's just not into women (even though he knows he's supposed to be). So he creates this heterosexual alter ego -- who not coincidentally is the same kind of hyperstylized, impossibly pretty caricature of straightness once seen in Tom of Finland illustrations -- and the alter ego fucks Marla while the narrator sits there hearing the sounds and covering his ears.
And the Fight Clubs in the basements and cellars all over the world? Well, you do the math. Orgies without the sex, and with violence instead.
The creation of an underground army, the war against consumer culture, the terrorist actions, the intense desire to feel and inflict pain, all come out of the narrator's denial of his fundamental nature. If as they say on "The Sopranos," depression is rage turned inward, then rage is depression turned outward.
I'm not saying that's all there is to "Fight Club," or that it's all irrefutably there, but that's one of the many alternative narratives I saw in it.
It is indeed a great movie. Great in much the same way that "A Clockwork Orange" is great -- meaning, it's very much a visceral experience, a personal experience, and it's entirely possible to see it as ONLY that -- as a film whose pleasures are all surface and that doesn't really hang together narratively. I disagree with that, obviously, and I disagree because more than anything else, "Fight Club" is a dream film, a film about (as you say, Jim) what happens in your head while you're watching it, the sensations it evokes, the connections it sparks in your imagination. I keep coming back to "Fireworks" because Anger worked in a mode that's pretty Fincher-esque (minus the dialogue and the millions of dollars, of course). The movie is unfinished; you finish it in your head.
JE: Denial and repression! I really like that reading, and I think the movie deliberately leads you in that direction: the bathtub scene ("We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is the answer."), the ass or the crotch, Tyler naked in the doorway with the rubber glove when Jack interrupts him having sex with Marla, the depiction of androgynous/homoerotic fashion models ("Is that what a man looks like?")... And there's clearly a homoerotic component (physical and psychological) to the contact sport of fighting, as there is to boxing, wrestling, etc. Edward Norton echoes what you say about it being a movie you "finish in your head" in Dennis Lim's NYT piece:
Mostly I find myself disliking the movie because 90% of the people I know who like it like it because they actually connect with Durden's bullshit pop philosophy. I generally try not to let a film's fans embitter me to the film itself, but after a while it's hard not to think that the film must be partially responsible for all the people I hope are just misunderstanding it.
JE: I'm afraid you're right: I've noticed there's an essential level of irony that goes right past some of the movie's "fans," too. But Tyler Durden is a soap salesman, and this is what good salespeople do: They convince you they understand your problem, and then they sell you a "solution." "Fight Club" plays with advertising and salesmanship all the way through -- and, sadly, some don't see beyond the initial pitch.
By the way, I think haggie's take on the film's statement on consumer culture and "branding" (see comment higher up in this thread) is one of the most illuminating things I've ever read about 'Fight Club." It's the late capitalism version of The Who's line, "Meet the new boss/same as the old boss."
JE: I'm with you. haggie is good!
Everyone is entitled to their intrepetation but I want it to be clear that the movie explicitly rejects facism.
I also don't believe that Fight club is a love story. Because two characters in a movie have feelings about each other does not mean it is about love. I also don't know that the movie would have benefitted by resolving itself with the "redemptive power of love." Although that may be true, we've seen that idea expressed - 3 or 4 million times.
I also don't think that women inherently "get" the movie any more than men do. It may be easier for them see the joke, but the joke is just the surface of the major themes. Men are socialized to make their mark on the world, to be an "alpha" male, to accumulate things, etc., as a show of status. But this idea, even if you accept it, runs into what I think is one of the underlying themes of the book and movie:
"First you have to know, not fear, know that one day you are going to die."
It is easier to face this fact this when you have struggles; when you overcome. When you have done something important. But as the movie points out, there is no glory in coordinating your furniture. You don't earn a place in history by simply wearing a pin or buying a car with high MPG. You don't cheat death by making no mark.
Wikipedia in its discussion about Ernest Becker who wrote amoung other things, Escape from Evil:
Becker came to believe that a person's character is essentially formed around the process of denying his own mortality, that this denial is necessary for the person to function in the world, and that this character-armor prevents genuine self-knowledge. Much of the evil in the world, he believed, was a consequence of this need to deny death.
In the movie, the main character explores the idea of death by visiting the support groups, getting into the car crash but it is not until seeing Bob on the kitchen counter that he starts to understand.
Ultimately we are left with no answer but as the character makes clear, having a fit and breaking stuff isn't going to solve anything.
JE: Nicely done. (Becker's "Denial of Death" had a big influence on me.) I think the final shot of "Fight Club" (which does echo the final shot of "Bringing Up Baby" -- with Tyler Durden as Baby, at loose in the urban jungle) is indeed a parody of the classic "romantic clinch" ending. The heterosexual union implied is a mockery of the classical, of course -- embracing it even as it's an ironic/subversive commentary on it -- but that's the point. It's a new era.
I saw fight club at the tender age of 13 when it debuted and its basically a perfect summation and critique of the malaise of young males in that era. It took me years later to appreciate the satirical slant of the film and how it condemns the machoism and sadism on display. I heard the critical barrage against it in the media and my response to it at the time was "those idiots are too goddamn old to understand what's up. No good baby boomer geriatric jackasses" (and I still feel a little of that; no offense to baby boomers but I'm getting purdy sick of everything pandering to you guys. It'll be mighty sweet when my generations takes the forefront..patience...patience)-sorry for that bizarre interlude-anyhoo, Fight Club remains a brilliant dissection of the ultimately futile and meaningless cycles of violence perpetuated by our patriarchal society. For a more current example of this phenomena look no further than the UFC.
One point I will concede to the naysayers is many young men missed the point of the film, myself include. After the film premiered I participated in and heard of numerous real life fight clubs even into my first year of university. These clubs were founded in direct emulation of the film. But then again, A Clock Work Orange inspired copycat crimes at its an unparalled masterpiece. I can personally testify to witnessing acts of violence inspired as a direct result of Fight Club. Whether this exemplifies a matter of life imitating art, vice versus, or causes one to question the role of violent art in society is an entirely separate debate all together.
Matt Zoller Seitz: "Somewhere back in the New York Press archives -- which are too tedious to navigate, otherwise I'd go find the link -- I wrote a 1999 piece about "Fight Club" as the story of a guy who's gay and won't admit it."
Very interesting. I've always noticed some homoerotic elements but I've never really put anything together with it. Adding to the ideas thrown out by you and Jim, there's also the "I wanted to destroy something beautiful" scene that could be interpreted as the narrator destroying the "object" that was temping him into homosexuality. There's also lots of references to balls in the film. Outside of the castration scenes, golf balls are used to destroy windows of the warehouse across the street from Tyler's house. Seems like there's other balls in the film as well but I can't recall right now.
Your take on Fight Club both as commentary on consumerist culture and a representation of a depressed and delusional personality are two of the things I took from the movie when I first saw it, although not my main interpretation, which was as a satire on a masculine culture of aggression and violence. I'm not sure why so many people miss that the movie is a satire, which explains both the extreme dislike by some people (obviously one may "get it" and have other reasons to dislike it), and the slavish copying of philosophy and behaviour by others. You mention in your answer to one comment that Palahniuk had heard of real fight clubs and used them as a metaphor in his book. I hadn't heard that, but in an interview of his I read following another book, he talked of the experience of having men come up to him at booksignings telling him about the fight clubs they had started or joined since reading the book or seeing the movie. He seemed a little dumbfounded that the satire would be taken literally.
Fincher's comment about women getting the humour reminded me of something Virginia Woolf wrote (there's a comparison you won't see everyday). I'm paraphrasing, but Woolf wrote in A Room of One's Own that women could see a spot on the back of men's heads that they could never see themselves and write about that aspect of men that they were unaware of (the reverse being true, with men observing women). This is the basis for much uncomfortably accurate comedy. This relates to my initial take on Fight Club, that perhaps women may more readily see that the movie was a satire on the culture of male violence and aggression. (Some men obviously saw it and went "Hell, yeah!") The narrator is aware that he is going to extremes in order to feel something...anything...by crashing cancer support groups. Support groups represent not just a modern way to get in touch with feeling, but a "touchy feely" female way. Significantly, this method is tainted by the presence of an actual female. His next method in attempting to overcome his lack of feeling is to create fight clubs, using primal male aggression as his medium. Feeling anything is better than feeling nothing. The men that enthusiastically join are not shown to have the same disconnect either from feeling or reality. That's part of the reason it goes too far, of course, since just achieving feeling is not their goal. They glory in their expression of their aggressive side, stripping away their veneer of civilization. I also think that the "misogyny" of the narrator's treatment of Marla, comes across to some women as a reflection of how inconsistently they feel men treat them in real life. (The scene that pops in my head to typify this is the post Marla/Durden night of sex followed by Norton's character snarling "What are you doing here?") Just as the wicked stepmother in fairy tales is supposed to represent the split in children's minds between when their mother is angry as opposed to nurturing, I think the Norton/Durden split - as Marla would perceive it - represents different aspects of individual men that women see and put up with. It's been quite a while since I've seen the movie, but the scene that does convey disturbing misogyny to me is when Marla gets on the bus and as it drives away, figures who are presumably members of Project Mayhem converge on her. The threat inherent in that scene always makes me cringe. Again, a distinction between how the narrator treats her in his mentally disordered state, and how other men who have adopted his philosophy without his reasons for it treat her.
On top of some people just not getting the satire, I'm not sure whether it's the male-specific implication that "if men can't feel anything they will tap into destructive impulses and punch something" is what generated such negative opinion, or the showing of how happily and easily one can remove the veneer of civilization and embrace aggression (I'm also thinking of the polarized reaction to Thelma & Louise, as a female example of this).
I think Norton's pithy comment about the movie is right, it is structurally a romantic comedy. That is probably part of the reason why it doesn't do much for me. Especially the ending. I never buy that Tyler "dies" because he sort of shoots himself, and then Jack and Marla walk arm-in-arm off stage triumphantly, with fireworks in the background. That doesn't strike me as satire, it seems quite genuine, if comical and absurd.
To draw an analogy, imagine if Taxi Driver ended with Cybil Shepherd and DeNiro living happily together, while DeNiro is celebrated as a hero. That's the equivalent of Fight Club's ending.
It is worth noting that the ending of the book is quite different, and so the book is not a romantic comedy the way the movie is. I think the ending of the book makes more sense, and is the only way to end a story like this.
I re-visited Fight Club this year for the first time in several years. Initially I'd liked it, as a visceral experience, but upon reflection it had seemed to be intellectually incoherent, its themes not tying together at all satisfactorily (this impression was helped along greatly by Ebert's review, by the author of the original novel's being a hack, and perhaps most of all by the fact that almost all of the film's fans liked it based on a misinterpretation of its message, making their mistaken take seem like it's the actual film).
So anyway I watched it again. And I loved it. I saw it for what it actually is - as you say, it's in large part a love story, but the other part is about self-realization or actualization (or whatever other empty word is in vogue), so that the Norton character can be even be worthy of that girl's love, or of life itself. And what had initially seemed to be out of control unrelated themes (the fascist turn and the project mayhem stuff had just seemed like a wild swing to me for years), actually made sense once the film is seen as a drama taking place in Norton's own mind. He essentially gives control to (for lack of a better [or more accurate] word) his Id, which is all this latent power and strength and courage and coolness and daring in him that he hadn't had access to, for whatever reason, in the sham life he was living. He just gives up the whole thing to this blind force inside him, and while it enables him to overthrow the tyrannical regime that'd dominated his mind and life, it goes way the hell out of control, because it's just this blind will. It's not SUPPOSED to be in control, any more than it's SUPPOSED to be completely stifled as it had been in Norton's life prior to Pitt's 'arrival'. It's only in this context that I was able to reconcile all the acts of the movie, and the ending. And when I did I fucking loved the thing, it was like seeing a whole new film. And of course what the ending then is, is Norton re-asserting himself and taking control of all his power, which was Pitt, and subordinating it to his will, or his rational mind, or whatever you choose to look at it as. But certainly, taking his power he'd unleashed, and which had run him over and done all this crazy horrible shit, and leashing it. And then, and only then, is he living right, is he who he is supposed to be - his optimal self, with all his resources in play. And it's hugely significant that the first act of this newly-together Norton is to take Marla's hand.
Lovely film.
Also, rereading the comments here, my take on the homosexual subtext - in the film (and the book is irrelevant in reading the film, I know Chuck P is gay), all of the gay vibe stuff, the iffy comments and actions, comes from the Durden side. Which as I said is the "id", the pure will, the gratification/power guy. Now considering the narrator clearly wants Marla - and not only for cover, he actually pretends not to like her at first, when Tyler asks him - it's baseless to say Norton is actually gay, and is struggling with it.
The better reading, based on two key scenes (Norton fake disgustedly telling Tyler he doesnt like Marla, and the whole bathtub scene), is that Tyler, the pure will, has an adolescent view of women and male bonding and sex and sexuality in general. He's like a high school kid, or a high school kid's idea of a cool guy, wanting women for sex, but men for love (tho the high school kid would never call it that, he'd call it friendship).
But there's no question Norton is straight. His pulling himself together and fulfilling his potential in order to be with Marla is the whole point of the film. If he's a closeted gay, the film goes back to being nonsense and not fitting together.
JE: Perhaps "gay" is too simplistic. Jack is wrestling with his id, Tyler, who is concerned only with instant gratification, pleasure, unrestrained will. (He is also Shiva, creator and destroyer of worlds.) He is the sexual impulse. The object is immaterial.
Late to this conversation but just wanted to make a quick suggestion. This analogy - They think it's about a cult of men who get together to punch each other, which is like saying "Citizen Kane" is about a sled - seems wrong. I believe it would be more accurate to say Fight Club is about a cult of men who get together to punch each other like Citizen Kane is about a guy who takes over a newspaper.
If you want to use the sled for the analogy, and that sled provides the twist, then it would make more sense (SPOILER) to say Fight Club is about Tyler and the narrator being the same person like Citizen Kane is about Rosebud being the sled.
My pedantic point being, in both cases, it is about those things. FC is about a fight club and about two personalities in one just as CK is about a guy who takes over a newspaper and about a sled which provides deeper insight into his character.
I believe in dismissing the de facto story of a movie one runs the danger of falling down the abyss of the "but here's what it really means" school of criticism. Not that you are guilty of this mind you or that there is anything objectively wrong with doing that in the first place. It's just that I have seen many a mediocre work elevated because people latch onto the real meaning of the work and then condescend to anyone who doesn't buy what they're selling. If you're going to defend FC as the great film you say it is don't start by denying it's own basic plot. Being about a fight club does in fact provide all the satire, insight and revelations necessary to examine the state of our narrator's depression.
JE: The point I'm making is that the sled isn't just a sled, and the fight club isn't just a fight club. They're metaphors. The sled (which physically exists, at least in CFK's memory) is a metaphor for something that nobody else in the movie knows about, including William Alland's reporter, through whom everything we see is ostensibly filtered. (He interviews others who tell him stories about Kane.) It's right there under his nose, as it were, but he can't see it. Tyler Durden and Fight Club are metaphors for something in the mind of the character of "Jack," through whom everything we see in the movie is ostensibly filtered. We know what it means to him, but not what it means to any of the other participants. When the "twist" is revealed is not so important. What matters is the metaphor as it operates in the movie itself. One movie is a quest for the meaning of "Rosebud" to Kane; the other is a quest for the meaning of "Fight Club" (and Tyler) to "Jack." Both offer keys to the personalities of the major characters.
Some movies really are not about what they are about, and it would be incorrect to look at them literally. Take Joe Versus the Volcano. Fight Club is a lot like that. You can look at the events of the film literally for certain purposes, and that's fine, but ultimately what constitutes the film's 'basic plot' is a bunch of stuff that represents a bunch of other stuff.
There is really a kind of film that ought to be read this way, and Fight Club is one such film. It's not a 'school' of criticism, it's a type of film. When a critic becomes the kind of critic you imply you dislike is when he judges a film that's not that type of film, as if it were that type of film. But Fight Club is actually that kind of film. Like JVtV, it's a film about the struggle of someone's mind and personality to overcome and correct itself, and get its owner out of a hole.
Initially I was one of those people turned off (mostly due to critical backlash, more than the subject matter itself) to the film when it was originally released. You are spot on about women getting the humor first. It was my chick friends who insisted I see this film and it was my mother who insisted my father see this film (their favorite movies are Dog Day Afternoon and Jackie Brown, so thematically FC is right up their alley) and I insisted my partner see this film.
I feel some of the current backlash is of the "I love Jesus, but his followers work my nerves." variety. I do find the film to be nuanced in its critiques and gorgeously shot, but I am wary of FC disciples and if it were solely their responsibility to proselytized the film it would be another I would not have seen.
Jim, wanted to touch on a comment you made regarding the film's "zombie" fans and their tendency to "[deny] the inconvenient parts of the movie that don't fit their blinkered views" to ask if you'd mind providing a little extra feedback w/r/t your own assessment of the film's ending. You've written that we're meant to simultaneously appreciate the wit and see the vapidity inherent in Jack's anti-IKEA rants early on but I'm afraid your emphatic statement that the film is "so explicitly against Operation Mayhem" may be a little more neat and convenient than the text we're ultimately left with.
Yes as we drive headlong into that Third Act, clearly the narrator sees the error of his ways, sees his creation growing wild, getting out of control and causing real death and suffering and begins to urge his disciples to stop what they're doing. But is that really enough to say that the movie is "explicitly against Operation Mayhem"? The reason I ask comes down to a point you put so beautiful about the film's final moments--
Namely, as those buildings crumble, we're left with the implication that it was the very death and destruction the narrator was trying to stop that unwittingly seems to have brought about not only the end of his psychosis, but also allows him to at last "get the girl" and, as you said yourself, celebrate "the death of [his] past life." (Love the BRINGING UP BABY comparison, btw.)
My point is this-- If Jack's life in Act One is as soul crushing and unbearable as it's made out to be and the end of Operation Mayhem brings about his ultimate liberation from that life in a way that even the beginnings of the fight club never did, how anti-fascist is the movie after all? For me, part of what makes FIGHT CLUB the film so infuriating is that Fincher & Co. ride that razor's edge of ironic celebration and condemnation all the way to the end of the line in a way that I believe is a lot messier (and perhaps less well-thought-through) than even some of the movie's more eloquent defenders would like to admit.
JE: Nicely put. (And please give my best to Norma Shearer. Big fan.) But I'm not quite clear on where you're taking this. It's one thing to acknowledge the soul-crushing manic-depression/schizophrenia/psychosis/multiple-personality disorder (or whatever it is) that "Jack" suffers, and to empathize with his ironic/cynical disillusionment. [SPOILERS] But once "Jack" wakes up to the fact that he IS Tyler Durden (one reason the first rule of Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club), he tries to stop the Project Mayhem (I wrongly called it "Operation") plans he realizes HE has put into effect. But it's too late. Nobody believes him -- even when he goes to the police, confesses, and spills all the plans. "Jack" has to kill Tyler/himself (blowing his own head off) to shock himself out of his depression/delusion. Tyler is a symptom -- like the hallucination accompanying a fever that helps to kill off a flu bug. Project Mayhem doesn't liberate him; his "fever" finally breaks because, when he follows Tyler's fascistic response all the way through to terrorism, he's horrified at what he comes to see. He becomes disillusioned with Fight Club (a private endeavor, with willing participants) even before it morphs into Project Mayhem (a fascist/terrorist cult of personality -- HIS -- targeting unaware victims). But when Bob is killed, he turns on the black-uniformed "Space Monkeys" -- and realizes he's created mindless monsters:
Seems pretty explicit to me -- like Brian's cult followers in "Life of Brian" or the neighbors toasting "Hail, Satan!" in "Rosemary's Baby."
On the subject of not-so-subtle homoerotic undertones in "Fight Club", I give you...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phcbqQu5Exk
("Fight Club" re-packaged in the format of the "Brokeback Mountain" trailer.)
My point is this-- If Jack's life in Act One is as soul crushing and unbearable as it's made out to be and the end of Operation Mayhem brings about his ultimate liberation from that life in a way that even the beginnings of the fight club never did, how anti-fascist is the movie after all? For me, part of what makes FIGHT CLUB the film so infuriating is that Fincher & Co. ride that razor's edge of ironic celebration and condemnation all the way to the end of the line in a way that I believe is a lot messier (and perhaps less well-thought-through) than even some of the movie's more eloquent defenders would like to admit.
But the end of Project Mayhem (meaning, Project Mayhem itself, what it ended up being, and was about, and provided - its purpose) did NOT liberate Norton. Ultimately it didn't liberate him, any more than a revolution from a mindless consumerist society that results in a brutal dictatorship liberates that society. It liberates Norton from his initial problem - which is presumably what it was 'for'. But it's not the end, and he has to liberate himself from it, which he does when he shoots Durden. I don't see how you can find that the film does anything but condemn the fascist stuff. The protagonist spends the last third of the movie dealing with it, it's made a cartoon of. Norton is liberated by rejecting BOTH sets of values, both 'lifestyles'. At the end he's liberated because he finds a sane way to live in the world, a way to retain his humanity and dignity and freedom of choice. He takes Tyler's strength (which was his anyway) for himself and controls it, combining it with the basic decency which had been offended by the consumerist stuff in the first place. The film is an explicit rejection of both worlds or ways of being in the world.
I've also seen people who love "Fight Club" because they take it literally and love the violence, apply the same reading to "No Country for Old Men" They love the can't-be-stopped killer and kinda just dismiss the coughambiguouscough ending/meaning/angle of the whole movie. Rather it's sooo good because Chigurh's so bad-ass and the flick is sooo suspenseful (which it is).
I'm surprised that this hasn't been commented on, but for me - one of the key themes of the story is Jack's search for meaning in life, and how he explores (and rejects) different paths through Tyler. In that sense his speech on modern life ("our great depression is our lives") is the keystone of that theme in the movie.
Jack is locked deep in a meaningless life - and his frustration with this is something that he can only express through Tyler.
Tyler tries to force others out of a (seemingly) meaningless lives through his self improvement/drivers license projects.
Tyler lectures his followers on how they are not special - but has a solution. Tyler ultimately believes that you can only find meaning in your life by subsuming yourself into a faceless organization (fight club then project mayhem - where you have no name but now have meaning in a greater purpose).
In the 3rd act, Jack rejects both Tyler's solution and the problem - he can live a normal life with Marla, without having to leave some giant mark on history. You can see glimmers of this with the death of Bob (who he start to realize was special and important, even though he was not Special or Important).
Sorry if this multiposted - firefox seems to hang on submission without any feedback.
One thing that I found frustrating about Fight Club at first (and somewhat surprised to see it mentioned infrequently) is the idea of suicide being an acceptable answer to your problems. It is VERY prevalent in Fincher's work and it really bothered me the first time through.
Don't like the way your alter-ego is acting, put a gun to your head. About to birth an Alien, jump into molten steel. Trying to finish off a lifetime of gruesome killings, make someone kill you. About to get busted by cops and go away for a lifetime, make them shoot you.
I have come around on the ending of Fight Club (especially in the light of Fincher's later, non-suicidal works), but of all of the things that come with Fight Club, that was the one that always bothered me.
Serdar had a good point: I like "Fight Club," but it is "contrived" and "smug."
It's also a movie undone by its fans. For all its critique of capitalist-consumerism, it is often the FIRST Blu-ray/DVD used by heavyset upper-middleclass whiteboys to test out their 60" plasma and surround sound speakers.
And Palahniuk's assertion that he's part of the first generation to connect sex and death IS THE STUPIDEST THING I HAVE EVER HEARD. More arrogant nonsense about how the boomers invented sex. (Yes, Palahnuk b.1962 is a boomer.)
This connection has existed in many arts and many cultures for centuries. Just to name a couple examples: 1) The expression "the little death" was coined long before 1975. 2) The high deathrates of mothers during childbirth that has beset humankind for most of its existence already equated sex and death.
Ten years and we're still expending pixels, ink, breath on Fight Club? I'd rather just watch Croupier again. It fishes the same waters with one-tenth of the cuteness, winks, and nods. In other words, it actually has the balls to take itself seriously.
The 'I wanted to hurt something pretty' scene reminds me of Raging Bull; the scene in which the gangster noted 'he aint so pretty anymore.' Interesting that both films equate homoerotism with, to some degree, brutality.
I'm not a big fan of Fight Club. I thinks it tries to make a huge political statement, yet is incredibly confused. The fact that the main character shot himself in the head yet was perfectly fine was also incredibly annoying. Considering how explicit the film was about the damage that violence can do to a person, the fact that any such realistic damage was disregarded in the final scene made me think that the filmmakers just wanted a nice 'Hollywood' ending; almost like they were having their cake and eating it too. That is, they were incredibly radical during the film (even though what they were fighting against and for was really confused), yet in the end, they wanted a happy ending.
Also I'd like to thank Daniel Eig for his insightful post, which I think is the best post about this movie I've ever read, and in its few sentences gets more to the heart of the thing than everyone else has in their endless writing about it over the years. Thank you Daniel.
(there will be some major spoilers ahead)
The thing that always bothers me in regards to Fight Club is I don't think many people get it. I know I didn't at first. It took multiple viewings of the film and readings of the book to make it all click. The thing is that we aren't really supposed to agree with Tyler in the end. The main character splits from Tyler because things start going insane. Part of Fight Club is about fascism and how easily it can happen. Tyler starts with some relatable ideas with grains of truth in them and with this he gains a huge following. His solution to these problems is violence in terrorism. This never solves a single thing in the book or the movie. The people that follow Tyler as shown as mindless Drones who are worse off than they were before. The movie also refuses to tell us what to think about all this. It trusts that we will see what's going on and think that it's wrong, like the main character. It bothers me when people dismiss this as promoting Fascism because it really does the opposite. It also bother me when I see people that take Tylers ideas seriously because his ideas are insane.
I've heard Palahnuik say that as it's center Fight Club is a love story. It even pretty much says that on the opening page of the book. Edward Norton's character hates himself and is jealous of those that are dying because he wants to be dead. He meets Marla and she's a woman that's perfect for him because she is so like him in so many ways. The problem is he hates himself so there's no way he can allow himself to love Marla. His brain creates Tyler to remedy this and does what's necessary which eventually goes way to far and the main character is forced to say enough is enough.
In the end it's just a much different movie than it appears to be.
I haven't seen "Fight Club" but I may have to now. "Bringing Up Baby" is one of my favourite films of all time, (certainly my fav comedy). If there is a connection, even in spirit, I'll have to check it out...
I don't have a lot to contribute to this conversation, but I do especially like the mental image produced by the writer's misspelling of a film title as "Brining Up Baby".
Of course, I always brine my babies up before cooking them.
The problem I have with Fight Club is that I simply didn't care. I didn't care about its message, and I didn't care when I found out that I wasn't supposed to care about the message, since there wasn't one. In that sense, it was a remarkably empty film experience.
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