Title: Fight Club
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter
Year: 1999
Country: U.S
Language: English
Running Time: 139 Minutes
Rating: R
Before I begin my review/rant I must say that Fight Club is a well made film from a technical point of view. The edits, lighting, shots and overall look of the film is fantastic. The lighting definitely highlights the mood and tone of the film, which is a bitter, unhappy and angry tone. The makeup and special effects used are exquisite. There were many scenes that left me in awe, scenes that left me asking “how did they do it?”. I feel the casting was well chosen, the narrator (Edward Norton) looks like the average joe who has been pushed around a little too often. Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) looks like everything the average joe wishes to be, “smart”, confident and good looking. Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) looks like a very sexual and possibly intelligent person yet unhappy with her miserable life. I do not have a problem with this film on a technical stance, if I was to make a moody film and needed some inspiration I would definitely watch this film again, however I definitely have a problem with this film on a philosophical and moral level
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| The average Fight Club fan |
The first time I viewed Fight Club I thought it was an incredibly deep film about a bunch of lonely rebels who were fed up with being pushed around in life. Five viewings and six years later I am disgusted by Fight Club on a moral level. It’s a mediocre film that celebrates fascism and glorifies violence, thinking that it can get away with this by shouting philosophical catchphrases at the viewer. Fight Club is masturbation material for angry teenagers and testosterone filled men. Had the film not been as technically well made as it is, the moral issues would be much clearer.
I won’t deny that I thought everything before the introduction of Brad Pitt’s character wasn’t completely stupid. Fight Club begins with a bitter and frustrated Edward Norton. He is unhappy about his meaningless life, he is unhappy about his accurately described insomnia. He goes to odd group meetings, possibly to make himself feel better about his pathetic life. He meets an equally upset woman named Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) at a testicular cancer meeting. The film at this point is watchable, it has a nice sarcastic dark comedy feel to it. Then Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) enters the film as a kind of mentor for the depressed Norton...and that's where the film starts to decline in quality.
As I said in the beginning, Brad Pitt is a good choice for the character of Tyler Durden. Pitt looks and acts like everything Norton's character wants to be, but the character and "mindfuck" itself is not necessary! Why did so many films in the 90's think they needed some grand plot twist??
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Durden's biggest sin was introducing this "fight club". This introduction is where any logic and humour the film has had is completely thrown out the window. What philosophy can explain the reason why these men fight (unrealistically) in a dark basement? Brad Pitt (as Durden) says "We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." Any intelligent person will look at this quote and realize that it's not true, Norton and Pitt are millionaires and movie gods. The philosophy doesn't work.
Indeed it's as if the writers of Fight Club skimmed through some basic philosophy books at their local library and threw all the crap they could find into this film. Durden is a charismatic bully who fools the members of Fight Club into thinking that they're some great rebellious army,in reality Fight Club never helps anybody. They all become mindless parasites. Infact Durden's cult-like charisma and backwards philosophy reminds me of a man named Adolf Hitler.
Of Course the film isn’t supposed to portray Durden as an anti-hero, however the film is so poorly written, the violence is so intense and the cast is so well known that most viewers reject the approach the film attempts to make, that Fight Club is not supposed to agree with Durden’s philosophy, and instead think that Durden’s philosophy has some real value. My point is proven when you read about how much fight clubs came into existence in 1999 because of this film. My point is proven again when you talk to the delusional fans of Fight Club and they quote a ridiculous philosophical catchphrase from the film
In conclusion I cannot forgive Fincher for making the monstrosity known as Fight Club. A celebration of fascism , shady philosophy and gratuitous violence. The “twist” ending is completely ridiculous, very poorly executed and written. Getting rid of a split personality by shooting yourself in the face is the most asinine thing I have ever seen in any movie. From a technical aspect the film is well made but on a moral level it's appalling. Piss on it and while you’re at it, follow the first rule of fight club, do NOT talk about Fight Club! 1/5
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| Note: This is shortly after Edward Norton shot himself in the face. Completely ludicrous. |
Fight Club has been sort of ensnared in a similar position to that of Nietzchean philosophy and Nazism where the latter misread and misconstrued the former to such a degree that many believed for a time that Nietzsche's philosophy was geared to produce such events as the holocaust. Now obviously the situation of Fight Club and its misguided fans is vastly different and by no means apples to apples. However, you still got material in and of itself that is being interpreted irresponsibly by people who just don't get it. To see something more accurate for what Fincher was trying to get across, you have Ed Howard on Slant who makes an excellent summation of Tyler Durden…
ReplyDelete"Having established that Tyler is basically our culture's idea of the ultimate macho man, the film then proceeds to really examine this walking cliché in greater depth. At first, Jack follows Tyler unquestioningly, allowing himself to be remade as the cool, sexy tough guy he always wanted to be. And Tyler quite naturally assembles a lot of very similar acolytes. But as the film progresses, and especially during its frantic final stretches as Jack desperately runs around trying to figure out what's going on and how to stop Tyler's insane plan, Jack begins to realize that there are (to put it mildly) drawbacks to always taking this hyper-masculine, blow-shit-up-and-ask-questions-never approach to life. If Fincher's other films are mostly linear in their character arcs, I think this is the only one that is somewhat cyclical: Jack rejects society and embraces this hyped-up version of masculine identity, but then he belatedly steps back from it as he realizes the extremes to which it has taken him. To me, the film is about the desperation and depression associated with modern society that causes us to rally around anything that makes us feel better about ourselves, even if it means becoming an unquestioning, robotic follower like the drones uncomprehendingly repeating "his name is Robert Paulson." This is the impulse that initially led Jack to support groups, and eventually to seek redemption in the exaggerated masculine aggression of the fight clubs. Fincher understands and even sympathizes with this impulse, but the film itself is a cautionary tale about the dangers involved in trying to embody a cultural cliché."
-http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2009/01/the-conversations-david-fincher/
The article there which covers Fincher’s career as a whole, does an excellent job of dissecting Fight Club. There’s also another article online by Jim Emmerson that offers a wildly different interpretation of Fight Club as well, far different than that of The Conversation. That article can be found here
-http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2008/07/fight_club_i_am_jacks_manicdep.html