Fight ClubBy the time you've finished reading this sentence, approximately one million brains cells will have died in your head; that's not merely an attempt at self-deprecation, but an observation that mirrors one of Fight Club's narrator (Edward Norton): "this is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time". Trapped in the confines of unimportant, corporate-whitewashed life, everything feels like a copy of reality. How do you shake up your stability: mayhem. How do you know what you're really made of: get in a fight. The hallmark of the rugged masculine perception of individuality--subscribe today.
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Fight Club has a special nihilistic charm to it that few movies ever achieve. Adapted from the brilliant and sardonic novel by Chuck Palahnuik into an equally brilliant and sardonic film by David Fincher, Fight Club captures that perfect sense of ambivalent displacement that seizes 30-something men, unsure of their place in the world, the "middle children of history". To drive this point home, Fight Club pulls from real-world counterparts of support groups. That's what the eponymous "fight club" started by the narrator and his compatriot, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) is: a support group, like the variety of other groups the narrator attends prior to the duo's fateful encounter, his bizarre, parasitic brand of therapy. Fight Club proposes that in the post-modern world, the support group is the new "religion", and religion has always been about filling a need, a void...about identity, society, and hope, or the absence of it. Our mild-mannered narrator begins his descent to rock bottom, his transcendent fall through the Inferno, accompanied by his "Virgil", the enigmatic and charismatic Tyler Durden, a "superman" of style and ambivalent charm. Fight Club is also infused with a battle of the sexes, even if it seems predominantly concerned with the "Mars" aspect. Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) affects the narrator because she is more powerful than him--stronger--and because the narrator has lived in a generation raised by women, a point he and Tyler commiserate upon, their fathers--their "models for God"--nowhere to be seen. Tyler's awakening of an anti-consumer revelation spreads first through their fight clubs, and later through their guerrilla-style anarchic crusade: Project Mayhem. To what end? Tyler only knows at first. This is largely what makes Tyler Durden so engaging, to our narrator and everyone else. Like all "spiritual leaders", they fill the void, even if it is with primal fight therapy and absurdist vandalism. Tyler preaches, his pulpit the sweat and blood-stained basements of Lou's Tavern at first, then the Paper Street Soap Company base of operations, the dilapidated house that Tyler calls home. Tyler's monologue in that scummy basement even echoes that of Allen Ginsberg's famous poem of rebellion, "Howl", a cry to awaken the soul slumbering deep in a collective of minimum wage laborers, a generation pumping gas. But no path to salvation is wholly universal, and as the church of Tyler expands, dissent comes along for the ride, even if it is in the form of "Jack's sense of rejection", or acolytes who will interpret the messages of their messiah how they see fit. A moment comes in-between dreams following a car crash, where Tyler tells the narrator--and, by association, us--of his vision of a future, not ruled by the confines of civilization as we know it today, but a return to the primitive ways of our ancestors. Is this really the future we all crave, or is it just a convincing proposition posed by a deviant shepherd?
While it's a bit too much to say that Fight Club is slavishly devoted to the source material, how could you not be? The narration is a densely stuffed collection of witty and sly observations about our consumer-obsessed society that carry the weight of authenticity and genuine experiences, from living out of a suitcase, to the artificial mannerisms of a world whose soul has been put on indefinite hold. Author Chuck Palahnuik deals in "transgressive" subject matter--pushing boundaries and shedding social niceties--delivering sharp, raw tales and dealing with subject matter that is most assuredly not "politically correct"; that is not to say that he deals solely in shock, but cleverly crafts stories that are sharp as a razor blade, and speak to the deepest parts of our minds and hearts when even we may not want to admit it to ourselves. In this too, Fight Club tears deep through the flesh of our ultra-civilized first-world problems and drives a stake into the heart of our spiritual crises: consumerism, vanity, submissiveness, and lack of self. These themes and issues have not changed today; in fact, they may be even worse than ever with "on demand" everything, and cell phones being an essential part of millennial life. But Fight Club, like its predecessors in the zeitgeist of history's greatest rebels, calls out to the audience to put value on that which is truly important in life by rejecting and subverting the conventions that defy our true nature. Fight Club remains a shocking film by denying us characters that we consider "noble" or "good", but people that we could identify with nonetheless, engaged in questionable behavior, ones with whom we can sympathize with to an extent. Many of the scenes in the movie take on a darker tone in a post-9/11 era, where collapsing buildings carry an altogether different connotation than simply striking a blow to the powers that be. But when a new generation has grown exceedingly cynical about the ongoing "war on terror", school shootings, pro athletes behaving badly, ebola, Viagra, Olestra...Fight Club embodies that cultural rage of a generation without a purpose, told that one day, "we'd all be millionares, and movie gods, and rock stars...but we're not. And we're very, very pissed off." Fight Club belongs to a cadre of films, like A Clockwork Orange, that feel dangerous, and have the feel of something explosive in our hands. Movies like this are perpetrated by the media as being motivators for psychopaths to justify their evil deeds and commit atrocities, and groups rally around banning this "sick filth" in the name of protecting our moral fiber. What are we afraid of? That this is a movie that is not for everyone; simply put, it is for audiences who "get it", and accept that it is a cynical denouncement of a society that has lost its way, but is by no means a religious mantra or "do-it-yourself" guide for wannabe Unabombers. Woe befall us all should there be a day where movies like Fight Club are ever packaged with a warning, because the warning would really be a corporate brand intended to protect us from thinking for ourselves.
Recommended for: The anarchist in us all, the displaced misfit who's sick of the materialism, the consumerism, and enjoys a sardonic, caustic story that flips society the bird.
While it's a bit too much to say that Fight Club is slavishly devoted to the source material, how could you not be? The narration is a densely stuffed collection of witty and sly observations about our consumer-obsessed society that carry the weight of authenticity and genuine experiences, from living out of a suitcase, to the artificial mannerisms of a world whose soul has been put on indefinite hold. Author Chuck Palahnuik deals in "transgressive" subject matter--pushing boundaries and shedding social niceties--delivering sharp, raw tales and dealing with subject matter that is most assuredly not "politically correct"; that is not to say that he deals solely in shock, but cleverly crafts stories that are sharp as a razor blade, and speak to the deepest parts of our minds and hearts when even we may not want to admit it to ourselves. In this too, Fight Club tears deep through the flesh of our ultra-civilized first-world problems and drives a stake into the heart of our spiritual crises: consumerism, vanity, submissiveness, and lack of self. These themes and issues have not changed today; in fact, they may be even worse than ever with "on demand" everything, and cell phones being an essential part of millennial life. But Fight Club, like its predecessors in the zeitgeist of history's greatest rebels, calls out to the audience to put value on that which is truly important in life by rejecting and subverting the conventions that defy our true nature. Fight Club remains a shocking film by denying us characters that we consider "noble" or "good", but people that we could identify with nonetheless, engaged in questionable behavior, ones with whom we can sympathize with to an extent. Many of the scenes in the movie take on a darker tone in a post-9/11 era, where collapsing buildings carry an altogether different connotation than simply striking a blow to the powers that be. But when a new generation has grown exceedingly cynical about the ongoing "war on terror", school shootings, pro athletes behaving badly, ebola, Viagra, Olestra...Fight Club embodies that cultural rage of a generation without a purpose, told that one day, "we'd all be millionares, and movie gods, and rock stars...but we're not. And we're very, very pissed off." Fight Club belongs to a cadre of films, like A Clockwork Orange, that feel dangerous, and have the feel of something explosive in our hands. Movies like this are perpetrated by the media as being motivators for psychopaths to justify their evil deeds and commit atrocities, and groups rally around banning this "sick filth" in the name of protecting our moral fiber. What are we afraid of? That this is a movie that is not for everyone; simply put, it is for audiences who "get it", and accept that it is a cynical denouncement of a society that has lost its way, but is by no means a religious mantra or "do-it-yourself" guide for wannabe Unabombers. Woe befall us all should there be a day where movies like Fight Club are ever packaged with a warning, because the warning would really be a corporate brand intended to protect us from thinking for ourselves.
Recommended for: The anarchist in us all, the displaced misfit who's sick of the materialism, the consumerism, and enjoys a sardonic, caustic story that flips society the bird.