Fight Club (1999)
A film that held first place on my Top Ten for 8 years, and one that will never ever get old for me… I present to you:
An insomniac unnamed Narrator (Edward Norton) and a soap salesman Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) build a global organization of underground “fight clubs” that provide the ultimate high and cathartic release for men the world over.
For those who have never seen and/or heard of this film, that’s as much summary as I can give you before I give away vital plot points. Take it from someone who saw this for the first time at age 12, though… take the title at its word. This is a violent movie. But that being said, don’t think that that’s all the film is about. For me (and for most of the cult following that Fight Club has) both the film and the book the film is based on is a satire of modern American society. In my opinion it is one of the funniest films I have ever seen. But then again, my sense of humor is so damn dark that you need a torch to navigate my guttermind, so maybe think twice about seeing this for its comedic factor.
This was the first David Fincher film that I ever saw and I fell in love with the director from the off. The film is incredibly well made. The book – which I read after the film but love just as much – is not easy material to bring to the screen. Fight Club was incidentally also the first ever Chuck Palahniuk book that I ever read, and for those who know him you will agree that his work is like reading a stream of consciousness that acts as a drug; after a while you feel like you’ve gone mad. The fact that this feeling and the original brutal humor translated to the screen so flawlessly is quite simply miraculous to me. The author himself actually mentioned that he liked the way Fincher ended his film more than the writer’s own book ending.
I guess it’s only fair to mention that Fight Club is not an easy film to watch for some. First of all, steer clear if you dislike violence. Yes, it’s exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness, but unlike films such as The Matrix where the violence is brutal but completely unrealistic, this film shows in graphic detail the ways one can damage a human body. Oddly, I found that although the entire idea of Fight Club is the fight club itself, the plot is much deeper and more thought provoking than just men beating each other to a pulp. If you can get past the in-your-face beatings you will get to the core of the film: the insane philosophy of the antihero.
Tyler Durden is crazy. This is never debated, nor is it ever defended. The man is nuts. However, a lot of the things he says make more sense than one feels comfortable with. I, for one, found myself attempting to hit bottom and seeking out dry powered lye after seeing the film the first time (at age 12), for no other reason than because the world Tyler spoke of sounded so damned appealing. There’s still parts of me that want to get into a fight just to say I have. The Narrator, however, is the character I love the most in this film.
He’s the everyman. He is a bored office worker who hasn’t slept in six months and nothing he tries seems to help. He starts frequenting support groups because he finds the catharsis of an emotional release helps him sleep at night. The fact that he is never named (he refers to himself as Jack in both the film and the book after reading an article in the Reader’s Digest that was written from an organ’s perspective in first person, but that’s not his name) is just one of the ways that Palahniuk and Fincher use to distance the audience from the character. Although there is that attempt at distancing the audience, the continuous commentary provided by the Narrator throughout the film serves to get the audience on the Narrator’s side. Just like our own fight club, we get catharsis from suffering with the Narrator.
The visual effects of the film are incredible; it was nominated for an Oscar in 2000 for special effects. Fincher is notorious for never lighting his films properly. The first few times one thinks the man didn’t bother to hire a lighting crew, but after a while you realize that the style is the sturdy foundation for the rest of the elements to work on. The lack of lighting is so unusual because in films everything is well lit and beautifully colored. The lack of lighting makes what we see appear more realistic and life-like. It’s an unusual and highly effective, and just one of the many reasons I absolutely adore the director.
The music is fantastic. I nearly fainted when I found the special edition soundtrack in a music store (this was well before broadband internet and iTunes) because the score is stunning. It’s not musical. It’s a collection of sounds that work to either make you feel very, very uncomfortable in a scene or act as a base so well placed that you don’t notice it at all, even if you’re listening or it. The Dust Brothers had never worked on a film score before, if I remember correctly, and Fincher wanted them for that very reason: he wanted music that had never been seen in films before, and he got the most brilliant result with that gamble.
If you can’t tell, I can gush about the film till the cows come home and then some. I have seen it over 30 times, I can (and do) quote it from start to finish and I know the commentary track just as well as the script. The film gets a 9.5/10 from me and that rating will never change. As I said, for me this film satirizes society so well that it’s hilarious. It’s a wonderful black comedy that is centered on violence but doesn’t focus on it. It’s about ordinary people who are trapped in a boring world and trying desperately to break free of their mundane lives. Also, this film has one of the best twists in cinematic history. If you are unspoiled for the film and this review made you interested in seeing it, go out and do so now before someone gives the game away.
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