An analysis of the film Fight Club
For years, David Fincher has been turning out some of the most stylish and inventive thrillers to ever hit the American screens. In spite of critical and public backlash, his Alien 3 remains the most technically interesting of that series, and Seven stands as the suspense film upon which all other modern suspense films are based. With The Game, he proved himself more than a one-movie wonder and emerged as one of the most original filmmakers working in Hollywood. His new film, Fight Club, however, is his most challenging piece of work. It is a film that demands that its viewers look past what's on the surface and find something deeper. Fight Club is a multi-layered film with many subplots and multiple themes. Fincher delves into such topics as consumerism, the feminization of society, manipulation, cultism, fascism, and even the psychosemantics of the human id and ego. Primarily, it is a film that surrealistically describes the status of the American male at the end of the 20th century: disenchanted, unfulfilled, castrated and looking for a way out. It depicts how consumerist males have been emasculated by their modern life styles, by a feminized consumer culture that places more worth
When he arrives back at his apartment building, he discovers his apartment on fire. His precious Ikea furniture and all his belongings have been destroyed in a mysterious explosion. With no one to call, he turns to Tyler and the two bond immediately. Tyler identifies the cause for the Narrator's desperation: he is a victim of a feminized consumer culture. Tyler's therapy is simple, he helps the Narrator remedy the imbalance in his own life by making him feel like a real man by fighting, actually beating each other to bloody pulp. Together they establish a fight club for men, as an underground way to express rage and living on the edge, to feel alive by approaching death. Fight Club can perhaps most precisely described as provocative. It is an exceedingly violent, self-consciously subversive film that will provoke repulsion, controversy, and laughter. Fight Club should, however, provoke thought, which is clearly its primary intention. Intelligent viewers who see beyond the nihilistic surface will discover a movie of multiple layers and metaphors that is as rich in ideas as it is a visual feast. Norton's character leads an unfulfilled and aimless life. Rather than masturbating as an outlet, he buys furniture from IKEA. It is by no chance that our Narrator is not given a name: he is the Everyman of the 90s, "a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct" (Fight Club) with an apartment that owns him more than he owns it. He also suffers from insomnia for which the only cure seems to come in the form of going to self-help groups for terminal diseases like testicular cancer--testicles and their absence being one of the themes--or tuberculosis. The emotional confessions of the participants give him a vicarious sense of being alive and provide emotional release, which then allows him to sleep soundly. While he enjoys good health, he is closer to death than the people he communes with on a nightly basis. They face physical mortality at any moment. He faces spiritual mortality every moment of his waking life. Crucial to the film's success is the Narrator's voice-over, a device that often does not work in movies. In Fight Club it is essential, not only to comment ironically on the action, but also to raise the idea that our narrator may indeed be completely unreliable. After only three films,
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Approximate Word count = 1552
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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