Director: David Fincher
Starring: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf
A review of a classic by Adam Truscott.
The One Where I Love Fight Club, And You Should Too.
Fight Club punched me in the face, and kicked me in the balls.
I mean it. I was floored after seeing it.
I remember reading the hoo-ha about it in the tabloids. How people were calling it irresponsible. Reprehensible. Repugnant.
That just made me want to see it even more.
When the Dust Brothers kicks in, I always feel edgy.
There is something about it, and the X-Men style visuals. It’s other wordly. You can’t trust it. You know it’s going to turn on you. It’s hard to describe. But the first time I saw it, the air was almost heavy with the threat of violence. Like when you went to watch a fight after school (We all did that, right?). Knowing that there was something primal about it.
Obviously most school fights were pathetic. Apart from one I remember where two girls went at it. That was special. I digress.
What Fight Club does amazingly well is get that feeling of stupidity. That bit where both people look at each other, after the fight, and think… “What were we fighting over, again?”
I always think that when I watch a Boxing match. The mutual respect after the fight. The “what were we fighting over, again?” moment.
Fight Club tries to fill in those gaps. The “why” we do it. It tries to tap into the tribal nature of fighting. The boredom and disenchantment that leads to that.
I think Fincher nails all of that.
The scene where The Narrator decks his condo out in IKEA furniture, telling us how he needs it. It’s brilliant. It works so well because when the DVD came out, I felt I needed it. Then felt conflicted. Felt like I was missing the consumerism message. Tyler Durden says…
The fact that a lot of people missed the message has helped and hindered Fight Club.
Fincher is where he is now after a hard slog. If most critics had not verbally beaten in Fight Club to submission, he may have got there earlier. (Of course it helps making films about the biggest change to social networking ever – instead of serial killers, women in peril, pyschotic games and young men. Bored. Wanting to fight.).
It helped too, though. Fight Club has become the cult film of the 90’s. A great closing chapter to that decade.
Some people that should get it really don’t.
I gave up on trying to get Dad to give it another go.
Too much Daily Mail reading I’m afraid. Frightened off by the Angel Face beating. I tried to tell dad that The Narrator just wanted to destroy something beautiful. He wasn’t having any of it.
Similar to my love of Heat, Fight Club is full of layers. When I first read about the subliminal images, I couldn’t believe it.
Ever since I’d been haunted by that stupid ghostly white face in The Exorcist, I’ve loved subliminal imagery. Like something is trying to invade the screen. It’s a great concept. In Fight Club of course, it even serves a purpose. In hindsight, they are all one big neon sign, pointing towards the end. Ladies and Gentlemen, please return your seats to the full, upright position.
So why has Fight Club stayed the distance for me?
Well, in 1999, I was 18. Fight Club was made for me, in many ways. For my generation. It talked to me, in a lot of what it was trying to say.
I’ve never had a fight in my life, so I don’t mean like that.
I guess I’m talking on a deeper level than that. The idea of destroying everything you own, all of the bits you think make you who you are.
The bit where Tyler holds a gun to Raymond K Hessle’s head, and tells him that by letting him be this closet death, may make him finally start living. It’s a great theory, and it runs through the movie, in all that Tyler and his Space Monkeys try to achieve.
I know a few people that would like Starbucks to vanish. There is one on every corner. Fight Club makes me think about how we ended up here. Here the world can be so dominated by branding, and huge, commercial companies.
I wonder if I’m going to do anything about that. Instead I crack open a brewski, and put on my new shiny copy of Fight Club, on Bluey.
One day I may turn a water hose on a stranger though. Just to see how they react. It might be good for them.
Go watch Fight Club again. But remember…
Tomorrow will be the greatest day in Raymond K. Hessle’s life.
Oh, and “You are not your fucking khakis”.
