Fight Club (film) Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Fight Club (1999) is a film based on the novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. It was directed by David Fincher and starred Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter. Also featured in it is an original soundtrack by the Dust Brothers. As of June 23, 2004 Fight Club is in development as a musical, developed by Palahniuk and Fincher. A video game based on the film is also planned to be released in October of 2004.
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2 Differences between novel and film 3 Reaction and themes 4 Trivia 5 Awards 6 Technical data 7 See also 8 External links |
The plot revolves around a nameless narrator (played by Edward Norton; referred to as "Jack" in the film's credits), an accident investigator for a major car company. During a severe bout of insomnia he goes to a meeting for men with testicular cancer. He begins to use the meetings as a release of emotion and subsequently finds that he can now sleep. When a woman named Marla starts attending these meetings for fun, the narrator finds that his insomnia returns.
Returning from a business trip, the narrator meets Tyler Durden on a plane. Arriving at his apartment, he finds that it has exploded in flames and calls Tyler Durden for lack of anyone else to call. Later, they meet at a bar and have a discussion on materialism and the modern male, which turns to the idea of fighting and eventually they have it out in the middle of a parking lot. The release of emotion and energy rejuvenates the narrator and after moving in with Tyler, they start a "fight club".
As the revolutionary idea of the rejection of material goods and the individual animal aspect of the fight grows, so does the club. Soon, Tyler is distributing "assignments" to the members of the club which grows into "Project Mayhem", an anti-corporate destruction squad led by Tyler. As the project grows, the narrator becomes increasingly disturbed by their actions and tries to stop it as one of the co-founders of fight club. He slowly uncovers their plan and soon discovers the real identity of Tyler Durden; he is a split-personality construct that exists only in the narrator's head and the actions that Tyler undertakes are actions that the narrator is really performing. The film climaxes with the narrator taking back control of his mind in a violent incident where he shoots himself in the mouth just as Project Mayhem's final act of vandalism, the destruction of all the credit bureaus, resetting the debt of the world back at zero.
Fight Club was released in the United States on October 15, 1999 to mixed reviews. While some critics raved about the film, many high-profile critics denounced it. Janet Maslin of The New York Times compared it favorably to American Beauty while Roger Ebert called it "male porn." The graphic violence of the fights seemed to upset most critics, although only one person is actually killed in the film.
The film's highly critical view of consumerism and modern living echoes Naomi Klein's book No Logo and also caused discomfort among some critics. Critics like Ebert decried what they described as a fascist themes throughout the film, while others have commented on anarchist, nihilist, and buddhist ideals. Both are represented in the transformation of the fight club, an anti-materialistic organization of individuality to Project Mayhem, a more organized anarchy, led solely on the authority of Tyler Durden. The amorphous nature with which these seemingly opposed philosophical systems incorporated into each other is the cause for much of the disagreement over the philosophical core of this film.
Parallels are also drawn between Tyler Durden's vision of the world after his revolution, and the views of Theodore Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber. This can be seen in one scene where Tyler talks about abseiling down the Sears Tower in clothes that will last you the rest of your life and hunting elk on abandoned freeways.
Some elements from the film have found their way into the mainstream, such as the first two rules of fight club — both of which are You do not talk about fight club — or the name "Tyler Durden" itself. The general idea of a fight club was also adapted into the German computer role-playing game Gothic 2, which also listed Palahniuk in its credits.
The film opened with $11 million, a surprise #1 movie in a close race that weekend at the box office. However, it fell very quickly in subsequent weekends, finishing with only $37 million in the U.S. It was regarded as a failure as the budget was $63 million, not including advertising which could have been another $20-30 million. Even with the $63 million later accumulated overseas, executives at 20th Century Fox still felt the movie was a severe disappointment, so much so that Entertainment Chief Bill Mechanic was fired. According to Mechanic, he had personally clashed with Fox owner Rupert Murdoch over Fight Club and it cost him his job, barely a year after Fox's Titanic had become the highest-grossing film ever made.
The film makers originally intended Tyler Durden to recite working recipes for homemade explosives. They later decided against it for the interest of public safety, and fake recipes were used.
In the beginning of the film, Tyler Durden flashes on screen for a duration of one frame, in four different instances. These are:
This is an Article on Fight Club (film). Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Fight Club (film) Plot
Differences between novel and film
Though the plot is mostly similar to the novel, some significant changes have been made in the film.Reaction and themes
Trivia
The movie appears to take place in Wilmington, Delaware, home to most credit card companies. Tyler's business card includes the Wilmington zip code 19808. Moreover, the cities specifically mentioned in the car-smashing scene are New Castle, Delaware City and Penns Grove, NJ, which are close to Wilmington. The apartment building in which the narrator lives has as its motto "a place to be somebody," which is also the city motto of Wilmington, Delaware.
This sort of trickery has become a trademark of director David Fincher.Awards
The film won the following awards:
It was also nominated for the following awards:
Technical data
See also
External links