Rethinking'Fight Club': Film retains vision despite gore
FIGHT CLUB from page 5
They are the two best films of
last year.
While “Magnolia” represents
a giant ensemble chorus of sto
ries, “Fight Club,” is primarily a
two man show inside one man’s
mind, with a woman in
between.
We meet a nameless narra
tor (Norton), a corporate drone
who works as incident specialist
at an auto corporation. Early in
the film, he describes to a
stranger the nature of his work:
investigate accidents, then
determine whether a recall is
necessary (hint: not unless the
lawsuit is larger than the cost of
a recall).
Fincher rushes headlong
into the social commentary,
which primarily concerns the
narrator’s lack of vigor, unre
lenting insomnia and strange,
momentary hallucination.
Norton, still in shirt and tie in
the wee hours, spends sleep
lessness ordering his wallet off
on Ikea furniture and function
ally fashionable sculptures. He
watches infomercials. And he
considers the products as wor
thy.
And then he gets a tip from a
doctor: Want to see real pain?
Go visit testicular cancer sur
vivors. Disguised as such,
“Cornelius” meets bitch-tits
Bob (Meat Loaf) and discovers
an odd cathartic outlet - lying
about an illness he doesn’t have,
releasing real tears based on
fake emotions, presumably left
over from his real angst. It
works, and as the narrator fre
quents other diseases - tumors,
intestinal disorders - he begins
to sleep.
When another faker enters
the mix, a ragamuffin named
Marla (Helena Bonham Carter),
the narrator is perplexed and
can’t cry. In confronting her,
there’s an odd connection, an
arrangement to split up the dis
eases and an exchange of phone
numbers.
That first act doesn’t formu
late the groundwork for the last
two through simple plotting,
but by misdirection. Like; a
Hitchcock film, “Fight Club”
hasn’t yet offered us its second
primary character - Tyler
Durden (Pitt), a soap salesman
who quickly becomes the narra
tor's savior after his apartment
explodes. Over beers, Durden,
played by Pitt as a self-styled,
wildman experience aficionado,
plugs into a main theme of the
film: “The things you own ...
end up owning you.”
There is much talk of moth
ers, lost fathers, disconnection
from God, the materialistic
nature of a woman inhabiting
and capturing a man's mind and
spirit. Out of these frustrations
is bom “Fight Club,” a beat-em
up merry-go-round of fists for
the corporate drones like the
narrator.
The concept of “Fight Club”
as an anarchist response to the
world pressures - there are rules
(don't talk about it), there are
rewards, there are comrades - is
a brilliant set piece to explore,
which Fincher, along with a
script from Jim Uhls, does aptly,
by slowly growing the bonds of
the members above and beyond
simple one-on-one matches.
Quite soon, the figurehead
Durden has spearheaded
Project Mayhem, a shadow
prankster outfit bent on elimi
nating all that was beloved by
the consumer. Fight clubs grow
throughout the States; men
speak of "the word of Tyler
Durden.” Where "Fight Club”
succeeds so clearly in future
viewing is drawing out, in
speech and subtle acts, the
growing of an underground dic
tator, which parallels the gener
al rise of any unfriendly, mili
taristic outfit our world has
known.
rate ii. vvuai m uic uuucu
States, save the lack of depres
sion, is so much different from
that Germany which Adolf
Hitler assumed control of with a
small portion of the vote? Like
Durden, Hitler chose the public
works of the wealthy - in this
case, Jews - to stake his claim
on. Like Durden, Hitler instilled
a sick pride in his denizens.
And like Hitler, Durden
demands a certain look (all
black), a certain secrecy (no
names, no leaking, even to the
leader). Like Hitler's "final solu
tion” to reset the population to
his like, Durden has a plan to
reset everybody "back to zero.”
And where a financial depres
sion does not exist, Durden cre
ates another: “Our great war,” he
says, “is a spiritual war. Our
great depression, is our lives.”
This line is uttered not long
before another massive fight,
one of many bloody duels
through the course of the film.
The worst arrives when the nar
rator beats up a moon-faced
underling (Jared Leto) to the
point where he incurs perma
nent, pus-filled scars.
Considering the relative
artistic undertones of Fincher’s
and Norton’s aspirations with
the film (both somehow see it as
a high-line masculine version of
“The Graduate," with Durden as
Mrs. Robinson), the sheer gratu
ity of the violence seems out of
place, too pulp for a movie with
messages to spread.
There’s a key scene right
after a fight, where one fight
clubber basically acts as a butler
for Durden, that gets lost in the
aftershock of another beating,
which says nothing for the beat
ing from five minutes prior still
buzzing. “Fight Club” is almost
masochistic in its depiction of
violence - it wants to extract
pains and subversive pleasure
in the same breath.
Which means there’s some
brooding undercurrent pulsing
underneath that might not
reside too far from Durden's
persona itself. Depending on
attentiveness, the crucial,
buried twist regarding the rela
tionship between the narrator
and Durden can be detected
rather quickly, and by the end of
“Fight Club," we’re quite aware
that Durden and Co. have to be
stopped in some form. /
l ne implication oi mat twist
doesn’t hit the first time you see
it - better to see it again and
retrace how it affects the film’s
first act; which scenes were sig
nificant, which weren’t. Far bet
ter than the invisible/nothing’s
real twist of "The Usual
Suspects,” “Fight Club's” revela
tion actually puts the opening
hour into some sort of order,
tracing the narrator's descent
into something he’s only begin
ning to grasp.
Norton's character correctly
guesses Project Mayhem has
gone too far in theory - though
it has just begun to exert its
force. And the solution to that
problem is properly disturbing
at first, then quirky, then, in the
final shot, another jolt of juice,
aptly closing a strange, piercing
journey, one you want to take
again, almost immediately.
Even I, disgusted by the
fights, was drawn toward a sec
ond theater viewing for the
commentary material. The
fights, in the meantime, became
the traffic accident you don’t
look away from and feel
ashamed for not doing so.
In subsequent DVD view
ings, I kept returning to the
fights, appropriating the meas
ure on the viewer. It wasn't so
intense for everyone; some
reviews didn’t bother mention
ing the gushing and bruising,
even negative ones, which were
far more willing to pounce on a
wrongly-considered childish
tone in the script. Enjoying the
craft, even reveling in it as
Fincher does, is too far from the
spare, idealized version of
European art house cinema that
some critics champion.
The nonchalant attitude
toward the violence is disturb
ing. For me, the depiction of the
fight scenes were all that held
me back from interacting with
the intricate narrative. In the
post-“Ryan” era, what wound
can possibly be foreign to us,
what sound can possibly be
new? I shiver to know that, as a
history lesson, children have
seen that movie. I shiver, too, to
know that others have seen
“Fight Club,” glossed over its
high line message and become
beholden to the word of Tyler
Durden - that blood is the
answer, that all should be reset
back to zero.
Because while he is right
about you not being your
khakis, it takes a discerning
mind to detect when he's
become wrong. And while
“Fight Club” has been rethought
in my mind as a daring, bold
vision of how dictators and
maniacs are born, it doesn't
necessarily tell the uncouth
mind not to follow it. Rather, it’s
up to assumption.
And frankly, there’s some
paramilitary wings out there I'd
rather didn't have that privilege.
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