FIGHT CLUB
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: People may be discussing for years
the meaning of this strange absurdist black comedy
set in a near future. The unnamed narrator is a
man who habitually crashes medical support
encounter groups feigning diseases that he does not
have. He meets two enigmatic characters, one a
woman who also fakes disease to go to encounter
group meetings, the other a strange anarchistic
genius. With the latter the narrator founds a sort
of fraternity where men can come and connect with
each other by fist-fighting. A dark film both
figuratively and literally, FIGHT CLUB is a real
go-for-the-throat satire tracking the rising tide
of rage in America. Eventually it starts to run
out of steam if not anger, and perhaps could have
been trimmed from its 139-minute running time.
Rating: 7 (0 to 10), +2 (-4 to +4).
On the heels of AMERICAN BEAUTY, one dark satire of American suburban life, comes a far grimmer satire of lower class society and anger. Chuck Palahniuk's premier novel is brought to the screen as a howl of rage by David Fincher, director of ALIEN 3, SE7EN, THE GAME, and the upcoming RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA. FIGHT CLUB is about a subculture of men who have turned their backs on soft supportive philosophies and meaningless consumerism and have replaced it with hard knuckles and covert terrorism.
As the film opens, the narrator of the film (Edward Norton) has someone unseen holding a gun in his mouth. He begins to think back over the previous six months to how he came to this pass. In flashback he has been a man suffering from insomnia, living in a constant netherworld between awake and asleep. He complains of the malady to his doctor. His doctor belittles him and suggests that if he wants to see what real pain is he should visit a testicular cancer support group. Under an assumed name, the narrator pretends to be a fellow sufferer and soon finds he really enjoys going to and giving support to the patients. He begins going every night a week to a different disease encounter group. Then he notices Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) who shares this voyeuristic hobby. They begin to barter which support groups each may cover. In a different setting, he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) a soap salesman and film projectionist who is fighting his own war guerilla against society.
When a mysterious explosion destroys the narrator's apartment, he arranges an invitation to stay with Durden who asks for one thing in return. He wants to fight the narrator. The narrator surprises himself by enjoying the experience. This becomes a frequent habit replacing encounter groups. As other men come to watch the two fight, they want to fight also, forming a common bond. Durden and the main character found a secret society that stages fist fights. Eschewing the old life of soft self-sacrificing support of others, membership in the macho fighting society starts changing all of the narrator's perspectives. All that is real is the world where men fight emasculation and prove their strength by the friendly beating of each other. They then wear their injuries as proof they are manly. Eventually this underground counterculture will add to its agenda the sowing of chaos and anarchy.
Jim Uhls's script is frequently bitterly funny, but fails to connect the various themes together. The catalog-buying consumer culture seems so little to touch the lifestyle of Tyler Durden that his rage against it seems unmotivated and almost could have been added by the writers as an afterthought. Even if Durden is to use it as a symbol of what he is fighting the film needs to tell us why that symbol of superficiality rather than, say, architecture or vacation homes. The text chillingly examines the bestial impulses in man and suggests that we are a long way from breeding them out of the species. The main character is saddled with opposite impulses "to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable." In theme and even somewhat in plot this film could be compared to, of all things, THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE.
Jeff Cronenweth's photography features an agile and dizzying camera flying the viewer around and through holes where Orson Wells would fear to go. Virtually every scene in the movie is underlit to reflect the theme and create a repressive tone.
This film seems a not entirely directed howl of anger. It is technically flawed, but coming in the wake of rage crimes like Littleton it could not be more timely. I rate it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1999 Mark R. Leeper
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