Michaelson

Now, I haven't seen Fight Club in about a year. I know that when I watched it a year ago, though, I thought it was just as stupid as when I saw it the first time.

Presuming every single person on this forum thought the film was ground-breakingly brilliant (this can be deduced from the fact that apart from me, everyone in the world seems to think this way) I was wondering if anyone would like to justify this view to me.

What makes Fight Club a good movie? Is it just a kickass action film or thriller? Does it have a profound message? Does it reveal every man's secret desire to punch on with strangers for no reason?

What is it? Please someone tell me!

scarmig

In a word, counter-culture.

That's it.

It's not so much about male-machismo as it is about rebellion against "civilization".

It's about being a Human rather than a Citizen.

It's about self-exploration and realization.

It's about the fact that you, yes you, do not have one brain. You have two. And they don't always agree with each other.

It asks you, if you were to lose every "thing" you own, who would you be?


When me and my wife sat down and watched it the first time, we were shocked. I looked at her after it had ended and said, "Damn! I thought it was going to be about fighting!"

If you go into thinking it's about fighting, you *should* be very surprised. If you walk out of it thinking it's about fighting, then that wooshing you heard overhead was *not* a plane.

dangin

I think it falls within a thematic trilogy of recent films that also include American Beauty, and Office Space. It's about the modern world, all it's conveniences, fashions, technologies, and the society that exists within that setting of convenience, fashion, and technology.

We are animals, the majority of our evolutionary history is about brutal survival, and we still have that hard wiring. So why does the "soft" life of today leave us cold. Why does the consumer culture tell us that the right clothes, the right sofa, the right car, and the right job will make us happy, then leave us empty? What do you give the species (homo sapiens americanus) that has everything? You give it it's roots back.

For Jack/Tyler it is fighting, then project mayhem that reconnects him/them to the animal inside. It fulfills the void left by the modern world. Early in the film he is an Ikea addict and is certain that the perfect apartment, clothes, dishes, couch, etc. will make him happy. His "insanity"/split personality arrives on the scene just in time to destroy everything that is a symbol of Jack's previous goal of the perfect consumer lifestyle, and takes him in the total opposite direction.

For Kevin Spacey's character in American Beauty it is about stopping the consumerism chase, and getting in touch with the kid inside. He doesn't need his writing job, he doesn't need his honda, he doesn't need fancy clothes. He wants to lift weights, smoke dope, and work fast food. The least amount of effort to live and yet to be more alive than he has been. This point is driven home by the consumeristic characters surrounding him and their shallowness and unhappiness. The most well rounded character throughout the film is the pot dealing teenager who knows the game, has identified it as a game, plays very well, yet remains in touch with who he is, and what he needs.

Finally Office Space. A movie where a stressed out tech firm employee spends most of the movie in a state of hypnotic relaxation that makes him into a different person entirely. No longer concerned with office politics, or playing "their" game he actually excels because of his honesty. He gets focused on the idea of getting rid of the things that stress him out, and to keep with our theme, most of those things are part of modern life that we think we need, but are actually unnecessary to our simple survival.

All three of these films have extremely important scenes that take place between the protagonist and his superior on the superior's turf. All three of these scenes are supposed to go poorly for our protagonist. All three of these scenes go the exact opposite direction due to a novel or unexpected action on the part of the protagonist. This unexpected action is a symbol of who they have become or are becoming, and usually this metamophosis of character is the thing that allows them to win against their boss(sybolically our society), and get further in touch with who they are supposed to be.

I think they are all fucking brilliant.

Kip

I wrote a paper that psychoanalyzes Fight Club and presented the paper at the Postcards From The Future Chuck Palahniuk Conference last April:

http://www.ece.utexas.edu/~werking/f...fc%20final.htm

The paper identifies the more obvious connections between Freud and Fight Club but also two more subtle ones:

1. The relationship between the narrator, Tyler, and Marla resembles Freudian family dynamics as child, father, and mother respectively.

2. The narrator is trapped within the phallic stage of Freudian psychosexual development.

So I think much of the film's effect is a result of exploring and resolving these Freudian tensions. Fight Club was a critique of modern life that targetted the everyman, and as much as I would like to say that the average citizen relates to the film, Fight Club's fans are obviously a small minority of the population, and I think these are the few people, including myself, who can relate to the narrator's psychology. I do not know many happy body builders who loved Fight Club. Of course, this is but one level on which the story works. FC is also a critique of Nietzsche.

King Rat

GOD! I'm glad someone else thought that!

Dr. Retard

I mainly liked it because of the direction. Screw the message. When you start watching the film, you get all the necessary information quickly and succinctly. It has a great tempo.

I liked the shot of Edward Norton's character eyeing the plastic-wrapped toothpick.

It's also a pretty damn funny movie.