Fight Club Review
by "Stephen Graham Jones" (stephenj AT odsy DOT net)October 18th, 1999
Fight Club: kings of pain
The cultural anthropologists suggest we play violent sports because--in a more or less peaceful society--we have no other socially-condoned outlet for our aggression(s). But not everyone boxes on the week-ends. Some just go see movies like David Fincher's Fight Club, which, as with Natural Born Killers, gives us vicarious access without the sweat, blood, and legal repercussions. And it is over-the-top, lookaway violent. And,
surprise surprise, it's not just Bloodsport or Lionheart or Mortal Kombat. Which is to say there's actually some real storytelling going on. Ten minutes in you think you can predict it, which is comfortable, but then it spins out of control, becomes unpredictable, and suddenly you're no longer in the Bloodsport-genre.
It is, however, a very controlled spin, incessantly voiced-over by our Narrator, 'Jack,' (Edward Norton), a Wonder Years approach which serves to turn Fight Club into his monologue. What he's doing is catching us up with story of his 'fall,' which is to say he's reconstructing that story for us, which gives him gives him freedom to play fast and loose not only with sequence but with the perceived reality of the movie. Yes, there are a few Woody Allen-ish (Ferris Bueller-ish) talking-into-the-camera meta-moments, but, to Fight Club's credit, they are entertaining, and do occasionally provide a chunk of narrative exposition that would have otherwise required some serious contrivance to introduce. So, the meta-moments are economical, but just barely.
But back to 'Jack' our insomniac, stuck in an office job, defining himself by his mail-order furniture, hoping for a break in the monotony of consumer-existence. Sum: he prays for a plane crash, and instead his apartment is blown up, which is to say he's reborn in flames, he can rise Phoenix-like from the ashes of his former life and move on. All of which sounds over-the-top melodramatic, but it's in keeping with the tone of the rest of the movie. Now enter Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt, in another 12 Monkeys counter-establishment role), dressed like Dennis Rodman, the complete inverse of everything 'Jack' claims to be. Where 'Jack' is leading an inauthentic existence, Tyler is the real thing. He's the answer to the question 'Jack' can never quite articulate, that he's been looking for in cancer-support groups.
Now he doesn't need those support groups anymore, though. He
has Tyler, his Dean Moriarty, and, soon enough, the underground phenomenon called Fight Club, which satisfies his/their need for the authentic, via defining fighting (pain) as self-knowledge. And self-knowledge is of course the generic simile for the authentic. And, as they find out, their need for the authentic in a commercially constructed world is epidemic: Fight Club spreads like wildfire. Across the nation, even. But then, at its height, it morphs into Tyler's idea of controlled demolition, something called Project Mayhem, which is all about anarchy, bringing down the establishment, starting America over, better this time.
Which is the point at which this all becomes untrivial for 'Jack.' It was supposed to just be something like therapy for him (in the unlikely guise of Ultimate Fighting), but now it's no longer about him. And, predictably, there's even a damsel-in-distress he needs to save: Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter, no longer Ophelia), fellow 12-step junky. And, in addition, there's even one big secret about Fight Club, almost of the calibre of the secret The Crying Game tried to keep, or Sixth Sense. Think Jekyl and Hyde, or even comedy, The Man With Two Brains. Or, specifically, Lost Highway. Fight Club does, after all, have the that same hyper-reality of the dreamstate. And it does open in the dendritic spaces of 'Jack's internal organs, a nervescape Three Kings has already acquainted us with. Suffice it to say that whereas the first part of the movie is about needing a Tyler Durden and the middle part is about living with a Tyler Durden, the last part is all about fighting Tyler Durden, trying to save the girl, trying to save the commercial America his prior self was so dependent upon.
And yes, there are some weak re-cap moments in those last 15 minutes--Fincher trying to rationalize the big secret--and some stuff so over-the-top that it redefines Fight Club as 'fantastic,' but fantastic isn't all bad. And here, it even serves a purpose, manages to follow through on what we didn't realize at the time was foreshadowing: just as Tyler Durden's Fight Club morphed into Project Mayhem, so does 'Jack's Fight Club morph into something like a modern-day fable. And fables have morals, messages. So does Fight Club. Watch, listen, don't let the violence make you look way. It's worth every blood-slinging moment.
(c)1999 Stephen Graham Jones
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