Fight Club Review
by "R.L. Strong" (rs080455 AT pacbell DOT net)February 16th, 2000
"FIGHT CLUB"
**** Stars
review by R. L. Strong
Rated R for intense violence, profanity, sexual situations, brief nudity, and content.
20th CENTURY FOX PRESENTS A REGENCY ENTERPRISES PRODUCTION BRAD PITT
EDWARD NORTON
HELENA BONHAM CARTER
JARED LETO
MEAT LOAF ADAY
ORIGINAL MUSIC BY THE DUST BROTHERS
CINEMATOGRAPHY BY JEFF CRONENWETH
EDITED BY JIM HAYGOOD
SCREENPLAY BY JIM UHLS
DIRECTED BY DAVID FINCHER
"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time." 1999 is going to be noted as just possibly the most self reflective year of motion pictures. So far we had 'American Beauty', 'Three Kings', 'The Matrix', 'Anywhere But Here', all films dealing in one way or another with the issue of self worth and identity. Director David Fincher now adds his two cents to the debate and comes up with an equally interesting parable of human angst and social breakdown.
Edward Norton stars as 'The Narrator', we never know (or recognize his real name), but suffice to say that he is a troubled man. Suffering from chronic insomnia, The Narrator is stuck in a job he hates, a daily life of loneliness and despair. He joins support groups, under the guise of illness or impending death in an attempt to feel something, anything. He quickly becomes addicted to this method of emotional dependence, moving almost nightly from one group to another.
His world is invaded though by another emotional tourist, Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), a suicidal waif living on the edge of society. The Narrator is both intrigued and repelled by this woman, who cheats and steals, scratching out an existence while the Narrator struggles with his daily grind and catalogue furnished home. Unable to deal with someone else copying his subterfuge, He confronts Marla with her charade. She returns the indictment.
Unable to deal with the loss of his support, The Narrator plunges into his work. He travels, investigating auto defects for a major car manufacturer. His job is to weigh the costs between possible lawsuits and a mass recall for defective parts. On one of his flights he meets up with Tyler Durder (Brad Pitt), a sociopathic cross between William S. Burroughs and Deepak Chopra.
When the narrator returns home, he finds that his condo has been destroyed in an explosion and fire. Everything he owns has been destroyed. At first he attempts to call Marla, but unable to deal with her honesty, he instead calls Tyler. The two men meet at a bar, when The narrator finally, after prompting asks if he can stay with Tyler. Tyler agrees on one condition. He asks the Narrator to hit him as hard as he can!
The two men fight, creating a strange and primitive bound between them.
Moving in with Tyler, the narrator finds that the living conditions are much less than he could ever have expected. The home that Tyler lives in is anything but livable. Water floods the basement, walls and stairs are crumbling, and everything is in disrepair. From here Tyler and the Narrator start to become brothers, getting other lost and soulless men to join them in their search for self awareness through pain and anarchy.
"Fight Club" is a daring film. It is both a hard edge action film and diatribe against violence. Anarchy rules in this film, more so than any other in recent years. The only analogous film could possibly be George Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead' (another film that skirted the issue of consumerism as a disease). What "Fight Club" does and does brilliantly, is to shine a farcical light into the face of society's obsession with feeling good about one's self. Director David Fincher and Screenwriter Jim Uhls have crafted a thought provoking morality tale of self abuse for the 12 step generation.
Jim Uhls' script base on the book by Chuck Palahniuk,, is a clever piece of writing. Tyler's soliloquies and bullshit Zen are so absurd as to be the real thing. In this universe, it makes sense to beat yourself senseless physically, because "self improvement is masturbation.. self destruction is the answer" The film is a complex character study that leads the viewer through an almost subliminal Rorschach test. So many scenes play out with double meaning that the final denouncement is both expected and surprising.
David Fincher has crafted his most extreme film. Using graphic close ups, computer manipulation, visual effects, Dutch angles and quick cuts, Fincher has created a filmic representation of his lead character. Everything here is seen through The Narrator's eyes, even in the third person. This is almost as shocking a device as what Robert Montgomery did with his directorial debut "Lady in the Lake" (1947).
Admittedly, the film does shift gears half way through the film. Those expecting a tale about men engaging in bare knuckle fights (ala the Charles Bronson film "Hard Times" (1975)) are bound to be disappointed. This is a film about much loftier ideas. As Fight Club escalates into a terrorist organization, it becomes less focused on the individual battles, and more focused on The Narrator's realization of his own mania, while the group of fighters around him become more autonomous. It is only when one of their members is killed during an extreme act of vandalism, that the Narrator forces the group to recognize the fallen man's name. This becomes a mantra, in death you have a name. There is victory in Death. There is identity in Death. The Narrator rebels, putting his own life in jeopardy. He has done everything he could to eliminate his seemingly boring and self absorbed life, and finally has to fight for that life, as his own Id fights to stop him.
The performances of the film are all stellar. Edward Norton casts a frighteningly real presents of a man who has reached his limits. Mr. Norton manages to make his character both humorously vulnerable and frighteningly mundane. His character goes through a radical realization, that he is not the man he thought he was.
Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden swaggers and stomps through his part, commanding every inch of the frame that he inhabits. Pitt has never been so forceful or relaxed in his performance, possibly his best turn outside of Terry Gilliams' "The 12 Monkeys". His character is both attractive and frightening in almost a reversal of Norton's character.
Helena Bonham Carter makes her character of Marla Singer a streetwise urchin of noble madness. Here is a woman who has accepted her plight and her mania and deals with it. Seeing through most of the hypocrisy around her. Her relationship with both Tyler and The Narrator is both complex and puzzling, which leads to the fascinating but not unseen denouncement.
The best performance is from singer/ actor Meat Loaf Aday as Robert Paulson. A victim of testicular cancer, Robert has developed mammary sized breasts as a result of his steroid abuse and the hormones used in his treatment. His character has literally and figuratively fused both the masculine and feminine aspects of male life into one shockingly absurd personality. A fine and daring performance. The photography by Jeff Cronenweth is wondrously bleak. Never has self absorption been so accurately portrayed cinematically. Emblazoned with numerous visual and computer effects, the photography becomes an extension of the characters, almost eclipsing them in fact. The film is both dense and shallow in its pallet of color. The only hue that really jumps off the screen is red. Not just the color of blood, but rage, embarrassment, confusion, and depravation. "Fight Club" is truly one of the most cinematic films of recent years.
To summarize, "Fight Club" is not a film for everyone. It was never (obviously) intended to appeal to a wide spectrum. A film that speaks about loss and self denial and apathy in ways that is both disturbing and humorous. The message of the film could, I feel, be best summed up by the lyrics of John Lennon.. "You don't know what you've got, 'till you lose it!". A hard edged film, that laughs at our foibles and mocks our choices. Politically incorrect and insensitive. A hard film to forget.
©1999-2000 R.L. Strong
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