Fight Club
by David Fincher
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DVD details
Actor: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Eion Bailey, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat LoafDirector: David Fincher
Brand: FOX Home Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.40:1
Running Time: 139 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-08-27
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Fight Club
DVD Review: Übermut. Chaos. Seife.
Summary: 5 Stars
From the opening sequence of Fight Club, you know you are in for a wild ride. It takes you right inside a brain, synapses firing, fear response triggered. Really cool music. You know it is CGI, but it looks like you are right inside the old grey matter. It looks like they spent a lot of money, and they did. The opening sequence was budgeted separately from the rest of the film. If they liked what they saw, then they would spring for the sequence the way that director David Fincher wanted it. They came, they saw, they liked, they sprang.
Fight Club, the film, is the story of a book by Chuck Palahniuk that would seem an unlikely source for a film. It wasn't as if he wrote it with the idea of selling the film rights, but certain people with rare vision could see it had potential. What were the sources of the ideas for the book?
Author Chuck Palahniuk first came up with the idea for Fight Club after being attacked on a camping trip when he had the temerity to complain to some unhappy campers about their noisy radio. When he returned to work he found that nobody would acknowledge his injuries, instead saying such banal things as "How was your weekend?" Palahniuk concluded that people reacted this way because if they asked him what had happened, a degree of personal interaction would be necessary, and his workmates simply didn't care enough to get involved, or were afraid of someone who spent their weekends getting into fist fights. It was his fascination with this societal 'blocking' which became the foundation for the novel.
He chose the name Tyler Durden after the character of Toby Tyler in Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus (1960), a book that was also made into a Disney movie, and a man called Durden with whom Palahniuk worked, who was fired for sexual harassment. Marla Singer was named after a girl who used to bully Palahniuk's sister in school.
Much of the specific content of the novel (such as splicing single frames of pornography into family films, attending support groups for the terminally ill, erasing video tapes, etc.) came from stories told him by friends, and from things his friends actually did. Whilst writing the novel, Palahniuk also interviewed numerous young white males in white-collar jobs, discovering that "the longing for fathers was a theme I heard a lot about. The resentment of lifestyle standards imposed by advertising was another." So, in a nut shell, the themes of Fight Club are the longing for a father figure, and anti-consumerism.
With the cult status of Fight Club, has the film itself become just another consumer product?
Narrator: When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.
Director David Fincher said in an interview in UK film magazine Empire, that there is a Starbucks coffee cup visible in every shot in the movie. Starbucks didn't mind this rampant product placement, but drew the line at a scene where a 'corporate coffee bar' was destroyed along with some corporate art as part of Project Mayhem. Starbucks pulled their name from the scene and the gold globe sculpture crashes into a shop named Gratifico Coffee.
Tyler Durden: If you could fight anyone, who would you fight?
Narrator: Shatner. I'd fight William Shatner.
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Chuck Palahniuk told the producers from the very start that, although he fully supported the adaptation, he wasn't interested in writing the screenplay himself. Initially, producer Laura Ziskin considered hiring Buck Henry to adapt the novel, due to the many thematic similarities between Fight Club and The Graduate (1967). I don't really see the similarities. However, Jim Uhls was chosen as the writer instead of Buck Henry. Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky), Andrew Kevin Walker, director David Fincher and actors Brad Pitt and Edward Norton also did uncredited work on the screenplay. Pitt and Norton improvised some dialogue, and added other little touches. At one point, when the Narrator, played by Norton, knocks on the door to complain that Tyler and Marla are making too much noise Pitt answers wearing a yellow rubber glove, and asks him if he wants to join them. The studio wanted to cut this, but it got big laughs at test screenings. Brad Pitt also provided much of his own wardrobe.
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Narrator: Tyler's not here. Tyler went away. Tyler's gone.
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Fox 2000 Pictures executive Raymond Bongiovanni, who died shortly before the project was green-lit, first discovered the book whilst still in galleys. Prior to his death, Bongiovanni worked tirelessly to get the project off the ground, and in his obituary, it said that his last wish was that the novel be made into a film. It was Raymond Bongiovanni who sent it to Laura Ziskin, President of Production at Fox 2000 Pictures. She felt it was a tremendous piece of literature, but not necessarily a great movie. The book was sent to a studio reader to evaluate its potential as a possible film, and the report sent back to Ziskin dissed the novel, saying it could never be made into a film, that it was "exceedingly disturbing", "volatile and dangerous", and would "make audiences squirm". Somehow, the bad report made certain people all the more determined to do the film, convinced that they had a hold of some really provocative material.
The movie's line "The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club" was #27 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
This film was made prior to the events of September 11, 2001, and one wonders if it could have even been made afterwards. One event that did occur after filming that dramatically changed the way test audiences reacted was the Columbine School shootings. The scene where the narrator threatens his boss got laughs at test screenings, but afterwards, was not so funny. Though the film did gather quite a cult following, I don't think that it inspired anyone to do anything--to copy cat Tyler Durden. No one started any Fight Clubs that I know of, unless they followed the first and second rules of Fight Club and didn't talk about it. No Project Mayhems were inspired by Fight Club to my knowledge.
Tyler Durden: We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact.
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Edward Norton was an inspired casting choice. He had gained a lot of weight to play skin head in American History X, but he lost it for Fight Club to play the more cerebral narrator. The novel Fight Club is largely an interior monologue taking place inside the narrator's head, and voice over can sometimes not go over so well in a film, where you want to show rather than tell. Here though, it worked perfectly, due to Norton's dry delivery.
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Narrator: I am Jack's cold sweat.
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Brad Pitt was also an inspired casting choice as Tyler Durden. As I've said, he provided his own costumes from his personal wardrobe. The clothes that Tyler Durden wears are flashy, tacky--perfect for someone who would answer the door wearing a yellow rubber glove. He really understands Tyler Durden and delivers with gusto. I think that Fight Club is some of his best work. He was kind of out there in 12 Monkeys, but that movie wasn't firing on all pistons like Fight Club. His 12 Monkeys was kind of a gallant attempt that failed. Snatch? Give me a break. He approached Fight Club level as the killer Early Grayce in Kalifornia, but Tyler is such a rich and complex character that it leaves all of his other roles in the dust.
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Tyler Durden: I want you to hit me as hard as you can.
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Helena Bonham Carter makes a great Marla Singer. At times you almost wonder if she is an imaginary character, a figment of the narrator's fervent imagination.
Narrator: Marla's philosophy of life is that she might die at any moment. The tragedy, she said, was that she didn't.
Helena Bonham Carter is a very interesting actress who deserves her parts, even if she does sometimes sleep with the director to get a part (she is married to Tim Burton who cast her as The Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland). She was perfect as Marla Singer.
Marla Singer: There are things about you that I like. You're smart, you're funny, you're... spectacular in bed... But you're intolerable! You have very serious emotional problems. Deep seated problems for which you should seek professional help.
Narrator: I know, and I'm sorry...
Marla Singer: Yeah, you're sorry, I'm sorry, everybody's sorry, but... I can't do this anymore. I can't. And I won't. I'm gone.
Meat Loaf and Jared Leto were my favorites among the rest of the cast. They are both also very talented musically, but have a lot of stage presence in films. Leto was Angelface, the blonde space monkey who gets pulverized by the narrator in a Fight Club bout, his pretty face nearly destroyed. Meatloaf was Bob, whose reaction to testicular cancer chemo therapy was to grow enormous breasts.
Repeated phrase: His name is Robert Paulsen.
On the Friday that the film was released theatrically in the U.S., Rosie O'Donnell appeared on her TV show and said that she'd seen the film and had been unable to sleep ever since. She then proceeded to give away the twist ending of the film and urged all of her viewers to avoid the movie like the plague. Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and David Fincher discuss this incident on their DVD commentary track, with Pitt calling O'Donnell's actions "unforgivable". I remember when Rosie was on The View and she was ecstatic that Britney Spears had finally broken up with K. Fed. She celebrated with confetti and streamers, as if she thought that Britney was now going to forsake all men and join her team. As Britney's behavior grew increasingly erratic, this seemed more and more ill advised. When K. Fed was later awarded custody of their children, we all breathed a sigh of relief. I even took Donald Trump's side in their stupid feud, and even more astonishingly, also sided with Hasslebeck! When Rosie was kicked off The View and replaced with Whoopie, I celebrated with a little confetti and streamers of my own. Oh, Rosie, dear, just kidding, but sometimes you can be so nutty. How is that crush on Tom Cruise going?
Narrator: How embarrassing... a house full of condiments and no food.
The Bottom Line is that Fight Club was "exceedingly disturbing", "volatile and dangerous", and would "make audiences squirm". And it is funny. It is also a masterpiece of film making, and even the author, Chuck Palahniuk, thinks that the film version actually improved on the novel. The director, David Fincher, really took the somewhat fragmented ideas in the text and fashioned out of the shards a bold cinematic vision. The cast, mainly Norton, Pitt, and Bonham Carter, backed him to the hilt, and the result is sublime. The film ended up costing about 67 million, and may not have earned back nearly that amount, but in terms of artistic value, it was worth every penny.
Narrator: It's called a changeover. The movie goes on, and nobody in the audience has any idea.
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Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
Alice in Wonderland (2010) Helena Bonham Carter was Red Queen
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Two-Disc Special Edition) - Criterion Collection (2008) Directed by David Fincher; Brad Pitt was Benjamin Button
Requiem for a Dream (Director's Cut) (2000) Jared Leto was Harry Goldfarb
Black & White (1999) Jared Leto was Casey
American History X (1998) Edward Norton was Derek Vinyard
Seven (Widescreen) (1995) Directed by David Fincher; Brad Pitt was Detective David Mills
Kalifornia (1993) Brad Pitt was Early Grayce
Roadie (1980) Meat Loaf was Travis W. Redfish
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Widescreen Edition) (1975) (as Meatloaf) Meat Loaf was Eddie - Ex Delivery Boy
Übermut. Chaos. Seife. (Mischief. Mayhem. Soap.)
Description of Fight Club
"'Fight Club' pulls you in, challenges your prejudices, rocks your world and leaves you laughing" (Rolling Stone). Brad Pitt ("12 Monkeys", "Seven"), Edward Norton ("Primal Fear," "American History X") and Helena Bonham Carter ("Mighty Aphrodite," "A Room With A View") turn in powerful "performances of which movie legends are made" (Chicago Tribune) in this action-packed hit. A ticking-time-bomb insomniac (Norton) and a slippery soap salesman (Pitt) channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until a sensuous eccentric (Bonham Carter) gets in the way and ignites an out-of control spiral toward oblivion.All films take a certain suspension of disbelief. Fight Club takes perhaps more than others, but if you're willing to let yourself get caught up in the anarchy, this film, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, is a modern-day morality play warning of the decay of society. Edward Norton is the unnamed protagonist, a man going through life on cruise control, feeling nothing. To fill his hours, he begins attending support groups and 12-step meetings. True, he isn't actually afflicted with the problems, but he finds solace in the groups. This is destroyed, however, when he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), also faking her way through groups. Spiraling back into insomnia, Norton finds his life is changed once again, by a chance encounter with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), whose forthright style and no-nonsense way of taking what he wants appeal to our narrator. Tyler and the protagonist find a new way to feel release: they fight. They fight each other, and then as others are attracted to their ways, they fight the men who come to join their newly formed Fight Club. Marla begins a destructive affair with Tyler, and things fly out of control, as Fight Club grows into a nationwide fascist group that escapes the protagonist's control.
Fight Club, directed by David Fincher (Seven), is not for the faint of heart; the violence is no holds barred. But the film is captivating and beautifully shot, with some thought-provoking ideas. Pitt and Norton are an unbeatable duo, and the film has some surprisingly humorous moments. The film leaves you with a sense of profound discomfort and a desire to see it again, if for no other reason than to just to take it all in. --Jenny Brown
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