Fight Club
(1999)
Directed by David Fincher, written by Jim Uhis
How can you not like a movie where half a dozen corporate skyscrapers are
blown up and the explicit message the film delivers is: ―Things you own end up owning
you‖? Easy, when the movie is
Fight Club
. Anti-consumerism may appear progressive,
but what do you replace it with? Under David Fincher‘s direction,
Fight Club
endorses a
peculiar kind of sado-masochistic hedonism for the masculine elite, and a cult-like
subservience for the masses. The cure is worse than the disease. No wonder some
critics have declared the movie fascist.
The movie opens near its eventual climax. The Narrator (Edward Norton – he‘s
not named in the movie so I‘ll call him N) is in an office overlooking a big city skyline
and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) is shoving a gun in his mouth, apparently ready to
detonate both the pistol and the home-made explosives under the towering corporate
icons. The movie then backtracks and the story is told mostly through flashback.
N is a modern-day seeker. That means that, in the beginning, he isn‘t sure what
he‘s seeking. He‘s a 30-year old businessman who‘s playing the consumption game self-
consciously and looking for meaning in the possession of goods. He reads magazines on
the toilet about contemporary furniture. Compulsive consumption substitutes for sex. In
his own words, he ―had it all‖, including a ―wardrobe that was getting very respectable,
close to being complete.‖ Of course, this is a blind alley. Consumption never satisfies; it
only multiplies desire. It is not more that we need, he thinks, but less – much less.
We‘re ―working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don‘t need‖.
When possessions cease to bring meaning, what‘s next? N is attracted to a self-
help group for men who have lost their balls, literally, through radical cancer surgery.
It‘s the physical version of social emasculation that has turned men such as N into
pansies and puppets of mass consumption. Soon, he‘s addicted to self-help groups
because: ―Only crying makes it real!‖ Because he‘s on the track of seeking reality in
feelings rather than things, he hasn‘t escaped the feminine. He needs new balls, not
empathy. In the process, he meets one of the two people destined to change his life.
Marla Singer (Helena Bonham-Carter) is about the only physically present female in the
film. She is equally lost and addicted to self-help groups. Through a chance encounter
on a plane, N meets the second personal force in his new life, the dynamic and self-
assured Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), N‘s antithesis, apparently, in all respects. He‘s
younger, better looking, charismatic, and totally uninhibited.
Then, apparently fortuitously, N has change thrust upon him. His showcase-
apartment is destroyed in a gas explosion. Later he learns it was caused by home-made
dynamite. He suspects Tyler Durden, but the actual cause is revealed only later.
Thinking his old world was ―all gone‖, N turned to Tyler. The two debate N‘s new
situation:
N: I had it all….Now all gone.
TD: All gone. [Pause]
TD: Do you know what a duvet is?
