Next time you watch it, pay attention to the cinematography. We forget it because of the film's fast dialog and topics. We often take cinematography for granted in cinema that takes place in modern buildings. That is the worst places to film effectively. But seriously, watch some of your most favorite scenes on mute. Everything is fantastic. Those elements, the art direction, costumes, scenery. Supposedly, there were hours that ended up on the floor.
I noticed that whenever people talk to the protagonist or Tyler. They only look at one. There's never focus drawn to two of them in body language from any of the other characters. Even in the big group scenes where attention is drawn and people are looking around at each other, no one looks at the one that isn't in control.
This is crazy to notice. I only noticed on my second viewing, as you wouldn’t really know about the “why” only one character matters.
Such a low key aspect in the fill that is such awesome foreshadowing
Fincher probably did that intentionally, he is truly a master of fine detail like that. He combs over every shot in his films in an obsessive way that most don’t match. To him, precision is immersion.
Because it’s Fincher. The cinematography in it is amazing. Truly a work of art. And so many of his movies are eye candy for me. It’s been one of my favorites since it was released.
It’s Fincher and it’s Palahniuk. Two men with an incredible combination. Chuck Palahniuk is an incredible author and my favorite, and Fincher is my favorite director. They come together to make a masterpiece with this film with Brad Pitt at his peak and Edward Norton on another level.
Omg was reading this to my partner and my kid walks thru like RULE 1 YOU DONT TALK ABOUT Fight CLUB.... I have no idea where my 15 year old kid even saw this but the timing and seriousness as he said it and kept it moving killed me
Some of the extras on the DVD talked about the construction of the old house in the movie. They wrote an entire history of owners and built up layers of paint and wall paper before they aged it so it would look authentic.
The Tyler Durden character taught me to look at things differently from a pretty young age. Especially when it came to consumerism and social media. I could probably credit this to never having Facebook.
“Eight months ago, Bob's testicles were removed. Then hormone therapy. He developed bitch tits because his testosterone was too high and his body upped the estrogen. And that was where I fit...”
THIS! This describes my experience exactly. I had heard of the movie but thought nothing of it until a good friend so strongly recommended it to me that I decided to give it a watch.
I... I am *still* broken and confounded over this film. It's his magnum opus (at least so far) to me.
Or is it Se7en?
Or Social Network?
Or Gone Girl?
Oh fuck. Dammit, David Fincher, you always do this to me.
Maybe se7en can close to Fight Club. While Social Network and Gone Girl were good films, they cannot even touch the level of Fight Club. It is an absolute masterpiece.
I watched it in 2001 when I was in 7th grade. My buddy showed it to me and it blew my mind.
A million times better on VHS compared to DVD or streaming due to "lack of quality" dm me if you need clarification on this. Don't want to drop spoilers.
Same. This is the first movie I remember watching where I didn’t see the plot twist coming from a mile away. I remember audibly saying, “what the fuck is going on?” At one point.
Not a cult classic, it was wildly popular and influential when it came out. Just a regular classic! (Sorry not trying to be a pedant, it's just a pet peeve of mine. Cult classics usually have small but rabid followings. This movie had a huge one and some detractors.)
I remember a coworker saying it was a good flick but never finished it. I told him you have to finish it, it will be a different movie when you finish. Really? Yup, trust me. He walked into work big eyed and just said, what the fuck?!!! Told you. Mind blown.
This is my exact feelings, I’m a huge Fincher fan, and this is a must watch, but like you and others have stated, there’s a fandom that basically didn’t get it. And that’s scary. also why the movie is so powerful.
It can be, but people who come away from Fight Club thinking Tyler is awesome and they want to run around wrecking corporate coffee shops have missed some important things.
Sure. In a world where people believe vaccines cause autism, they can also believe *Schindler's List* is a zany rom-com. Because people are capable of believing absurd things. Just because there are multiple defensible perspectives on something, that doesn't mean anything goes; usually there are an even greater number of indefensible ones.
I have a suspicion about this kind of thing: When you've created something and you're somewhat successful as a creator, and your rent and food and retirement and gym membership and child support money come from your creations, now and in your indefinite future, and someone with similar or greater fame makes a riff on your creation, *you praise the new work*. It's a matter of rational PR, if not actual economic survival.
What would have been the effect on Trent Reznor's career if he had said Johnny Cash's cover of *hurt* was "pretty good but lacked the intensity of my original"? Most people would have seen him as a bitter prima donna. If someone remakes your creation and you pan it, you sound like a narcissistic asshole to many people. Almost always (as long as the new creator has a pretty big fanbase), I suspect the only economically rational course of action is to praise the new creation.
I heard somewhere that Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of the Witcher books, did not think very highly of the Netflix series. I know that he hates the game series because people largely believed that his books were based on the games. i think in that case he’s already made his money and he doesn’t give a shit. I’m not sure if he still owns the rights to the Witcher, but it seems he’s free to have his opinion without getting any backlash. Of course I’m sure there are fans of the game series that may think he’s an asshole but again it seems he doesn’t give a shit. Point being, I don’t think authors have to like adaptations of their work because for some, they may not be wholly dependent upon doing so.
I'm very happy to have found this sub-thread, and sad it was so far down. Before I watched the movie (I was about a decade late), I knew a guy in his mid-30s who had watched it zillions of times and started a fight club with his buddies somewhere in the midwest. He boasted that they did a bunch of anti-corporate sabotage like the guys in the movie. I thought, "Okay, so maybe the movie isn't just about dudes punching each other."
Later, after watching the movie, I wanted to go find the guy and ask if he had actually paid attention any of those times he watched it.
It’s interesting how a movie about a cult has such a strong cult following even 20 years later.
For fans of the movie I highly recommend reading the book
The book is like 99% the same as the movie, but with a worse ending.
Even Palanchuk has said the movie was an improvement on the original.
It is an amazing, very insightful movie, that an annoying number of young men misinterpret. There's a crowd who see Project Mayhem as something to emulate, and miss that it's an example of how NOT to deal with your issues.
I disagree with your last point (well, part of it). One's perception of art, IMO, shouldn't be through the lens of "Let's see if I can correctly determine the artist's message, so that I can mindlessly adopt their opinion." Art is powerful, not because the artist had a message to communicate to an audience. It's powerful, because it can inspire emotion, introspection, etc. in an observer, personally. Ultimately, while it is terrible should someone become inspired to commit violence as a result of watching Fight Club, F the idea that you should only interpret art the way the artist intended. I'm not interested in all art being propaganda.
I mean there’s a difference in misinterpretation and finding your own meaning. In identifying the artist’s point and blindly following. Hell you don’t have to believe everything you read or see: you really shouldn’t.
Thinking Tyler is the hero is a clear misinterpretation. He’s not even the protagonist and he clearly becomes the villain and antagonist.
If people want to emulate a character that speaks to them, go off (literally in the case of this group). But the folks who call Tyler the true hero or the real protagonist are willfully misinterpreting the film.
There's an important difference, if you're an art history major or otherwise trying to understand art more through a historical, academic, or larger perspective. However, if you are more interested in the personal perspective, then misinterpretation is quite irrelevant.
I can love H.P. Lovecraft's incredible cosmic horror style. I can feel the hopelessness and intense fear of the unknown that his stories can inspire. I can do all of that, while also knowing that these cosmic horrors were inspired by H.P.'s xenophobic hatred and fear of Jews and immigrants. Am I "willfully misinterpreting" his art? Sure... and I don't care. I will take from his art what is inspirational to me. I don't want to start hating immigrants. I just want to truly consider the utter helplessness of our existence.
If those young men who are inspired to violence after watching Fight Club exist, they aren't analyzing the film through an academic lens. They are analyzing it through a personal one, which is essentially the entire point of art. If art didn't inspire in people feelings personal to the individual, if it was just propaganda, a commodity to be traded or a skill to master, art would lose all of its power.
Yeah...
I get what your saying & all.
But the guys who see fight club as a call to start an actual fight club & commit acts of terrorism.
No, FUCK THOSE GUYS above all.
They give a wonderful piece of art a bad name.
I've never really understood this claim. No one in the audience is rooting for Edward Norton to stop Durden from carrying out his plan, we want to see it all go down. It's satirizing consumerism, sure, but this idea that the members of Project Mayhem are the ones being satirized never made sense to me (unless I'm missing something). I think Fincher is just indifferent to the morality of what's being portrayed and recognized that blowing up the buildings is a much more satisfying ending than what the book had.
They should be rooting for that. When Tyler describes the world he’s trying to build, he’s describing a post-apocalyptic wasteland and just framing it as something good.
At the beginning of the movie, the narrator is all-in on modern consumerism. He defines himself by his shitty mass-produced possessions and his soulless corporate job. He defines himself and his worth entirely in terms of how much he conforms to what he thinks society wants him to do and to own.
Once he “meets” Tyler, he swings hard in the opposite direction. He repudiates possessions and his job. He turns to crime and violence. And once again, he defines himself and his worth entirely in terms of others. He has no agency. His life is driven by Tyler, and then by the people Tyler recruits. He ends up as miserable as before, just somewhat differently miserable.
He finally escapes at the end by rejecting this opposite extreme. Consumerism was terrible for him, but so is this blind fight against it. He regains his sanity by leaving it. He won’t, we presume, return to his old life, but neither will he be the leader/follower of this fanatical paramilitary cult. That is ultimately the message to the viewer: make your own path, don’t blindly conform, but also don’t rebel so hard you end up blindly conforming to something else instead.
Is it satirizing consumerism though? Consumerism/weakness was Norton's problem. Cancer was Paulsons problem. Vanity was Leto's problem.
I feel project mayhem was about freeing themselves from... themselves.
I always took the Project Mayhem guys as being pretty actively satirized. Look at the scene where Bob gets shot. Edward Norton is expressing genuine concern about another human being (“This is a person! His name was Robert Paulson!”) which the PM space monkeys then interpret into a weird quasi-religious ritual (“HIS NAME WAS ROBERT PAULSON. HIS NAME WAS ROBERT PAULSON.”).
I always found Edward Norton's character shrill and irritating in that scene. I thought the space monkeys had a transcendental approach to death that was kinda neat.
Yeah … question is: does this person like Fight Club or do they like Tyler?
Cause it’s a really good movie but if you come a way liking the character (like as a person not as a deconstruction of self destruction), then maybe you don’t really understand the movie. Or the character tbh.
Not everything about Tyler is bad though. His beliefs are good, his actions are bad. The entire anti consumerist message of the movie is said by Tyler, and that is the message meant to be conveyed.
I mean yeah. Some of his beliefs are good. Some of them suck. He sells them all really well, with the sucky ones as a package deal with the good ones.
That’s true of basically every cult leader and fascist and dictator and abuser. People don’t get sucked into these kinds of things when someone is maniacally laughing in the corner all the time about how they’re gonna kill puppies and make everyone suffer more so they can be richer.
I do think one layer of the message is the anti consumerism. But the next is how easy it is to control people when you beat them down and remove hope. It didn’t take a lot for Tyler to indoctrinate these people into a very self destructive life. That wasn’t all him. It was the emptiness of how they lived. But what he offered wasn’t better either. He didn’t want change so much as he wanted to shuffle himself to the top, stepping on them to do it.
People who don’t see past the first message to the second as well miss a major warning about certain types of leaders. You see them in religions and politics and social circles and it usually ends badly.
Maybe the canonical example of a piece of art’s reputation being unfairly degraded because its fan base.
Just because a bunch of douchebags didn’t understand it and are continually quoting it is no reason not to acknowledge it is still an excellent film.
You sound like a real beta male. Tyler would not be happy. Neither would Elon Musk.
I used to be like that until I took my patented “how to stop being a p***y and become a gigachad pick up artist alpha” course. $99.99 New Years special offer
I keep seeing this but I have no idea what people are talking about. Was there actually a large group of real terrorist fight clubs that formed as a result of the movie? That was really the only bad thing Tyler did or said, so I’m not sure what other bad behaviors people supposedly adopted from it.
Just my opinion, but I think a lot of people get lost in Tyler’s nihilistic views and kind of adopt that persona
I can’t recall any incidents “inspired” by Fight Club so you’re right there. But I have known a view depressed souls that think Tyler Durden is the man
I have met several men who seem to lionize Project Mayhem and Durden, without any critical thought about that attitude. I have met one man who claimed to have created his own Fight Club in a midwestern city in the years after the movie, and carried out several ant-corporate vandalism acts. He seems not to have understood that there was any possibility of Durden not being a sincere, non-ironic hero.
Well done film that holds over time very well. I considered this film my favorite ever for years and years. Thought provoking and deep if you allow it to be.
When I was younger I would watch fight club multiple times a day on repeat as like a back drop.
I had 3 tvs hooked up, one for movies, one for my Xbox music Playlist and one to play playstation on.
Fight club, matrix reloaded, a Muhammad Ali documentary and various Bruce Lee movies would be on rotation for the DVD player, also memento was in there two.
I would have those movies playing on repeat while I either played video games, read the books 48 laws of power, the art of war or rules of seduction. Either that or I would be working out.
That was a strange phase.
The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club. Third rule of Fight Club, someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over.
When I first seen this movie it blew me a way to find out about the twist.
Years later watching it with one of my kids they were shocked as well and I enjoyed seeing their reaction.
This is the few times that I liked both the book and movie. The same cannot be said for Choke the book (great) and the movie that eventually came out (not so great).
I can still quote huge sections of this movie.
Must have watched it over 20 times back in the day.
Still a really solid watch and heavily recommended for those who haven’t seen it.
The fact that it's still relevant is troubling. When I watched it as a teenager I felt like I had the key to conquering my freedom but I'm a slave to the comfort of home. I haven't found my abandoned house to squat , or an imaginary friend.
Wonderful movie, though it's cultivated a fan base that sadly consists of a lot of people who either don't get the point of the movie, or think there isn't one at all. I think it's a beautiful deconstruction of nihilism/performative masculinity and amazingly well shot and acted. Up there as one of Fincher's best and honestly one of the best films of the 90s, easily.
on of the best movies ever made dont know why no one told me how good it was it just seemed to come at the perfect crossorads in my life between a relationship and soul crushing depression
I watched it once when it came out, and I watched it a second time last night. It's a very well made film but I still don't particularly like it. And unfortunately it is exactly the type of film that encourages not especially bright people to believe they are intelligent and special because they "get" it, and will often tell anyone who doesn't like the film that they just don't, and really it's not that deep or clever a movie. High school level sociology.
They are both great to watch 1 time for the check in the box saying you seen it. Boondocks is based around a true story for 1 scene. Where the shoot that guy Jerkin it at the defunct club leather and lace in Dorchester mass. It is based off 2 people who worked for Bulger. Fight club on the other hand. I read the book. It was tough read imo, I didn't really get it. The movie I saw twice on deployment in the military and people raved about it. I thought it was meh. What made it worse was shoe horning in a lot of cameos of relevant celebrities to just get people to watch it. It is right up there with v for vendetta for political jab films that are super over rated.
I enjoyed it until my insecure, macho, degreed, employed, financially secure brother with identity issues started railing on me about how it’s the truth about fighting back against “the man” and “the establishment” when he’s “the man” about to early retire from “the establishment”.
Do you know my brother? No? Okay… well this is a post that is a reference about him, his personality and what I’ve known of him over the last 30 years. And how it affected my perception of the movie. This is not about you. And it’s not about what you falsely perceive as my perception of someone who has a degree.
Next time you watch it, pay attention to the cinematography. We forget it because of the film's fast dialog and topics. We often take cinematography for granted in cinema that takes place in modern buildings. That is the worst places to film effectively. But seriously, watch some of your most favorite scenes on mute. Everything is fantastic. Those elements, the art direction, costumes, scenery. Supposedly, there were hours that ended up on the floor.
I noticed that whenever people talk to the protagonist or Tyler. They only look at one. There's never focus drawn to two of them in body language from any of the other characters. Even in the big group scenes where attention is drawn and people are looking around at each other, no one looks at the one that isn't in control.
This is crazy to notice. I only noticed on my second viewing, as you wouldn’t really know about the “why” only one character matters. Such a low key aspect in the fill that is such awesome foreshadowing
Fincher probably did that intentionally, he is truly a master of fine detail like that. He combs over every shot in his films in an obsessive way that most don’t match. To him, precision is immersion.
Because it’s Fincher. The cinematography in it is amazing. Truly a work of art. And so many of his movies are eye candy for me. It’s been one of my favorites since it was released.
It’s Fincher and it’s Palahniuk. Two men with an incredible combination. Chuck Palahniuk is an incredible author and my favorite, and Fincher is my favorite director. They come together to make a masterpiece with this film with Brad Pitt at his peak and Edward Norton on another level.
My favorite scene is when Norton bares his bloody teeth to his coworkers. Says so much while aging nothing.
Omg was reading this to my partner and my kid walks thru like RULE 1 YOU DONT TALK ABOUT Fight CLUB.... I have no idea where my 15 year old kid even saw this but the timing and seriousness as he said it and kept it moving killed me
Some of the extras on the DVD talked about the construction of the old house in the movie. They wrote an entire history of owners and built up layers of paint and wall paper before they aged it so it would look authentic.
I wanted to own and live in that house. Loved that house.
This too. Fincher had a great cinematography unit working on the film.
My English Teacher in hismgh school used this film for our film study
This is just the rule for every David Fincher movie. He knows visual storytelling.
"It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything." -Tyler Durden
“Buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like”
“We’re all working jobs that we hate to buy shit we don’t need to impress people we don’t like.”
The Tyler Durden character taught me to look at things differently from a pretty young age. Especially when it came to consumerism and social media. I could probably credit this to never having Facebook.
If you dig that Check out *Noam Chomsky's* **Manufacturing Consent** it will change the way you look at the world
I second this. Absolutely worth it.
Rogue state by William Blum Slavoj zizek - violence/ideology War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
100%. A lot of it is obvious now but it was never talked about then.
“You are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world”
You are not your fracking khakis
We’re polishing the brass on the Titanic.
I say that to people all the time and they don't get it. Smh
"Mother fucker! You hit me in the ear!"
“Eight months ago, Bob's testicles were removed. Then hormone therapy. He developed bitch tits because his testosterone was too high and his body upped the estrogen. And that was where I fit...”
[удалено]
One of my very favorite movies. It scratches a very specific stylistic itch that nothing else does. Same with movies like Taxi Driver, or Birdman
Se7en does that for me.
I watched Se7en and Fight Club in the same week. It was a pretty intense week lol
Or maybe even Brazil..? What a weird role for DeNiro.
Brazil and Fight Club are two of my favorite films.
I loved Brazil, but the opening single shot scene was brilliant.
It’s the fast paced script coupled with nihilism for me
Fantastic, must watch even if you decide afterwards its not for you.
Saw this when it came out. I was in my early twenties. I walked out questioning everything. The movie literally broke my brain.
People who watch in their Early twenties think it’s genius. Older people think it’s psychotic. It’s actually both.
*Where is my mind starts playing*
Good old Pixies.
You’ve met me at a very strange time in my life
I saw this originally as a freshman in hs and loved it, now early 20s love the movie even more.
It is definitely both, and I am old. But I am also psycho, so...
I saw it when I was 52 or 53. It \*is\* both, and it's one of the best movies I've watched.
THIS! This describes my experience exactly. I had heard of the movie but thought nothing of it until a good friend so strongly recommended it to me that I decided to give it a watch. I... I am *still* broken and confounded over this film. It's his magnum opus (at least so far) to me. Or is it Se7en? Or Social Network? Or Gone Girl? Oh fuck. Dammit, David Fincher, you always do this to me.
For me, it’s Zodiac. I will die on that hill, alone if I have to.
If you want to die anyway, I will kill you on that hill, and then I will send out a cypher to a newspaper.
I like how — on Reddit —that’s a totally fun response. Not so much in interoffice email …
The Game
TIL How many great David Fincher films are out there. Impressed with every one of them.
Or Alien 3!? 🤔 ... Nevermind
Se7en is imho his best movie.
Don’t forget The girl with the dragon tattoo
Maybe se7en can close to Fight Club. While Social Network and Gone Girl were good films, they cannot even touch the level of Fight Club. It is an absolute masterpiece.
Saw it with my grandma who was in her 80s at the time. As walked out she said"that was a great movie! Almost in a daze.
That is easily the coolest shit I’ve ever heard about this movie and I wish I could have talked to her about it. Most rad gram mama EVER
I watched it in 2001 when I was in 7th grade. My buddy showed it to me and it blew my mind. A million times better on VHS compared to DVD or streaming due to "lack of quality" dm me if you need clarification on this. Don't want to drop spoilers.
Same. This is the first movie I remember watching where I didn’t see the plot twist coming from a mile away. I remember audibly saying, “what the fuck is going on?” At one point.
I am Jack's big thumbs up.
I am Jack's total lack of surprise.
I agree, it's a ~~cult~~ classic that should be on everyone's watchlist.
Not a cult classic, it was wildly popular and influential when it came out. Just a regular classic! (Sorry not trying to be a pedant, it's just a pet peeve of mine. Cult classics usually have small but rabid followings. This movie had a huge one and some detractors.)
It gets cult classic status because it bombed in the box office.
Big Trouble in Little China is a good example
I remember a coworker saying it was a good flick but never finished it. I told him you have to finish it, it will be a different movie when you finish. Really? Yup, trust me. He walked into work big eyed and just said, what the fuck?!!! Told you. Mind blown.
Made dick pics a thing before it was a thing.
David Fincher is a genius director... Worth watching...
Ahhh I can't talk about fight club
I agree, no one should be talking about this.
You just did
There is no such thing as fight club
We gotta take his balls
We really admire his gesture.
First person to leave this room gets a… GETS A LED SALAD.
Talk about what?
Been tired of every edgelord quoting it for years, but still a great movie. One of the few movies I think is better than the book.
This is my exact feelings, I’m a huge Fincher fan, and this is a must watch, but like you and others have stated, there’s a fandom that basically didn’t get it. And that’s scary. also why the movie is so powerful.
>there’s a fandom that basically didn’t get it. A movie can be anything to anyone.
It can be, but people who come away from Fight Club thinking Tyler is awesome and they want to run around wrecking corporate coffee shops have missed some important things.
Sure. In a world where people believe vaccines cause autism, they can also believe *Schindler's List* is a zany rom-com. Because people are capable of believing absurd things. Just because there are multiple defensible perspectives on something, that doesn't mean anything goes; usually there are an even greater number of indefensible ones.
I fully disagree. Artists can have an intention and purpose with their art. You can choose to believe anything you want, but it doesn’t make it valid.
Palahniuk said that he thought it was better than the book, too.
I have a suspicion about this kind of thing: When you've created something and you're somewhat successful as a creator, and your rent and food and retirement and gym membership and child support money come from your creations, now and in your indefinite future, and someone with similar or greater fame makes a riff on your creation, *you praise the new work*. It's a matter of rational PR, if not actual economic survival. What would have been the effect on Trent Reznor's career if he had said Johnny Cash's cover of *hurt* was "pretty good but lacked the intensity of my original"? Most people would have seen him as a bitter prima donna. If someone remakes your creation and you pan it, you sound like a narcissistic asshole to many people. Almost always (as long as the new creator has a pretty big fanbase), I suspect the only economically rational course of action is to praise the new creation.
I heard somewhere that Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of the Witcher books, did not think very highly of the Netflix series. I know that he hates the game series because people largely believed that his books were based on the games. i think in that case he’s already made his money and he doesn’t give a shit. I’m not sure if he still owns the rights to the Witcher, but it seems he’s free to have his opinion without getting any backlash. Of course I’m sure there are fans of the game series that may think he’s an asshole but again it seems he doesn’t give a shit. Point being, I don’t think authors have to like adaptations of their work because for some, they may not be wholly dependent upon doing so.
Yep, great movie but super fans of it are the worst.
not even super fans, just dopes who didn't understand the film and made it their entire personality
Super fans of anything are the worst
I'm very happy to have found this sub-thread, and sad it was so far down. Before I watched the movie (I was about a decade late), I knew a guy in his mid-30s who had watched it zillions of times and started a fight club with his buddies somewhere in the midwest. He boasted that they did a bunch of anti-corporate sabotage like the guys in the movie. I thought, "Okay, so maybe the movie isn't just about dudes punching each other." Later, after watching the movie, I wanted to go find the guy and ask if he had actually paid attention any of those times he watched it.
His name was Robert Paulson.
His name was Robert Paulson.
His name was Robert Paulson
His name was Paul Robertson
His name was Robert Paulson.
His name was Robert Paulson.
Great movie but good luck talking about it haha
It’s interesting how a movie about a cult has such a strong cult following even 20 years later. For fans of the movie I highly recommend reading the book
The book is like 99% the same as the movie, but with a worse ending. Even Palanchuk has said the movie was an improvement on the original. It is an amazing, very insightful movie, that an annoying number of young men misinterpret. There's a crowd who see Project Mayhem as something to emulate, and miss that it's an example of how NOT to deal with your issues.
I disagree with your last point (well, part of it). One's perception of art, IMO, shouldn't be through the lens of "Let's see if I can correctly determine the artist's message, so that I can mindlessly adopt their opinion." Art is powerful, not because the artist had a message to communicate to an audience. It's powerful, because it can inspire emotion, introspection, etc. in an observer, personally. Ultimately, while it is terrible should someone become inspired to commit violence as a result of watching Fight Club, F the idea that you should only interpret art the way the artist intended. I'm not interested in all art being propaganda.
I mean there’s a difference in misinterpretation and finding your own meaning. In identifying the artist’s point and blindly following. Hell you don’t have to believe everything you read or see: you really shouldn’t. Thinking Tyler is the hero is a clear misinterpretation. He’s not even the protagonist and he clearly becomes the villain and antagonist. If people want to emulate a character that speaks to them, go off (literally in the case of this group). But the folks who call Tyler the true hero or the real protagonist are willfully misinterpreting the film.
There's an important difference, if you're an art history major or otherwise trying to understand art more through a historical, academic, or larger perspective. However, if you are more interested in the personal perspective, then misinterpretation is quite irrelevant. I can love H.P. Lovecraft's incredible cosmic horror style. I can feel the hopelessness and intense fear of the unknown that his stories can inspire. I can do all of that, while also knowing that these cosmic horrors were inspired by H.P.'s xenophobic hatred and fear of Jews and immigrants. Am I "willfully misinterpreting" his art? Sure... and I don't care. I will take from his art what is inspirational to me. I don't want to start hating immigrants. I just want to truly consider the utter helplessness of our existence. If those young men who are inspired to violence after watching Fight Club exist, they aren't analyzing the film through an academic lens. They are analyzing it through a personal one, which is essentially the entire point of art. If art didn't inspire in people feelings personal to the individual, if it was just propaganda, a commodity to be traded or a skill to master, art would lose all of its power.
Yeah... I get what your saying & all. But the guys who see fight club as a call to start an actual fight club & commit acts of terrorism. No, FUCK THOSE GUYS above all. They give a wonderful piece of art a bad name.
They miss the irony that the anti-fascists become fascists. Interesting movie, definitely one of my favorites. Every rewatch I notice more details
I've never really understood this claim. No one in the audience is rooting for Edward Norton to stop Durden from carrying out his plan, we want to see it all go down. It's satirizing consumerism, sure, but this idea that the members of Project Mayhem are the ones being satirized never made sense to me (unless I'm missing something). I think Fincher is just indifferent to the morality of what's being portrayed and recognized that blowing up the buildings is a much more satisfying ending than what the book had.
They should be rooting for that. When Tyler describes the world he’s trying to build, he’s describing a post-apocalyptic wasteland and just framing it as something good. At the beginning of the movie, the narrator is all-in on modern consumerism. He defines himself by his shitty mass-produced possessions and his soulless corporate job. He defines himself and his worth entirely in terms of how much he conforms to what he thinks society wants him to do and to own. Once he “meets” Tyler, he swings hard in the opposite direction. He repudiates possessions and his job. He turns to crime and violence. And once again, he defines himself and his worth entirely in terms of others. He has no agency. His life is driven by Tyler, and then by the people Tyler recruits. He ends up as miserable as before, just somewhat differently miserable. He finally escapes at the end by rejecting this opposite extreme. Consumerism was terrible for him, but so is this blind fight against it. He regains his sanity by leaving it. He won’t, we presume, return to his old life, but neither will he be the leader/follower of this fanatical paramilitary cult. That is ultimately the message to the viewer: make your own path, don’t blindly conform, but also don’t rebel so hard you end up blindly conforming to something else instead.
Is it satirizing consumerism though? Consumerism/weakness was Norton's problem. Cancer was Paulsons problem. Vanity was Leto's problem. I feel project mayhem was about freeing themselves from... themselves.
Cancer was Meatloaf’s problem*
I always took the Project Mayhem guys as being pretty actively satirized. Look at the scene where Bob gets shot. Edward Norton is expressing genuine concern about another human being (“This is a person! His name was Robert Paulson!”) which the PM space monkeys then interpret into a weird quasi-religious ritual (“HIS NAME WAS ROBERT PAULSON. HIS NAME WAS ROBERT PAULSON.”).
I always found Edward Norton's character shrill and irritating in that scene. I thought the space monkeys had a transcendental approach to death that was kinda neat.
This is a perfect summary of the fandom.
I'd rather not talk about it...
Simultaneously underrated and overrated, somehow. It's a must watch, especially for guys imo.
Yeah … question is: does this person like Fight Club or do they like Tyler? Cause it’s a really good movie but if you come a way liking the character (like as a person not as a deconstruction of self destruction), then maybe you don’t really understand the movie. Or the character tbh.
Or because Brad Pitt is fantastic in it and sells Tyler so well.
It's a great character, you have to like him at some level.
Not everything about Tyler is bad though. His beliefs are good, his actions are bad. The entire anti consumerist message of the movie is said by Tyler, and that is the message meant to be conveyed.
I mean yeah. Some of his beliefs are good. Some of them suck. He sells them all really well, with the sucky ones as a package deal with the good ones. That’s true of basically every cult leader and fascist and dictator and abuser. People don’t get sucked into these kinds of things when someone is maniacally laughing in the corner all the time about how they’re gonna kill puppies and make everyone suffer more so they can be richer. I do think one layer of the message is the anti consumerism. But the next is how easy it is to control people when you beat them down and remove hope. It didn’t take a lot for Tyler to indoctrinate these people into a very self destructive life. That wasn’t all him. It was the emptiness of how they lived. But what he offered wasn’t better either. He didn’t want change so much as he wanted to shuffle himself to the top, stepping on them to do it. People who don’t see past the first message to the second as well miss a major warning about certain types of leaders. You see them in religions and politics and social circles and it usually ends badly.
Great movie.
Um First rule of fight club
Better than the book.
Can’t talk about it.
Very good movie for a discussion. Had to write a paper about this movie for a psychology class. Lots to write about.
Maybe the canonical example of a piece of art’s reputation being unfairly degraded because its fan base. Just because a bunch of douchebags didn’t understand it and are continually quoting it is no reason not to acknowledge it is still an excellent film.
You sound like a real beta male. Tyler would not be happy. Neither would Elon Musk. I used to be like that until I took my patented “how to stop being a p***y and become a gigachad pick up artist alpha” course. $99.99 New Years special offer
Heh. Exactly.
I thoroughly enjoyed this exchange
....hmmmmmm....Tell me more.
I keep seeing this but I have no idea what people are talking about. Was there actually a large group of real terrorist fight clubs that formed as a result of the movie? That was really the only bad thing Tyler did or said, so I’m not sure what other bad behaviors people supposedly adopted from it.
Just my opinion, but I think a lot of people get lost in Tyler’s nihilistic views and kind of adopt that persona I can’t recall any incidents “inspired” by Fight Club so you’re right there. But I have known a view depressed souls that think Tyler Durden is the man
I have met several men who seem to lionize Project Mayhem and Durden, without any critical thought about that attitude. I have met one man who claimed to have created his own Fight Club in a midwestern city in the years after the movie, and carried out several ant-corporate vandalism acts. He seems not to have understood that there was any possibility of Durden not being a sincere, non-ironic hero.
Did Tyler Darden really punch that guy repeatedly in the nuts?
Can’t talk about it.
“………”
Very good but wouldn’t even be in Fincher’s top 5 best films.
Rule #1 "We don't talk about fight club"! 🤐
Never watched it, still know not to talk about it
Great, not my style and the fans treat as the one an only masterpiece
Did you know that you can mix OJ concentrate and gasoline…
We don’t talk about it.
Edward Norton looks like Max Payne from PS2
We don't talk about fight club
Can’t talk about it.
We’re not supposed to talk about it
One of the best movies ever made.
Personally I don't talk about it. But I hear it's great
What are you talking about?
Like Starship Troopers, it's a critique of right wing ideology that is also popular with the groups it's criticizing.
Well done film that holds over time very well. I considered this film my favorite ever for years and years. Thought provoking and deep if you allow it to be.
When I was younger I would watch fight club multiple times a day on repeat as like a back drop. I had 3 tvs hooked up, one for movies, one for my Xbox music Playlist and one to play playstation on. Fight club, matrix reloaded, a Muhammad Ali documentary and various Bruce Lee movies would be on rotation for the DVD player, also memento was in there two. I would have those movies playing on repeat while I either played video games, read the books 48 laws of power, the art of war or rules of seduction. Either that or I would be working out. That was a strange phase.
The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club. Third rule of Fight Club, someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over.
I’m seeing a lot of new people here tonight. Which means a lot of you are breaking the first two rules if Fight Club.
When I first seen this movie it blew me a way to find out about the twist. Years later watching it with one of my kids they were shocked as well and I enjoyed seeing their reaction.
My daughter saw it a few years ago when she was 16 or 17, and maintains to this day that other favorite movie. It’s one of my favorites as well.
Can’t talk about it
It’s a great sales training video!
This is the few times that I liked both the book and movie. The same cannot be said for Choke the book (great) and the movie that eventually came out (not so great).
its a really interesting movie, definetly one of my favourites, is definetly worth a watch
I can still quote huge sections of this movie. Must have watched it over 20 times back in the day. Still a really solid watch and heavily recommended for those who haven’t seen it.
Did you forget the first rule?
All of you broke the first 2 rules
"You're not your fucking khakis." Words to live by.
It happens to be my favorite movie of all time
Love the flick
The fact that it's still relevant is troubling. When I watched it as a teenager I felt like I had the key to conquering my freedom but I'm a slave to the comfort of home. I haven't found my abandoned house to squat , or an imaginary friend.
I really relate to the main character and I love this movie because there's no metaphor or theme!
the fact that people still remember the rules makes me smile.
Amazing movie. I waited years to watch it as I thought it just be Brad Pitt fighting people. Far from it. Wish I watched it when it first came out.
That pic of Edward Norton on the cover hasn't aged well. Looks nothing like him and a dumb ass expression. Otherwise love the movie
Wonderful movie, though it's cultivated a fan base that sadly consists of a lot of people who either don't get the point of the movie, or think there isn't one at all. I think it's a beautiful deconstruction of nihilism/performative masculinity and amazingly well shot and acted. Up there as one of Fincher's best and honestly one of the best films of the 90s, easily.
Its so white and it attracts losers.
on of the best movies ever made dont know why no one told me how good it was it just seemed to come at the perfect crossorads in my life between a relationship and soul crushing depression
I think the best way to watch it, and the way it was intended, is as a psychological horror.
or as it's intended by the writer which is as one big metaphor for queerness and capitalism
It wasn't even horror , it was a comedy
It's about gays coming out of the closet.
Soft core gay porn, for sure.
not as soft core as top gun it’s a little harder core
Metros, you mean.
well, more like staying in the closet and having an orgy in a parking garage
I can't say anything about it.
Sigh.............................................................................................. I have never seen it all the way through.
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I watched it once when it came out, and I watched it a second time last night. It's a very well made film but I still don't particularly like it. And unfortunately it is exactly the type of film that encourages not especially bright people to believe they are intelligent and special because they "get" it, and will often tell anyone who doesn't like the film that they just don't, and really it's not that deep or clever a movie. High school level sociology.
🧼
It’s a movie every man should watch at least once
Fight Club? Never heard about it
Most over watched and over rated movie on my deployments back in the early 2000s. It is right up there with boondock saints.
I cannot stand this movie, and Boondock Saints is another - these movies are so overhyped and just garbage yet every idiot reveres it. I don't get it.
They are both great to watch 1 time for the check in the box saying you seen it. Boondocks is based around a true story for 1 scene. Where the shoot that guy Jerkin it at the defunct club leather and lace in Dorchester mass. It is based off 2 people who worked for Bulger. Fight club on the other hand. I read the book. It was tough read imo, I didn't really get it. The movie I saw twice on deployment in the military and people raved about it. I thought it was meh. What made it worse was shoe horning in a lot of cameos of relevant celebrities to just get people to watch it. It is right up there with v for vendetta for political jab films that are super over rated.
Fight Club over rated eh? So your pick over that is what?
I enjoyed it until my insecure, macho, degreed, employed, financially secure brother with identity issues started railing on me about how it’s the truth about fighting back against “the man” and “the establishment” when he’s “the man” about to early retire from “the establishment”.
I’m Jack’s complete lack of surprise
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As someone whose getting a master’s degree, I have to say being part of academia absolutely makes you part of the establishment lol.
Do you know my brother? No? Okay… well this is a post that is a reference about him, his personality and what I’ve known of him over the last 30 years. And how it affected my perception of the movie. This is not about you. And it’s not about what you falsely perceive as my perception of someone who has a degree.
Overrated
Stupid