Fight Club

David Fincher – 1999 – USA

I’ve only seen this movie twice since it came out in ’99, once in its first release and then just a few years ago on DVD, and though I don’t have anything drastic against it, I’m amazed how often I find it cited as various peoples’ all-time favorite movies, and not simply a favorite movie but one that is widely believed to be extraordinarily meaningful and well-made.  Invariably, (in my experience, anyway), those of this opinion seem to be younger than 25.  I’m not suggesting that the issue has to do with maturity, but perhaps merely experience; by which I mean film experience.  I saw Fight Club within a day or so of seeing David Lynch's The Straight Story, and the contrast was stunning to me, as were the popular reactions to both.  While Lynch's sublime, elegant and cinematic style was thoughtlessly dismissed by fans hungry for extreme content, Fincher's flimsy music-video-style pyrotechnics were hailed as revolutionary.  I can trace the demise of my hopes for film in the 21st century to this moment of comparing these two films that week in October of 1999.  The truth is that all of Fight Club’s more intriguing elements had been handled before and better in other films; films by true masters, not trendy and derivative filmmakers like David Fincher; (and yes, I also mean films made before the 1996 publication of the novel upon which the film is based).  Fincher is not an originator of material.  He did not give birth to this project; he was a hired hand brought in as a fourth or fifth choice by the producers.  The issues in the film are valid, but their treatment is not only obvious but heavy-handed to the point of being patronizing, treading into Oliver Stone territory as a transparently arrogant (rather than artistic) statement from self-righteous filmmakers about how crass and conformist the rest of us are.  ‘Thank God,’ we are intended to respond, ‘someone has shown us the light.’  I compare Fight Club to Stone’s Natural Born Killers (1994), a film that also compensates for its dearth of original ideas with a steroid injection of hyperactive style.  It doesn’t surprise me that whole generations are impressed by this style, but it does bother me that they don’t see beyond it and recognize it as an attempt to distract them from the fact that nothing all that original is actually happening.  The labored dark stylization of Fight Club serves the exact same purpose as the world of mainstream entertainment it claims to despise; it dazzles the eye while dulling the brain.  This style is thin, like a coat of paint, and it doesn’t bear close scrutiny because it doesn’t connect to the themes of the film.  I don’t often agree with Roger Ebert’s conclusions, but I have to admit that the line from his review describing Fight Club as “a thrill ride masquerading as philosophy” probably sums up the problem in a nutshell about as well as possible.  Despite a reputation for grit and boldness, the film actually loses its balls whenever the touchy subject arises of homoerotic fetishism that simmers beneath men's angst about masculinity - such as when the two male leads ponder a men's underwear ad or refer to Jared Leto's character as "beautiful."  Instead of exploring what's lurking there, Fincher, (presumably at the behest of uber-macho Brad Pitt, who cannot bear to be portrayed as less than 100% all man), wimps out and cuts off the conversation.  The notion of an underground organization existing that fuses self-help clichés with radical politics appears in numerous David Cronenberg films including Scanners (1980) and Videodrome (1983).  The idea of a nebbish living in his own head as a way to feign a sense of machismo can be found in Terry Gilliam films like Jabberwocky (1977) and Brazil (1985); (even the use of megastar Pitt as a subversive quasi-sane revolutionary can be traced to Gilliam’s infinitely superior 12 Monkeys, 1995).   David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) is a far more surreal, absurdist and frightening depiction of a split-personality situation resulting from the 'crisis of masculinity,' and Lynch provides a valid psychological basis for it that outstrips Fincher's trite 'men's movement' style platitudes. Robert Altman's The Player (1992) is more acidic and uncompromising in its critique of a mass media culture where entertainment is revealed as de-humanizing propaganda serving the interests of the corporations.  Cronenberg’s Crash (1996) goes much deeper and harder into the dark waters of gender identity and sexual ambivalence into which Fight Club only dips a toe.  Perhaps worst of all is the contrived ending revealing that Brad Pitt was really Edward Norton all along; (or vice versa, whatever it is).  The twist ending is without doubt the worst of all movie gimmicks, and it is unfailingly used by filmmakers who have painted themselves into a corner, have no idea how to end their film, and desperately hope that a splash of confusion or a good rug-pull under the audience’s feet will make them think they’ve seen something profound.  The twist ending is an insult to the audience because it can only shock them once.  If this ending was transcribed intact from the novel, then it was Fincher’s obligation to substitute a suitably cinematic alternative.  If this moment of cathexis is really what the film is all about, then the rest of it is a waste of time and can never be enjoyed again since you can never be surprised again.  The revelation is a cop-out because it frees the Norton character, the filmmakers, and the audience of needing to come to some sort of conclusion about anarchist philosophy.  Instead, we're left with the dopey theory that blowing up a big office building is going to wipe out everyone's credit history; but without any call for action that might actually "fight the power" with results in the real world.  Not surprisingly, director Fincher was content with this cop-out, since he could safely claim that his film is merely prompting questions; though what he really means is that it has nothing decisive to say.  The rabid fans of the film don’t see it that way, however.  They respond viscerally – without any of the irony the critics seemed to discern – to what they see as bold fables about male bonding and anti-consumerism.  The joke is on them, of course, because thoughtless adoration of Fight Club as either a seminal film or a cult film has become one of the worst clichés of all; the equivalent of declaring that one has no real understanding of film, psychology or politics.  The superficial jumble of all these elements in the film just seems kinda cool; that’s the conclusion to which most fans have to arrive, which – though at least honest – doesn’t make the film itself any better.