Fight Club - Page 2

Hum, true, I probably meant "satire" when I said "black comedy". I just think it's primarily a funny film taking the piss of its main character(s)' attempt at rebellion, but behind its pyrotechnics the film's satire is not as deep as Clockwork Orange's or as close to the bone as Wag The Dog's. Its targets are pretty obvious ("rebels") and its points pretty clear to me (rebellion is another form of conformation; the whole "real man" ideal is absurd).

Just because it is a satire doesn't mean it necessarily has to be an incredibly deep one.

The biting social commentary is, for me, overshadowed by how ridiculous Tyler Durden and the other conformist poseurs are in this film, so I guess I was laughing at the satire of these "rebel" characters as much as to the black comedy of how fucked up and clueless the Narrator is.
Goes to show how closely related some genres are, and satire and dark comedy often overlap so much as to be indistinguishable (the ending of Wag The Dog; After Hours)

I think i get it, correct me if i'm wrong but you're blaming a few sissy queers for materialism and fashion? And macho men 50 years ago were completely against those things? Guys who fought in D-Day denounced materialism ?

*sigh* i think you should quit while you're ahead. you're completely missing the point of everything that everyone has said. i couldnt give a shit about whether theyre gay or not, get that through your friggin head. ah fuck this i couldnt be bothered explaining myself to a retard, everyone else seems to understand so ive had enough of this.

Right or you'll really make me feel dumb after this next couple posts ?



I don't think you have a point, except you're a knuckledragger and proud of it.







So you "didn't" mention them being gay?



Oh Lemme guess i'm sure you have some deep explanation about how you don't care about them being gay , just what these particular gays do. And i bet you don't mind the coloreds shopping at your wal-mart either right?


Why doesn't your dumbass just use " my name's speedrazor and i'm a stupid bigoted nazi piece of shit" defense and save me some effort?

Put zombie on your Ignore List as I have months ago. CHUD gets a whole lot better.

Yes.

In fact, in a lot of ways it resonates more deeply with women than with men. I mean, men have been taught to repress their darker more aggressive side for the past few decades. Women have been conditioned this way for hundreds of years, if anything, women have more repressed rage than men could ever dream of. If the main characters of the movie were female, it would still work perfectly.

Fight Club was like a bomb going off in my head the first time I saw it. Probably my fave film of the 90's

Parts I agree with here - parts I don't.

No, no it wasn't about what a bunch of pussies men have become and why can't we be more like the macho images our fathers and grandfathers used to portray. It was about actually trying to feel sopmething in an empty society that insists certain things (like material possessions and how society deems "success") are what equates to happiness and if you don;t feel the same way theres something wrong with you. When the narrator breaks down why is that? Because "losing all hope was freedom"

Okay - this comes across as blindly sexist rubbish. You may need to go back and ask yourself why the Narrator chooses Marla over Tyler and what that symbolised. Why did Tyler make his first face to face appearance with the Narrator once Marla arrives on the scene? Why does everything get so amped up drama wise the more he comes to realise he has feelings for her?

This smacks of being vaguely homophobic to be honest - I know thats not how you menat it but it does - I agree with the getting in touch with our animal sides argument - that was a point well made in the film - buit it wasn't a point unto itself. Tyler didn't see that as blindly being of worth for its own sake - he had reasoning that went beyond simply "We've lost touch with our primal natures, ergo its good to re-get in touch with them" - it was about more than that.

Again, while I see what you're saying this still seems vaguely homophobic and kinda missing the point. You seem to have a pretty solid pre-concieved notion of what constitues a "man" and seem to have brought a lot of those notions to your interpretations of this film (nothing wrong with that - it adds to discussion and gives me an invaluable peek into the man behind the username) and "queer" or "metrosexual" don't fit into that - but thats not really a message one can glean from the film on its own. Its more about hitting bottom than it is "being a man" - otherwise why look at the Calvein Klien model and ask "is that what a real man loks like?" or "self improvement is masturbation - now self destruction...".

The notion of hitting bottom is not an ideal that classic machismo espouses yet you seem to be either ignoring or missing this point to interpret the film to be a "return of the old school male" message - one which doesn't really hold true (afterall the Narrators and Tylers father story was about an old school male in the mould of what you're talking about - yet he doesn't have any answers either).

Again - a statement like that says more about you than Fight Club in my mind as you're extrapolating. The men of the film didn' fight because they were getting out bottled-up testosterone and missed being "real men" - it was about experiences intense feeling and emotion (in this case physical pain, in the same way self-mutilators attack their flesh to remind themselves their alive) in a world where men are expected to live lives spiritually and emotionally numb.


"We're the middle children of history - with no war or depression to call our own." I still see you extrapolating and missing the forest for the trees. So men can't fix shit for themselves - that really wasn't what Fight Club was getting at. It was about finding a new third way from the outdated male model and the lost attempt at trying to forge a new one in a post-feminist world.


I just can't help but think you missed the point of the film and wonder how many people share this "return to old school machismo" interpretation of the piece - thats just not the message I got from it at all That was a part of it sure, but only in the way the film was saying "that outdated notion of manhood didnt work any more than this new one is, lets create something all together new"

thanks for the tip diva, will be doing so right away.

and rain dog, i dont know how many mor times i have to say that in the end everything they did is stupid, but if you read the book and watch the movie and listen to their commentaries and interviews and still believe that the stuff they say in the book and movie is not really relevant and that the filmmakers and author didnt really think those views about the world are true than you are kidding yourself. no one writes such an indepth view of the world just as a joke. they still believe that stuff, the only time the narrator changes his opinion of the situation is when project mayhem starts without him, and then somebody gets killed.

here's a quote from Harry Knowles review of Fight Club, maybe he misinterpreted the movie too.

hmm...

and one more

Let me let you in on something, nobody goes to that extreme of satirising and commenting on things, and then tells you to dismiss them as a joke. everyone involved with making the book and movie would be quite disappointed in this cause they would definately believe in a lot of the points they make, especially brad pitt, i have his interview in GQ around here somewhere in which he goes quite into detail about this stuff, i really need to find that magazine.

I can;t help but think you missed what I was trying to say.

Try adressing the points Ive raised rather than throwing me something from the uber-geek red-nut as if it's some sort of gospel. I haven't taken that robust whore seriously for many a year.

Im not saying what you seem to think Im saying - Im just not sure what you think that is.

Again, discuss what Ive written, don't just post a Harry fuckin Knowles review as if that answers all.

Fair?

Im not saying "its all a joke" - just that you've interpreted the film in a way that I personally belive misses the point the films was trying to make.

The film was not about returning to the classical idea of machismo and that that was somehow the answer to the post-feminist digital age we live in.

I KNOW ITS NOT!!! i know its not telling us we should do this. what it is doing is commenting on that!!!!!

your gonna tell me it isnt??? hell ive already said i dont condone any of it, i dont live my life that way and dont pretend to, but the message is there. it is telling us that we do live in a world like this.

for the record i wasnt aiming the harry knowles thing at you ok? i was just showing another person's (who like it or not is quite high profile) opinion on the matter which is quite similiar to mine, for everyone in this thread.

first of all thats about half of the message, let me ask you something, why would men resort to animalistic fist fights over consumerism? the other half of the point of the film is emasculism. there is practically no other reason, apart from getting out of their comfort zone, for men to start fighting. they fight because once they have, not only do they feel that they have finally let go, but because it makes them feel good, it makes them feel strong. it makes them feel like they have balls once again, and that is extremely, and not too subtlely evident, when robert paulson joins the fight club. that is the perfect metaphor for the film, its about men who live in a world where society has cut their balls off.

if the movie was only about consumerism then explain to me why women are so not allowed? i guess they arent victims of consumerism?

Ah okay - I think I see the disconnect here. It may be commenting on old school machismo, but your insistence that its the main thing being commented upon is where I take umbridge with your interpretation. Its also commenting on the slowly evolving new image of masculinity, as well as the disconnectedness of modern society and its insistence of the suppression of emotion in liew of chasing things like the newest Ikea sofa and all the other BS accountrements this society keeps telling us should be making us happy.

So defend with your own opinion - how does sighting Harry as some authority back up your case? Defend YOUR opinion with YOUR thoughts - not someone elses.



Mate, Im so not saying that. The consumerism is in and of itself just another symptom of a deeply emotionally and spiritually disconnected society.

I see what you're saying but think it goes deeper than that. Its not just feeling strong, or like a man used to feel - its about actually feeling something AT ALL in the first place - yeah?

I see what you're saying with your Robert Paulson idea and I like it - but I think you're taking it a bit literally. That said your interpretation is completely valid

Like I said - at no time have I said its just about consumerism - the film is, at the end of the day, as much a (pitch) black romantic comedy as much as anything else - Marla symbolises all the growing up, commitment to the real world and readiness to be dedicated to a monogomous lifestyle that the Narrator is trying to run from.

Im talking about human disconnection within a society that tells them certain things should and have to make them happy - be it consumerism or how to be a man or whatever - and if those things don't make them happy - they're wrong, not society

Now thats covered in all the issues Fight Club raises, from notions of masculinity through to the chasing of the consumer dream through to its rejection of everything but love.

And to the person that said Marla isnt the catalist for Tylers appearance - no ones saying Tyler wasn't around just that Marlas appearance as was the catalyst for Tyler making himself known to the Narrator in the first place.

im not saying i have the complete answer on what the movie is about, im saying for me what i think the strongest message that came across to me was. were all right in some way or another, because i fully agree that the movie is incredibly deep. in the end i think we are ALL right about the messages. just add all our posts together and we'd make quite a good post. it would take me quite a long time to write out a full meaning of the movie. but seeing one thing here in this thread is that people have been dismissing it as not deep and just some black comedy, and that is completely wrong. although i guess thats just the way it is, and some people have been just watching it because the anarchy is 'cool' and because its 'fully sick' and because the fights are like totally violent and cool.

I didn't realise this film could be seen in so many different ways, good thread this.

That's not Fincher, that's Palahnuik.

Again, not to say that anyone's interpretation is right or wrong, but I think RainDog put into words what I couldn't. The point about "Jack" feeling numb and disconnected to the world and Fight Club allowing him to feel is an extremely poignant notion. It allows Fight Club to resonate with both male and female viewers as we all live in this society that makes us feel disconnected.

*i had to edit this, to push forward the fact that yes the movie is much to do with people just trying to find a way to feel something, its a very valid point. and well made. i also believe that it has a lot to do with men and what they think masculinity is.

yes perhaps, there is validity to that, the use of marla as a character also searching for feeling signifies that, but there is a reason why the actual Fight Club and Project Mayhem only allowed males into the equation, like it or not the reason fight club was started was to reach 30 something men only. the majority of the films comments are aimed solely at men. i think to ignore that is just wishful thinking. you can argue otherwise, but then why in the movie and book do they make such a big deal about it being a guy only thing? if its not about reclaiming your animalistic side, then why did they have to do this through fist fights? why would the makers of the story think that women would ever sympathise with the use fighting as a means to feel something? why would the makers think women would sympathis with such important dialogue as " We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need." i think the story's ultimate comment is that acting like a violent, animalistic jerk is not gonna make you feel like a real man.

SPPED, no one is saying those themes aren't in the book or movie. We're saying its not THE point of the movie. They are a means to an end. Jack feels disconnected from the world and creates an alter ego to try and reconnect. It is Tyler who starts Fight Club and espouses that men need to return to their animalistic roots. It's Tyler who doesn't want women around. But when all is said and done, the movie is about Jack trying to find meaning in his life and he gets that with Marla, not Tyler. You're focusing too much on Tyler's message and not really looking at the story as a whole.

Cause Palahniuk's gay?

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Speedrazor, meditate on what ending the flick on this note, says symbolically about the narrator's journey.....


Think about the significance of the narrator "killing" Tyler Durden.

How does that comment on or add to everything the narrator experienced beforehand?

Exactly Diva.

Theres a reason this film resonates with my girlfriend as much as it does with me.

It's not as though Marla is a soccer mom.

Bingo. I'm starting to get jealous, there are always posters who can put what I think into words much, much better (and quicker) than I can.




Side Note
"I want to have your abortion" is possibly the funniest line of black humour I've ever heard. I'm still in stitches thinking about it.

erm, last time i checked you had nothing to say about the movie other than its not really deep besides teenage angst.

I've made other posts other than the first on this thread, you know. Some in direct answers to your posts. Pay attention. And the whole point of my last remark is that, especially in a foreign language, I often have difficulties expressing myself precisely.

I wrote that first post quickly, and thought everyone was going to go "yeah man, it's like, a totally revolutionnary film!"... so I underestimated the posters here, but there ARE lots of people who take Tyler's message seriously

If it soothes your hurt feelings I'll rewrite it:

Fight Club is not a very deep film, it just shows satirically how ridiculous the whole rebellion/teenage angst thing can be.

Happy now?

Who said she was? She's just as disconnected from the world as Jack is. They both go to self help meetings to feel something, anything. She's part of the reason the movie works for both males and female.

I so wanted that line to remain intact for the movie.

that line is in the movie, the abortion one is the one that's cut out.

As I've said, I haven't seen the movie in along time, but I could've sworn it was the other way around. One would think "grade school" fucking is more offensive than having an abortion.

I always felt it was the other way around, the desire to have an abortion just for the hell of it is one of the most fucked-up things I can think of.

Then again, I don't know what age span grade school covers. As a guess.... 5 to 12 years old?

as the story goes, courtesy of IMDB:

'The original "pillow talk"-scene had Marla saying "I want to have your abortion". When this was objected, it was exchanged for what we see now: "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school". When those who had protested saw this they were even more outraged and wanted the original line back. But by then it was too late.'

What makes the scene isn't the line, but Brad Pitt's reaction to it. You can almost see the question mark pop into existence above his head.

That fraction of a second, Pitt's line "Man, you got some fucked up friends! Limber, though" and Marla's falling off the bed are what make the movie for me. I had such a sex life at one point, so Tyler and Marla make me feel a bit nostalgic.

I would say it covers up to about 5th grade. Middle school is usually 6-8th grade and high school covers grades 9-12. It certainly doesn't include teenagers. So to me, the fact that a child has been fucked, essentially raped because no child is sexually mature (emotionally or physically) at that age, is vastly more offensive than an adult talking about an abortion.

So, definitely kids then? Ooooouch... thats NASTY.

The abortion line is funnier.

its not just a random person having an abortion for one reason or another, its someone purposely getting pregnant for the sole purpose of killing the baby.

The way I'd heard it, the abortion line was invented specifically to get the grad school line in - it was never intended to be in the film.

They simply thought of the most fucked up thing they could and placed it against the grade school line to get it put in the film.

Still less offensive than fucking a child.

Which was my point, my bad if unclear.

Actually the abortion line is in the book. It goes "I want to be pregnant by you. I want to have your abortion"

Calvin and Hobbes

When I first saw this film I didn't really like it. But that was almost 7 years ago and I was 13.

I saw it again a few years after that when I had matured a little and I like it alot but it wasn't until just recently, about a week ago in fact that I had a chance to see the film again on dvd and I was totally not expecting to like the film as much as I did.

Superb performances all around. Inspired direction. Stunning cinematography. And a great script.

Definitely my favorite David Fincher film, and it's now won a much deserved spot on my top 20 favorite films, might even be somewhere in the top 10.

I like the movie but the part where Tyler says "Self improvement is masturbation" seemed a tad bit ridiculous to me being that Brad Pitt himself spent endless hours in the gym getting those abs. And the ending made absolutely no fucking sense. The real Tyler shoots himself in the mouth and the bullet goes through his left cheek while the imaginary Tyler gets shot the same way and the bullet passes through the back of his head? How is that possible? If they are the same person, shouldn't both of them have died? Both Tylers die in the book, the ending ruins what would have been a perfect movie.

1. Considering the buff, and beautiful Tyler was a figment of his imagination, the "self-improvement is masturbation" line proves to be ironic, just like the entire film, that's the point.

2. Jack shooting himself is symbolic of his wanting to divest himself of Tyler's influence, whether or not it went through his mouth doesn't matter. Tyler is not real, so what happens to him has no physical effect on reality.

3. You must have read a different book, because while the ending is different, the narrator does survive. The still brainwashed "space monkeys" find him in a hospital, and the narrator siilently realizes that they remain under the influence of Tyler, therefore the threat remains open.

4. 2 Tylers?

Tyler died because "Jack" killed him by letting go of him. The use of the gun and shooting himself through the cheek was just a symbolic act to really cement the seperation. And I'm not sure they both died in the end of the book, it looks like he ended up delusional in a mental hospital to me.

Edit: Damn, Jacknife beat me to it...

'Cause I'm the Devil...heh! heh! heh!

I saw this back in 1999 on opening day, not having a clue in regards to what it was about. All I knew was that I fucking LOVED Se7en and it was Fincher working again with Brad Pitt, so, I had to go. The fact that Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter were in it also ensured that I would see this on day one.

 

Fight Club was and still is a profound movie. I was 21 when I saw it and I completely identified with the Narrator. My parents divorced when I was 2. I never knew my Dad and my mother was a raging cunt. I was raised by the bitch, her three sisters and their mother, my grandmother. It wasn’t until I finally moved out on my own that I was able to start figuring out shit for myself without having a coven of emotionally retarded harpies fucking up my perceptions of what it meant to be a man.

 

I find it very interesting that Diva and the gays on here started laying into SPEEDRAZOR. Quote Diva – “You sound like a sexist pig. Women aren't at fault for men not feeling like men. Don't blame us for your problems.” But you see, you are at fault. You bitch and complain that men aren’t sensitive enough, don’t share their feelings and are cutting our balls off at every opportunity. You don’t want a man, you want a fucking lapdog. If you took the average man from, say, 40 years ago and dropped him into modern society, women would fucking castrate him.

 

Women have been trying to fucking domesticate men for the last few decades and now that you’ve got an entire generation of emasculated eunuchs, you fucking complain that there aren’t any real men left. Real men, by the definition of most women, would be someone who looks like Brad Pitt, has a 10 inch cock, a trust fund and only wants to talk about their feelings. Women also love gays because that’s what women really want men to be. You all have unrealistic expectations that are developed from the time that you are children. That Prince fucking Charming will ride in on his horse and cart you off to live in a palace. Then you grow up, realize that’s all bullshit and spend the rest of your lives treating men like shit.

 

I’ll just leave you with probably the most accurate description of the differences between men and women I have ever read. Take it away Sammy Grubman….

 

Let’s be reasonable and logical, and face up to facts. Women aren’t human; they’re not even like monkeys or orangutans. Those middle-headed, pea-brained, waste-your-money liberals might want to brainwash you into thinking that girls are good for something other than sucking cock, but you and I and every other sensible man knows better. These sluts were put on Earth to steal your money; be whining, complaining and arrogant; and to serve as reasonably comfortable holsters for your erections when one is aroused by the call of nature.

 

First off, scientific research has it that women just aren’t the same as men. They don’t like things like camera’s or computers or state-of-the-art stereo’s, simply because the higher centers of their brains aren’t developed as well as a man’s. Furthermore, according to a very fine article in The National Enquirer it’s been proven that women aren’t as smart as men. It takes real guts to admit it, but women are mindless creatures….Don’t let those detestable, ugly, disgusting, sour-pussed lesbian diesel-dyke Women’s Libbers fool you, along with their cotillions of homo yes-men Women are most happy when they are serving their twins gods of Mammon and King Cock…

 

Men work hard, make money, grind the wheels of business, only to fall victim to early deaths dealt out by the insane caprices of vengeful sluts…They should be rounded up in a pig pen with pigs and fucked with sticks and forced to eat filthy offal, and maybe then they would appreciate a fine figure of a man who wants to own and take care of them, even if he is perhaps a wee bit nervous and high-strung and suspicious of some people’s motives….

 

 

...I miss Princess Kate. She was annoying, yes, but not quite as angry.

Wow, this won't end well.

What the fuck? Wow Burn, issues man... You have them.