Possible Fight Club and/or Primal Fear spoilers ahead.
Am I the last person to have the joke of casting Edward Norton as the narrator in Fight Club dawn upon him? Edward Norton who played Aaron in Primal Fear?
I was flipping through the channels last night between the end of the Braves game and the beginning of Dennis Miller Live and I caught a little bit of the latter movie. I had seen it long ago when it first came to pay cable, but it was one of those movies I watched just to learn the twist ending. Seeing Edward Norton on screen … it just hit me like a thunderbolt … “Well, of course, that’s who they’d cast to play ‘Jack’!”
In Fight Club, as you already know, Elwood,Norton plays a character whose multiple-personality disorder results in violence.
Well, in Primal Fear, he plays a character who fakes multiple-personality disorder in order to (quite literally) get away with murder.
See, now I am disappointed. I came into this thread (fnarr! ) expecting a joke that was hard to get. You know, like the one where two vultures sit on a branch and one says to the other “Patience my ass! I’m gonna kill something!”
I know, I was looking for something like that myself. (my own ‘duh’ joke story is when I was a little girl and found my dad’s playboy mags, I’d look at them for the jokes, cartoons and stuff. Saw one with two people at a water cooler, one woman, curvacious, wearing a tight sweater type dress w/ her name “Betty” embroidered on it, top, left side, and the man says “That’s cute, what do you call the other one”. I kept that cartoon in my brain for years, and one day it popped back up to the forefront and I finally got it.)
I didn’t think it was a joke. Edward Norton is just a really good actor. Remember that the two movies are separated by several years and many other roles for Norton, most of which did not include any suggestion of multiple personality and many of which did not feature violence.
Incidentally, it’s always been a pet peeve of mine that with the advent of the movie version, the narrator character began being known as “Jack.” Ugh.
I’ve always liked Primal Fear for a few reasons. Not only does it feature Norton’s stellar performance, it’s the least irritating role I’ve ever seen Richard Gere in. And that Laura Linney is hot.
Frankd6: Now this is a joke I’m not getting. Where is that line in Fight Club?
Oh yeah! Don’t what it is about her but I am totally smitten.
Wasn’t there a scene in Fight Club where they are hitting golf balls? Ed Norton then does the classic Honeymooners bit where he addresses the ball. Hellloooo Ball! This is particularly funny because the Honeymooners character is also called Ed Norton.
I thought of this, but there’s no dialogue in that scene – just the voiced-over narration: “At night Tyler and I were alone for a half mile in every direction.” Tyler giggles, but other than that they don’t speak.
Maybe the joke still works and I just don’t really get it because I never watched the Honeymooners.
I’ll help hijack this thread by assuring you that you are not the only one. I honestly think he is an excellent actor but I have to really focus on the plot of any movie he is in because I get distracted by thinking “Dang! He is too sexy!”.
) expecting a joke that was hard to get. You know, like the one where two vultures sit on a branch and one says to the other “Patience my ass! I’m gonna kill something!”