I thought that they had become so deadened by the quest to possess things that they had lost the ability to feel life. Fighting was on way to bring that “feeling” back.
Shortly after it had come out, I showed it to the woman I was seeing at the time. She is a psychology professor. She made it mandatory viewing in one of her classes. It was really kind of a brilliant depiction of dissociation.
I think pigeon-holing the movie into being about consumerism and so forth is very simplistic. Certainly Pitt’s character rejects it, but the audience is left to make up their own mind as to whether the replacement he constructs is an improvement. What I took away from the movie was that although modern life is often superficial and stupid, the kind of cult of personality based society Pitt tries to create is ultimately far worse and that we should be wary of what people try to sell us. Actually having just wrote that I’d consider it a good synopsis of the film’s central message.
We should be wary of what people are trying to sell us. Whether it be the Ikea and its ilk crap Norton’s character resents or the violent solution to same presented by Pitt’s character. Make your own mind up, it’s hard and people will try and stop you but it’s worth the effort.
Yes, this.
The stuff mentioned in the OP about the pointless emptiness of consumer culture is not the theme of the film. That’s an easy, obvious observation, both in the world of the film and in our own world, but it has a certain antisocial energy, a certain “fuck you, world” glamour, and many people get swept up in it, despite the fact that there isn’t a lot more to it than showing the finger to polite society.
What the movie does next is show how quickly people can be seduced by someone who charismatically spouts obvious truths, and follow them down the rathole into utter madness. It’s an exploration of how fascism and nihilism require a cult of personality to thrive.
Anyone who buys into Tyler’s “philosophy” and thinks it’s what the movie is about has, unfortunately, missed the point of the movie.
Was I the only one who watched the movie and kind of thought, “You know, I like defining myself by my jeans, MP3 player and clothing–that stuff’s a lot more important to me than I thought before watching the film”? Just me? Okay then.
You two said more or less what I wanted to say.
Why do many people like bondage, whips, and chains?
Why do many people like training in the martial arts?
Sometimes being hurt is fun and enjoyable.
Remember, there is a difference between being hurt and being injured.
I concur.
It is fundamental to appreciating the film to acknowledge that Brad Pitt’s character is meant to be deranged, even if charismatically so. I can understand getting caught up in his anti-consumerist, macho posturing hogwash in the early part of the film (they do make it look cool, which is of course the point, albeit perhaps they do too good a job of it), but into and after the latter part of the film, as he pretty clearly becomes The Bad Guy, I can’t see how anyone could continue to feel the film endorses his message.
Because it’s something primal, something that feels real.
Modern society insulates us so much from anything like that. When most of us work, we don’t work on something fundamentally necesary to our survival as individuals or as a species - we work to support constructs of an artificial society where the work is meaningless except to support that entity.
Everything is so safe and easy and detached from anything primal that it’s like living a life in which everything is wrapped in plastic - you can never quite touch anything real. A plastic-wrapped life in a plastic-wrapped society where, lacking anything more fundamental, our interests shift to things like celebrity gossip, fashion, conspicious consumption, and other such nonsense.
The movie (in parts) tries to speak to people who are entirely dissatisfied with this. I thought it was refreshing because almost everything in pop culture is reverant towards modern society and pop culture. This film at least expressed the dissatisfaction that many people feel in our society - very rarely does anything mainstream go near the topic.
Not gonna disagree with me big brother.
For emphasis, it should be obvious that the movie not endorses but rejects the Brad-Pitt-guy’s thesis: the Tyler-Durden-inside character is destroyed. If you break this into Hollywood language, Pitt played the villain.
All the people who rushed out and saw the movie 100 times, bought several copies, and went “Tyler Durden! Dude, fight the power!” are exactly the ones who need to be kept away from people like Durden in the first place.
In an effort to redeem myself (somewhat), I’d just like to say, for the record, that I never endorsed the nihilism of Tyler Durden. I never thought it would be cool to get ridiculously bloody and bruised, and I never thought it would be a good idea to destroy corporate art or vandalize local businesses.
Yet, for whatever reason, I did enjoy the message that I interpreted, however inadvertantly:
You are going to die. This isn’t to be feared or lamented; it’s merely a fact. But if you were to die today, how would you have wished to live?
What gives your life meaning? Is it the material possessions you buy, or the primal experiences that reinforce living?
Ultimately, at the end of the movie, when everything was being destroyed, I thought of the scene as a metaphor for destroying one’s emotional attachment to the material world, and not a literal explosion of real buildings.
I wondered if this was just my take. Clearly, this thread suggests it was.
Whenever I’m looking through my collection for a movie to watch, I usually bypass Fight Club. However, if I’m looking for a movie to watch, and I’m pissed at something, or I’ve had a shitty day at work, or women turble, Fight Club doesn’t seem like a bad pick. It’s an angry movie. I watch it when I’m in a bad place.
I used to watch it a lot more than I do today.
When I was younger, I watched it all the time; I don’t feel like watching it that much these days.
Basically; Fight Club speaks best to angry young men. Older, less Nihilistic, rational guys, they probably don’t see as much in the movie.
I’m not particularly angry, pushing 40, and not a guy at all, and it is one of my top five movies ever. I’m pretty sure I will love that film until I die.
I find this dichotomy amusing 
Tyler Durder represents, to me, the rebellion inside the post-modern man against the trappings of a mundane and deadening society. At the beginning, the narrator is crushed by bone-deep ennui-- too enamored of his lame Ikea furniture, unable to sleep, swallowing his hate and rage for his job and boring, dead end life. Hd doesn’t know who he is anymore, in a literal as well as figurateive sense. He needs a little of the Tyler Durden, the part that questions, that isn’t afraid to be hurt, to feel and cause suffering, to reject mindless consumerism and conformity. A bit of violence, some destruction, they’re necessary for growth and vitality. If you become too anaesthetized by the shallow externals, you can’t feel anything.
However, too much Tyler Durden leads to things like blowing up everything and killing what you love the most. It goes too far. Durden is an overcorrection, and becomes another form of unfeeling conformity, as do all countermovements. At first you’re a rebel, then you’re the authority, then you’re the oppressor. Then, there needs to be another revolution to overthrow you.
That’s my take on it. I could understand and identify with a lot of what Durden said about accepting the fact that you’re not special, that your parents can’t be your role models like you want them to be, that you are not the sum of your possessions, and all the petty heartaches of daily life aren’t real pain. Those things are easy to forget, and the desire to blow it all up is a compelling and very real impulse. Finding a better way to deal with it is the really hard thing, though, not giving in wholeheartedly to the destructive urge. Despite your self-loathing, there are things inside you worth keeping.
Hope that was remotely coherent.
Fight Club lost a lot of its symbolic resonance for me when I realized upon second viewing that there’s no way that Fight Club could have gotten started in the first place. Tyler and the Narrator are “fighting” outside the bar and they attract a crowd, one of whom wants to go next. Next what? Next guy to beat yourself up in a parking lot?
Maybe that’s how circle-jerks get started too . . .
I, also, claim to have wanted to say what those two said. And my claim is correct.
-FrL-
I haven’t seen Fight Club all the way through :o , but Tyler and the Narrator are the same person, right?
So how are we supposed to understand this scene once we know that?
The Narrator is pretty good at beating the crap out of himself, judging from the scene in his boss’s office. If you buy the rest of the movie I’d say it’s not a huge stretch that he was gleefully beating the crap out of himself and having such a grand time that somebody wanted to join in. Tyler’s a charismatic guy.