Fight Club
Fight Club (1996) is the first published novel by Chuck Palahniuk, in which an unnamed protagonist struggles with the commercialization of American culture and male disenfranchisement through fighting.
Fight Club (1999) is a movie based on this book. It is directed by David Fincher, starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter, and features an original soundtrack by the Dust Brothers.
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2 Critical reception 3 Characters 4 Trivia 5 Awards 6 Technical data (film) 7 ISBN numbers 8 See also 9 External links |
Both the book and the film centre around a nameless protagonist. Publicity for the movie referred to the narrator as Jack, based on voice-overs where the character uses such phrases as "I am Jack's raging bile duct." and "I am Jack's broken heart.", based on articles written from the point of view of organs, which the narrator reads in a fictional magazine called The annotated reader. This in turn is based on actual articles published in Reader's Digest, like "I am John's brain tumour" by John Pekkanen. "Reader's Digest" and "I am Joe's" are used in the novel Fight Club; but was changed for the movie due to objections from Reader's Digest. The narrator's depersonalization is later illustrated when the device is used without mentioning organs: "I am Jack's inflamed sense of rejection." and "I am Jack's wasted life.".
The narrator hates his job and suffers from chronic insomnia. He becomes addicted to support groups, where he insinuates that he suffers from a terminal disease, in order to reach emotional release, which allows him to sleep.
He works for an unnamed car company, organising recalls on defective models if and only if the cost of the recall is less than the total cost of out-of-court settlements paid to relatives of the deceased. This parallels with the 1970s story of Ford Pinto recalls.
His life changes when he meets Tyler Durden (a soap salesman in the film, a beach artist in the book). After the protagonist's condo is destroyed by an explosion, he asks Tyler if he can stay at his place. Tyler agrees, but asks for one favor: "I want you to hit me as hard as you can." The resulting fight in a bar's parking lot attracts more disenchanted males, and the first fight club is born, a new form of self-help group.
Tyler slowly changes the clubs from a fun if brutal sport venue to a breeding ground for revolutionary "space monkeys" who graduate from the club to "Project Mayhem", which forms a growing army that carries out increasingly elaborate attacks on symbols of corporate America. The protagonist finds himself slowly losing control of what he helped create until he realizes that not only is Tyler trying to bring down civilization, but also that Tyler is in fact his night-time split personality. The final battle is between the increasingly frantic "real" protagonist trying to prevent disaster and the shrewd, calculating Tyler who always seems to be one step ahead.
The film was critized for its graphic violence, though only one person is killed. Its highly critical view of consumerism and modern living echoes Naomi Klein's book No Logo and also caused discomfort among some critics. Some elements from the film have found their way into the mainstream, such as the first two [sic] rules of fight club -- You do not talk about fight club -- or the name "Tyler Durden" itself. The general idea of a fight club was also adapted into the German computer role-playing game Gothic 2, which also listed Palahniuk in its credits.
Parallels are also drawn between Tyler Durden's vision of the world after his revolution, and the views of Theodore Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber. This can be seen in one scene where Tyler talks about climbing the Sears Tower in clothes that will last you the rest of your life and hunting elk on abandoned freeways.
Tyler's ideas have also been compared to the Tao de Ching. It advocates limited technology, like Tyler, and emphasizes a certain degree of surrender — to stop trying to control all things.
The movie appears to take place in Wilmington, Delaware, home to most credit card companies. Tyler's business card includes the Wilmington zip code 19808. Moreover, the cities specifically mentioned in the car-smashing scene are
New Castle, Delaware City and Penns Grove, NJ, which are close to Wilmington.
During his search for Tyler, someone asks the narrator if the rumors are true about the Fight Club in Miami, that Tyler Durden is building an army there, though this could be attributed to the "rumor" aspect of the information being discussed by the characters.
The film version of Fight Club won the following awards:
Synopsis
Warning: Plot details follow.
Critical reception
Characters
Trivia
In the movie, when the narrator finds out that Tyler is actually a part of him, he shoots himself, killing Tyler in the process. Tyler's last words in the film are: "What's that smell?" This is director David Fincher's reference to the lyricist Ira Gershwin who, while he was dying of an undiagnosed brain tumor, insisted that he could smell burning chicken feathers, and kept asking "what is that smell?" until he fell down dead.Awards
It was also nominated for the following awards:
Technical data (film)
ISBN numbers
See also
External links