FM4 - Single Film Critical Study: Fight Club

'A' Grade Exam Response

Section C – Single Film: Close Critical Study.

“Fight Club uses cinematic means to produce a fantasy which is also a serious exploration of masculinity”. How far does this statement capture your own response to the film?

The cinematic and thematic exploration of the undervalued blue-collar workers of America in “Fight Club” is an expression of the results of the suppression of masculine, animalistic and natural elements within modern society. While viewing the film the consideration the audience makes alongside the protagonist “Jack” (whose identity is questionable) appears to be questioning whether it is right to fight against this society of anti-masculine individuals who strive for materialism is really an emotional struggle.

We see that Jack experiences the consumerism of society while he is struggling with insomnia (created by the addiction to materialistic items in his apartment) through the sequence are fast-paced close-ups of popular items such as Starbucks cups, Crispy Creme Doughnuts and moreover a shot of his American dollars. These are noticeably crumpled and not at all patriotic with the logos not facing the framing. This focus upon materialism suggests a masculinity dealing with the feminine love of shopping coupled with the anonymity that American city dwelling brings. The idea that this could be anywhere in America is suggested with a memorable close up of stickers bearing “Hello. My name is _____” that evoke a response of loss of direction and identity within the audience. The anonymity and IKEA-catalogue based sequences we see Jack experience in his hallucinations are also a possible schizophrenic embodiment of this lack of any true identity or even his individuality hinting that arguably his importance as a man is being tested.

“Fight Club” embodies the idea of Nietzsche: the idea of a superman being possible is alluded to in the ever-repetitive doppelganger/split-persona of Tyler appearing in a subliminal flicker at the side of the frame throughout the first few scenes. This demonstrates the power that Tyler has over Jack’s mind, and it gets ever more present as the film progresses. It becomes more apparent when we see him in a tracking shot at the airport on an escalator, almost as if the camera shows a preference to following his movements rather than Jack's. This is because we see this side of the masculinity of the main characters split personality being the alpha male, also displayed when the camera tracks his movements from behind and in front as he is surrounded by a crowd in the basement. “Project Mayhem”, the needless fight of violence and terror, is powered by this dominant figure, giving the audience clues that this individual does not let himself be owned by possessions unlike Jack, and regards himself as his own.

Also seen in the masculinity of the postmodern traits of the film is the reference to a rape scene in “A Clockwork Orange”, as the eerily similar, exaggerated disorientation of angle of Tyler after beating up government officials is reminiscent of a more sinister, evil scene from a film about anarchy. This instils a sense of fear in the spectator, as the masculinity of this man appears to be turning into something more power-hungry and fascist. The intertextual reference to 'A Clockwork Orange' also confirms the postmodern significance of this film as it generates so many questions but ultimately and superficially fails to answer them.

The film also displays a radical array of misogynistic traits through the character of Marla, an anagram of the word “alarm” and met with the sound of sirens and non-diegetic influences of danger. This gives us the idea that the main character Jack is so terrified by this femme-fatale and disturbed by her appearance that his masculinity is challenged. In a neo-noir style, we see the framing of Marla introduced sinisterly via shadow and with her hat obscuring half of her face dominating the screen, she also gives the impression of power as it convinces us through the low-angle. Her character is also, while present during a scene in which the self-help group has to reflect and meditate, blurred in the background, while Jack thinks when we are catapulted into the frantic hallucination of Jack in a cool-blue icy cave, in his head, is interrupted by Marla smoking (that demonstrates further the hybrid of noir genre incorporated), she is clearly more dominant. It's as if she is the masculine one, she uses the word “slide” and this dialogue perhaps provokes the idea of Jack’s deterioration leading from here into the audience’s mind. When we next see her in the crosscut back to the church-style environment, it is Jack who is blurred and unimportant.

The narrative also relies on its use of cinematography to relay certain ideas through stylistic and mise-en-scene elements. Almost pornographically shot in a grotesque way is the footage of Jack turning up to his office beaten and bloody, with close-ups of his bruises after his decline into fighting that suggests that the main character has traded his addiction of self-help groups and materialism for the exhilaration of fighting as a form of release. The film also closely explores elements of homosexuality by referencing the experimental style of directors like Kenneth Anger, as we see that the fetishising of objects and improving the body of the men has elements that arise in “Fight Club”. It could be suggested that Jack is in love with the idea of Tyler, and therefore we are greeted with the notion that he is in fact homosexual or may have deep emotional struggles with such tendencies.

Furthermore, the response at the Viennese Film Festival to the film was an angry one of shock and concern over the films fascist, Nazi style links. The sequence in which we see Tyler and Jack stealing a liposuction factory’s human fat and processing it into soap to sell to the rich delivers a haunting message that there are still Nazi-style thoughts born of a generation in need of a disciplinary style of life to stop their masculinity going downhill. The cinematic means used to portray Jack’s early obsession with self-help groups, such as shot-reverse-shot from his close up face centred in the middle of the frame looking solemn, and then to a list of self-help groups not unlike a religious scroll, back to his face, and paired with organ, church style non-diegetic sound express the vulnerability of his addictive nature. This foreshadows his steady decline into being open to fighting and causing mayhem because of his easy transfixion’s with things.

Furthermore, the theme of gender confusion is embodied in the role of Bob, an ex-fighter who was once an alpha male, now resorting to crying at a self-help group and suffering from testicular cancer that physically and mentally feminises him. The viewer’s response is an automatic pity when Jack uses ironic dialogue that injects a hybrid of comedy into the film and we feel sorry for Bob. This emotive response is also strong in our fear that Jack will continue to gradually deteriorate as we see him jeering and fighting alongside the “Project Mayhem” gang – the division between Tyler, the alpha male, and Jack, the less superior character by means such as a phone booth window, trees, furniture and other characters suggest a fighting battle between Jack and his other persona. Because we see this vulnerability in Jack that lacks the usual American ego of a masculine male, we see that the masculinity he craves and worships is in fact slightly evil.

'Fight Club': Single Film Critical Study (Nietzche)

Friedrich Nietzsche & the concept of ‘The Superman’

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality. He was interested in the enhancement of individual and cultural health, and believed in life, creativity, power, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond. Central to his philosophy is the idea of “life-affirmation,” which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent those views might be. Often referred to as one of the first existentialist philosophers he developed the concept of ‘the superman’ and nihilism as a mode of existence. Nietzsche's revitalising philosophy has inspired leading figures in all walks of cultural life, including dancers, poets, novelists, painters, psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and social revolutionaries.

Useful quotes: (Apply these quotes to events within the narrative of ‘Fight Club’. They will deepen your understanding of a Nietzschean philosophical perspective)

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.

In heaven all the interesting people are missing.

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Man is the cruellest animal.

No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.

The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.

To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do…?

When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

God is dead.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

Become what you are 

'Fight Club' Themes: Video Essay

Fight Club with Tyler Durden removed

David Fincher’s cult movie stars Edward Norton as the unnamed protagonist, who forms a fight club with new pal Tyler (Brad Pitt).

The film’s shock twist ending revealed that Norton’s character was suffering from multiple personality disorder and was actually also Tyler.

Reddit user tramdog decided to edit a scene from 1999 film and digitally removed all signs of Tyler with Norton looking as if he’s speaking to himself.

The clip has gone down a storm on the site with fellow users calling on them to do a whole film in the same vein.

But he wasn’t so keen saying: ‘I don’t have the time or attention span it would take to do the whole thing. I may do more scenes later, but probably from a variety of different movies…

‘Honestly, I don’t think it would really be a very good movie taken as a whole.’

Source: Metro

FM4 - Single Film - 'A' Grade Exam Response: Critical Study: Fight Club

'Explore the contribution of visual style to the overall themes of Fight Club.'

Fight Club’s visual elements most definitely support its overall themes. I am going to be discussing certain themes in which I feel visually contribute to the narrative/themes.

Consumerism is a big theme in Fight Club, it could be argued that the need, and pressure to conform to modern day society, and spend a lot of time, money and effort buying and fantasizing over consumer goods could be responsible for Jack’s mental illness. At the beginning of the film there are lots of extreme close-ups of Starbucks, Krispy Crème branded packaging, which are American food and beverages but now also seen as fashion icons. It is fashionable to be seen walking down the street with a Starbucks coffee, or decorating your home in Ikeas latest catalogue. The scene where jack is in his condo is extremely visually effective, as the scene takes on an advertising style showing lots of items that he desired, and perhaps have a positive effect on aspects of his deranged life.

As Jack starts deteriorating, there are flashes (in the office by the photocopier and in the doctors surgery) of Tyler. These can be easily missed but also add to the idea that as Jack is deteriorating, Tyler is coming into the picture, The visual style almost acts as Jack’s head, like it is weakening for the audience to see. Jack’s addiction to new furniture and constant buying in order to better himself doesn’t fulfill his need to sleep, and faced with insomnia, finds refuge in support groups. These support groups are visually stylized in order to find comfort, which Jack does. There is also a visual representation of Christ. When jack cries on Bob’s top he leaves a mark in the face of God, which invites religious terms and imagery into the picture.

I think the visual elements of the film also show a misogynistic viewpoint of Marla. Visually, she always looks dowdy and gaunt, and in terms of framing she often dominates the whole screen. She is seen as the ‘Femme Fatale’ and the reason for dominating the screen could suggest that she is trying to take over, and continue to steal men’s masculinity within the film which may be the reason she is viewed negatively and shot in dominating positions. Marla coming to the support groups ruins it for Jack, so she could be seen as one step towards Jacks nialism in which he destroys himself, and becomes Tyler.

Tyler is always displayed flamboyantly, in adventurous clothes, and acts as the alpha male in a sense. Therefore I think the visuals contribute positively towards him, and enforce the soon becoming homoerotic style between him and Jack.

Jack/Tyler start up the fight club, and visually the look of the fights and the bare knuckle fighting could enforce the homoerotic argument, and show post modernism/hybridity as this use of genre (gliding shots, and in the closet sexuality) has been seen in experimental films by Kenneth Anger. There are also other examples of the use of hybridity when Tyler enters Marla’s room, to find a sex toy on the table, mirroring A Clockwork Orange.

One example of a visually powerful scene, was when Project Mayhem had the members of parliament on the floor in the toilet and there is a point of a view shot showing Tyler from a disorientated angle. This is also another example of hybridity as the same framing of the rape scene was used in A Clockwork Orange.

Irony was also used to further visual style. In the scene where Jack goes round to Marla’s flat to check for a lump in her breast, he leaves and on the wall behind him it says ‘I like myself’-which is ironic as he clearly doesn’t and subconsciously created another person in his head to make up for that.

Lots of visual styles are used in the film, such as advertising, and that of documentary. When Jack introduces Tyler, he is talking to the camera in a documentary kind of way that re-enforces a new style to the film.

When Jack enters his ‘cave’ in his cancer support group Marla is seen saying ‘slide’ this can be viewed as a misogynistic action, as from then on Jack slides downhill. Another important theme of the film is recycling. Marla recycles clothes, and Tyler recycles human fat in order to make soap. This theme runs throughout the film as Jack even kind of recycles himself for Tyler, the bigger, better version of him, and that’s made apparent in this quote ‘I look like you want to look, I talk like you want to talk, I fuck like you want to fuck’. Jack has recycled himself into Tyler as well as recycling fight club into project mayhem.

FM4 - Single Film - Critical Study: Fight Club

Read renowned film critic Alexander Walker's review of 'Fight Club' in the Evening Standard here at the time of the films release. It is highly critical of the film stating that it: "promotes pain and suffering as the virtues of the strongest. It tramples every democratic decency underfoot. Like Hitler, its characters elevate the halbstarken, the "middle children of history", the underclass of outsiders who feel alienated and unvalued, and form them into disciplined cells, giving them a purpose in life which is to inflict panic and anarchy on the community."

What do you think?

FM4 - Single Film - Critical Study: Fight Club

Read this excellent critical review of 'Fight Club' @ the filmjournal.com for a discussion of America's problems of meaning and how the male has been betrayed by his culture and the dulled-down consumerist dreams he has inherited. It will provide interesting points that are central to understanding the key concepts at work in this film.

'Fight Club': Single Film Critical Study (Freud)

Freud proposed that the human psyche could be divided into three parts: Id, ego and super-ego. Freud discussed this model in the 1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and fully elaborated upon it in The Ego and the Id (1923), in which he developed it as an alternative to his previous topographic schema (i.e., conscious, unconscious and preconscious). The id is the completely unconscious, impulsive, childlike portion of the psyche that operates on the "pleasure principle" and is the source of basic impulses and drives; it seeks immediate pleasure and gratification.

Freud acknowledged that his use of the term Id (das Es, "the It") derives from the writings of Georg Groddeck. The super-ego is the moral component of the psyche, which takes into account no special circumstances in which the morally right thing may not be right for a given situation. The rational ego attempts to exact a balance between the impractical hedonism of the id and the equally impractical moralism of the super-ego; it is the part of the psyche that is usually reflected most directly in a person's actions. When overburdened or threatened by its tasks, it may employ defense mechanisms including denial, repression, and displacement. This concept is usually represented by the "Iceberg Model". This model represents the roles the Id, Ego, and Super Ego play in relation to conscious and unconscious thought.

Freud compared the relationship between the ego and the id to that between a charioteer and his horses: the horses provide the energy and drive, while the charioteer provides direction.

Fight Club: Booklet (New Version)

'Fight Club': Philosophy & Film

Fight Club: Philosophy & Film

Postmodernism and Consumer Society: Working with Frederic Jameson's categories

(1) "the transformation of reality into images" (cf. Debord and Baudrillard)

(2) "the fragmentation of time into a series of perpetual presents"

"the erosion of the older distinction between high culture and so-called mass or popular culture" (Jameson).

Pastiche and parody of multiple styles: old forms of "content" become mere "styles"

stylistic masks, image styles, without present content: the meaning is in the mimicry

"in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum" (Jameson).

No individualism or individual style, voice, expressive identity. All signifiers circulate and recirculate prior and existing images and styles.

The postmodern in advertising: attempts to provide illusions of individualism (ads for jeans, cars, etc.) through images that define possible subject positions or create desired positions (being the one who's cool, hip, sexy, desirable, sophisticated...).

"our advertising...is fed by postmodernism in all the arts and is inconceivable without it" (Jameson)

Po-Mo as late capitalism: transnational capitalism without borders, only networks and info flows. Some features of postmodern styles:

Nostalgia and retro styles, recycling earlier genres and styles in new contexts (film/TV genres, images, typography, colors, clothing and hair styles, advertising images)

"History" represented through nostalgic images of pop culture, fantasies of the past. History has become one of the styles; historical representations blend with nostalgia.

"the disappearance of a sense of history, the way in which our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in a perpetual present and in a perpetual change that obliterates traditions of the kind which all earlier social formations have had in one way or another to preserve... The information function of the media would thus be to help us to forget, to serve as the very agents and mechanisms of our historical amnesia" (Jameson).

Culture on Fast Forward: Time and history replaced by speed, futureness, accelerated obsolescence.

Information from: http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/pomo.html

FM4 - Single Film - Critical Study: Fight Club

"Fight Club" by Alexander Walker (1999)

Read Alexander Walker's highly critical review from the Evening Standard at the time the film was released:

My verdict on Fight Club is already in: it is an inadmissible assault on personal decency. And on society itself. At its Venice Film Festival world premiere in September, it caused well-justified outrage as a movie phenomenon well in line with the current tentative but threatening revival of Nazism. In particular, it alarmed my Jewish film critic friends.

They saw its story - correctly, I think - as a paradigm of the Hitler state. Even though it is set in contemporary America, it's not simply about young guys beating the hell out of each other with bare fists in secret fight clubs. Its story may be insane and septic, but it uncritically enshrines principles that once underpinned the politics of fascism, and ultimately sent millions of Jews to the death camps.

It echoes propaganda that gave licence to the brutal activities of the SA and the SS. It resurrects the Fuhrer principle. It promotes pain and suffering as the virtues of the strongest. It tramples every democratic decency underfoot. Like Hitler, its characters elevate the halbstarken, the "middle children of history", the underclass of outsiders who feel alienated and unvalued, and form them into disciplined cells, giving them a purpose in life which is to inflict panic and anarchy on the community.

Such a disreputable rebranding of Nazi goods is directed by David Fincher for 20th Century-Fox. Fincher made the cleverest and sickest of recent film noirs with Seven, a movie that cynically avoided depicting violence by dwelling almost entirely on autopsies and posthumous images of its dead and decomposing victims of violence.

Fight Club is an even more toxic experience. It's set in some big but unnamed American city where Edward Norton is a self-loathing nerd employed to see if auto crashes justify recalling the cars his bosses make, or simply settling out of court - whichever is the smaller cost to the company.

At first the film looks as if it's shaping up to be a laconic commentary on the distorted values of US consumerism. I'd have settled for that. But its material gets grosser and alienating. Norton, an insomniac wanderer, gate-crashes pathetic "support groups" for those with diseases like testicular and bowel cancer, TB and Aids, working off his own angsts on the realities of the terminally ill. Then he meets Brad Pitt.

Pitt is an active sociopath, an articulate apprentice of random malice. Like Guy Grand, the prankster-hero of Terry Southern's anarchic novel The Magic Christian, he is a public enemy: sometimes he works as a waiter, peeing in the soup, farting on the puddings; sometimes as a movie projectionist, splicing erect penises subliminally into family films.

But once he and Norton form a homo-erotic alliance, cohabiting in a grungy house built (but barely) on a waste dump, the two owners of the same psychopathy set up a secret league of fight clubs where the maladjusted and the macho slug it out nightly to get in touch with their diminished manhood by demonstrating how much pain they can endure.

Some apologists for Fight Club say that's what - and that's all - it's about: men proving they're men again. Even if this were true, which it's not, it's a malicious film-maker who sees masculinity served by pulping each other into bloody insensibility with bare knuckles. A year or two ago, David Cronenberg's Crash suggested that people could top up their sexual libido by crashing their cars into each other on the public highways. Fight Club promotes a perversion that's a potentially more dangerous franchise.

This one requires only the weaponry we all possess (given the will) of bare fists and the less costly allure of secret illegality and doing harm only to the body-work of a human being, not an expensive automobile. Even with the cuts made in it by our film censors, it's an irresponsible attraction to promote in a community like ours, already over-stretched just to maintain the semblance of public safety.

Norton is soon going to the office with bleeding gums, black eyes, bruised cheeks, damaged hearing and bloodstained clothes, and spitting out (along with loose teeth) such bits of acquired wisdom as: "You can swallow a pint of blood before getting sick." The fights themselves disgust and deafen eye and ear. They are grotesquely explicit and pornographically amplified. They exceed the limits of all screen violence I've seen in recent years. They are the apotheosis of the way in which today's moronic American super-stars pump up their ego muscles in public to exhibit themselves as Hollywood supremacists scornful of all values save those of their own box-office.

The movie gradually makes its analogy with Nazi Germany even more overt. Pitt and Norton raid liposuction waste dumpsters at night, retrieving "the richest cream fat in the world", that's been siphoned out of the obese, and rendering it into red soap tablets they then flog to exclusive boutiques. It's unbelievable any film would dare use, even as such a sick gag, a sequence reminiscent of that chapter of the Holocaust in which Nazi thoroughness rendered the Jews down into similar, no doubt less pricy soap bars. But Fight Club has no reticence, no memory, no shame.

Ultimately, the club membership expands into a nationwide secret army of proto-Nazis who embark on what's grandly called Project Mayhem. They pick fights with innocent passers-by, graffiti-spray buildings, befoul fountains, rob stores, sabotage public works, set off bombs - do all, in short, that Hitler's Brown Shirts did to destabilise the frightened society of their own time. One of Pitt's acolytes, played by Meat Loaf as a hormonal freak with pecs like women's breasts, is shot dead: he becomes an instant martyr-hero whose name is chanted in the same sort of solidarity mantra as Horst Wessel's when that young SA man became the first saint of the Nazi movement with an anthem to memorialise him.

It defies belief that such a film could have been conceived, shot and distributed by a film company whose ultimate boss, Rupert Murdoch, is an arch-exponent of the very capitalist system that Fight Club scorns. You sit there aghast at the amorality and opportunism of the film business. Not for the first time, I admit. But this time its impact is far more inflammatory. Even the metaphysical twist at the end - which I am asked not to disclose, and which is so confusing that to describe it would be a waste of time - cannot convert a film that is a summons to anarchy into an anodyne screen fantasy.

In any well-adjusted society, its stars would feel a backlash of public indignation well beyond the box-office. Edward Norton is one of America's most gifted actors; Brad Pitt one of its most personable. Both, curiously, played Nazis in two earlier films, American History X and Seven Years in Tibet. For their future good, they should explore the world beyond Mein Kampf. As for Britain's own Helena Bonham Carter, playing a sleazy, white-faced slut, on drugs, suicidal, servicing the flesh and fantasies of both men, she shows the extent that actresses are willing to go in order to trash their screen images and enjoy notoriety without responsibility. It is not a pretty sight.

'Fight Club': Single Film Critical Study (Freud - Id, Ego, Superego)

Id: The most primitive drive, concerned only with fulfilling pleasure. Has sometimes been referred to as the irrational and emotional part of the mind. It is often regarded as being selfish, because it’s concerned only with its own self-satisfaction. Babies and young children are often used as examples because they’re usually driven by the pleasure and instant gratification principles. Key word: want

Ego: Based on the reality principle. The ego is capable of understanding that one’s own desires may vary for people around (reality), and is willing to make this consideration. The ego tries to meet the basic needs of the id but also takes into account the real world. The ego understands that actions have effects, whether positive or negative, and tries to balance out thinking before carrying out decisions/actions. Key word: balance

Superego: Based on moral principles instilled by rearing and moral/ethical restraints placed upon by caregivers. The superego encompasses an individual’s ideals, goals, and conscience as well as society’s. The superego is concerned with what other will think, and stands in opposition to the id. The superego acts to perfect and civilize our behavior. Key words: morals, compromise

According to Freud, a healthy individual will have developed a strongest ego to keep the id and superego in check. If the id becomes too strong, impulses and desires may become overwhelming (resulting in a selfish, inconsiderate individual) and affect interpersonal relationships. However, if the superego is too strong, an individual may feel excessive rigid moral constraints that result in judgmental individuals, thus straining interpersonal relationships as well.

Re-posted from: houseofmind.tumblr

FM4 - Single Film Critical Study: Fight Club

Fight Club: The End of Masculinity

Here is a detailed critical analysis of 'Fight Club' - One-Dimensional Men: Fincher's 'Fight Club' and the End of Masculinity. It provides an excellent perspective on the film and is an ideal source for answering the Single Film Critical Study in the FM4 paper.

Fight Club: Analysis/Articles

FM4 - Single Film Critical Study: Fight Club

Fight Club: Video Essay

Here is a video essay on 'Fight Club' from the Museum of the Moving Image site. You may find it useful revision for some of the critical perspectives we have been applying to film. It will also be useful for reminding you of the key scenes to discuss in your exam response.

FM4 - Single Film Critical Study: Fight Club

Fight Club: Exam Guidance

Characteristics of a postmodern text that can be seen within ‘Fight Club’:

Intertextuality – the referencing of other cultural texts; either visually or verbally within the content of the text  (Psycho/A Clockwork Orange/Forrest Gump etc.)

Hybridity - the mixing and/or recycling of pre-existing genres and narratives to construct new forms or a ‘hybrid’ (Noir/Psychological Thriller/Fantasy etc.)

Simulation - a lack of any sense of reality to the real world (Is aware that it is a film)

Surface – a text that is more concerned with the superficial and/or devoid of any depth of meaning (Includes so many ideas that it fails to deliver an overall message)

Pastiche – paying ‘homage’ to older texts (see intertextuality)

Bricolage - the collection of disparate or differing objects to help explain the nature of the prevailing culture and society (links to the construction of the film - it's assembled from many different styles/ideas)

Irony – playfulness with the style, form and/or content of a text (Knows that is referencing other films and has fun with its style)

When answering the question from a postmodern perspective apply the key words to a wide range of scenes in your discussion. Don't just state that it's postmodern as you will also have to explain how your understanding of the film has changed as a result of studying the critical perspective.

Fight Club: Critical Approaches

A/B: Mark Scheme Descriptors For FM4 Sections

Section A & B Mark Scheme (35) 

 Section C Mark Scheme (30) 

FM4 - 'A' Grade Exam Responses

'A' Grade Exam Response Guidance

• Answer each question directly/stress the key points
• Use key words from the question: repeatedly throughout
• Make it clear what films will be discussed at the start: directors + year
• Refer directly to key sequences using detailed analysis and film language to refer to key scenes (mise-en- scene/framing/lighting/sound etc)
• Give a ‘personal response’ (ie: for me/ I believe/in my opinion/the second time I watched it/with further viewing)

Summary of Recommendations:

• Answer the question as asked
• Less is sometimes more: structure an argument and choose examples carefully for maximum impact in relation to the question
• Bring macro and micro analysis into this paper; extending on the last point, detailed reference and discussion is always better than general description.