FM4 - Single Film - Critical Study: Fight Club

Student Work

'Fight Club' in 6 images/6 key themes/250 words

1. Terrorism

2. Sexuality

3. Branding

4. Pleasure/Pain

5. Meaninglessness/Fake

6. The Nietzschean concept of the 'superman'

‘Fight Club’ is story that deals with the concept of postmodernism in a very postmodern way. The narrative is constantly referring to the re-use of things and recycling texts, literally intertextually referencing older movies like ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and ‘Psycho’. The film constantly refers to itself to remind the viewer that it is a movie and that its not reality. It also deals with the crisis of masculinity and deals with the apparent nature of males of their constant need to be part of a fraternity of like-minded people and their willingness to follow any opposing ideology no matter what it is. Also it displays the idea that all problems men face in life can be fixed through therapy, fighting or terrorism as if it is what they were born to do. It also has narrative themes of mental instability and split personalities exploring the idea that men are weak minded yet physicality strong. The character of Tyler is also a strong Marxist showing the political messages in the film of conformity with everyone being the same and working together for the same purpose. This is shown to be interchangeable with how people will blindly follow ideas with little thought of the consequences. It could also be interpreted as having homosexual themes shown through the relationships of Angel Face, Tyler and Jack, as Jack feels threatened by the growing relationship between Tyler and Angel Face.

‘Fight Club’ has many themes, I think that the main one is about recycling; this is shown throughout the narrative and through the fact that the film itself is a postmodern film. ‘Fight Club’ reuses many iconic scenes and shots from other films, the most notable being ‘A Clockwork Orange’. The constant reuse and references to other older films, and the overall lack of meaning, unresolved points and disappointing ending, demonstrates clearly that over time if things are constantly reused they lose any sense of meaning. In the end everything becomes a diluted and almost unrecognisable simulation of an original idea. The theme of recycling is referenced within the film also, seen clearly by the making of soap from unwanted fat to be re-sold to the same people that it was initially extracted from.

‘Fight Club’ is a complex film with multiple meanings and contemporary social ideas. Binary opposition and irony symbolises the dual personality of the main character. We see consumerism versus originality, rejection versus acceptance, escapism versus entrapment and importantly love versus hate. Jack is shown to be an insecure individual who finds it difficult to accept, not only himself, but also societies opinions and ways, thereby refusing to conform. As a form of perhaps escapism, the character of Tyler is created as a doppelganger of Jack and everything he wishes he could be.

Throughout the film, America is portrayed to be a society ruled by consumerism with everything seeming to be “a copy of a copy of a copy”. Ironically Jack detests this, yet we see him wanting to be a copy of Tyler and furthermore, they create copies of themselves when creating project mayhem. A further aspect of irony to this is the film itself. Intertextuality references copies of shots, themes and representations from an array of other films mixing conventions of multiple genres.

'Fight Club' lacks any overriding meaning but this is the point as it is an ironic statement on contemporary culture. The film presents the idea that we do things because we are consumed by multiple ideas yet we are all consumers as we watch the film, accepting passively what we see, this in itself is ironic. The film is a hybrid of many genres, the predominant ones being film noir and crime/ gangster, that reflects the mix in our own society, being filled with different types of people all wanting to show something, with sexual conflicts emphasizing the need to be in control and exhibit power. The film predicts that we will be so consumed with our own conflicting beliefs that we will resort to self-destruction. The theme of addiction is also explored as we subconsciously become consumers, we accept Jack and Tyler for what they are as we generally revert to being members of a passive audience. No matter how many times we overcome one addiction it will always be replaced by another.