Fight Club is a 1999 American film directed by David Fincher starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter. It is based on the 1996 novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. Norton plays the unnamed narrator, who is discontented with his white-collar job. He forms a "fight club" with a soap salesman, Tyler Durden (Pitt) and becomes embroiled with an impoverished but beguiling woman, Marla Singer (Bonham Carter).
Palahniuk's novel was optioned by Fox 2000 Pictures producer Laura Ziskin, who hired Uhls to write the film adaptation. Fincher was selected because of his enthusiasm for the story. He developed the script with Uhls and sought screenwriting advice from the cast and others in the film industry. It was filmed in and around Los Angeles from July to December 1998. He and the cast compared the film to Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and The Graduate (1967), with a theme of conflict between Generation X and the value system of advertising.
Studio executives did not like the film and restructured Fincher's intended marketing campaign to try to reduce anticipated losses. Fight Club premiered at the 56th Venice International Film Festival on September 10, 1999, and was released in the United States on October 15, 1999, by 20th Century Fox. The film failed to meet the studio's expectations at the box office and polarized critics. It was ranked as one of the most controversial and talked-about films of the 1990s. However, Fight Club later found commercial success with its home video release, establishing it as a cult classic and causing media to revisit the film. In 2009, on its tenth anniversary, The New York Times dubbed it the "defining cult movie of our time".
Plot
The unnamed Narrator works an office job as an insurance claims examiner/insurance investigator. He sees a doctor for his disordered sleep, complaining that he falls asleep unexpectedly and wakes up in unfamiliar places. The doctor suggests he attend a testicular cancer support group to see what actual pain looks like. The Narrator does so, and finds that the honesty and vulnerability he experiences there improve his sleep. He begins attending other support groups and encounters Marla Singer, another impostor, whose presence unnerves him. After a confrontation, the two agree to split the groups they attend.
The Narrator meets luxury soap salesman Tyler Durden on a business flight. Upon returning home, the Narrator finds his apartment destroyed in an explosion, and calls Tyler. They meet at a bar, where Tyler criticizes the Narrator's consumerist lifestyle and mocks him for not directly asking for a place to stay. Tyler agrees the Narrator can stay with him, but first asks a favor: for the Narrator to punch him as hard as he can. The Narrator does so, instigating an agreeable exchange of painful blows. At Tyler's large and decrepit house, they start an underground "Fight Club" at the bar, as a way for men to reclaim control of their lives.
Tyler saves Marla from an overdose, leading to a sexual relationship, while the Narrator remains cold to her. Tyler has the Narrator promise not to talk to Marla about him.
His experiences at Fight Club transform the Narrator, and he grows increasingly disillusioned with his career. He extorts his boss by beating himself up in his boss's office, staging it as if the boss had assaulted him, and uses the hush money to expand Fight Club. He attracts new members, including his cancer support group friend, Robert "Bob" Paulsen. Tyler transforms the club into Project Mayhem, which commits increasingly destructive anti-capitalist acts. The Narrator confronts Tyler, who confesses to exploding the Narrator's apartment to free him from his consumerist lifestyle. They argue, then Tyler goes missing. When the police kill Bob during a Project Mayhem mission, the Narrator tries to dismantle Project Mayhem and discovers its nationwide reach.
Across several cities, the Narrator finds local chapters and asks if they have seen Tyler, but they give evasive and confusing answers until one member identifies the Narrator as Mr. Durden. The Narrator calls Marla to enquire about their relationship; she calls him Tyler. Once she hangs up, Tyler appears in the room with the Narrator and rebukes him for involving Marla. The Narrator realizes he and Tyler are the same person, with Tyler taking control during the Narrator's apparent narcolepsy.
The Narrator discovers Project Mayhem's ultimate objective: to erase all debt records by blowing up the skyscrapers of consumer credit companies. He warns Marla to stay away from him and goes to alert the police, but finds the officers are themselves Project Mayhem members. They attempt to castrate him on Tyler's orders. The Narrator escapes and disarms one of the bombs, prompting Tyler to attack him.
The Narrator reasons that Tyler's gun must be in his own hand, and finds that he is now holding it. He shoots himself in the cheek, "killing" Tyler but leaving the Narrator alive. He and Marla hold hands and watch the skyline as buildings collapse.
Cast
Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, a charismatic soap salesman who forms Fight Club with the narrator. Edward Norton as the unnamed narrator, an insomniac automobile recall specialist dissatisfied with his consumerist lifestyle. Helena Bonham Carter as Marla Singer, a woman who attends support groups and becomes involved with the narrator and Tyler Meat Loaf Aday as Robert "Bob" Paulsen, a former bodybuilder whom the narrator meets at a support group Jared Leto as Angel Face, a young member of Fight Club and Project Mayhem Holt McCallany as the Mechanic, a loyal member of Fight Club and Project Mayhem Zach Grenier as Richard Chesler, the narrator's supervisor at the automobile company Eion Bailey as Ricky, a young recruit of Fight Club and Project Mayhem Peter Iacangelo as Lou, the owner of the bar where Fight Club meets Thom Gossom Jr. as Detective Stern, a police detective investigating Project Mayhem
Themes
Fincher said Fight Club was a coming of age film, like the 1967 film The Graduate but for people in their 30s. Fincher described the Narrator as an "everyman"; the character is identified in the script as "Jack", but left unnamed in the film. Fincher outlined the Narrator's background, "He's tried to do everything he was taught to do, tried to fit into the world by becoming the thing he isn't." He cannot find happiness, so he travels on a path to enlightenment in which he must "kill" his parents, god and teacher. By the start of the film, he has "killed off" his parents. With Tyler Durden, he kills his god by doing things they are not supposed to do. To complete the process of maturing, the Narrator has to kill his teacher, Tyler Durden.
The character is a 1990s inverse of the Graduate archetype: "a guy who does not have a world of possibilities in front of him, he has no possibilities, he literally cannot imagine a way to change his life." He is confused and angry, so he responds to his environment by creating Tyler Durden, a Nietzschean Übermensch, in his mind. While Tyler is who the Narrator wants to be, he is not empathetic and does not help the Narrator face decisions in his life "that are complicated and have moral and ethical implications". Fincher explained, "[Tyler] can deal with the concepts of our lives in an idealistic fashion, but it doesn't have anything to do with the compromises of real life as modern man knows it. Which is: you're not really necessary to a lot of what's going on. It's built, it just needs to run now." While studio executives worried that Fight Club was going to be "sinister and seditious", Fincher sought to make it "funny and seditious" by including humor to temper the sinister element.
Screenwriter Jim Uhls described the film as a romantic comedy, explaining, "It has to do with the characters' attitudes toward a healthy relationship, which is a lot of behavior which seems unhealthy and harsh to each other, but in fact does work for them—because both characters are out on the edge psychologically." The Narrator seeks intimacy, but avoids it with Marla Singer, seeing too much of himself in her. While Marla is a seductive and negativist prospect for the Narrator, he embraces the novelty and excitement that comes with befriending Tyler. The Narrator is comfortable being personally connected to Tyler, but becomes jealous when Tyler becomes sexually involved with Marla. When the Narrator argues with Tyler about their friendship, Tyler tells him that being friends is secondary to pursuing the philosophy they have been exploring. When Tyler implies that Marla is a risk they should remove, the Narrator realizes he should have focused on her and begins to diverge from Tyler's path.
The Narrator, an unreliable narrator, is not immediately aware that he is mentally projecting Tyler. He also mistakenly promotes the fight clubs as a way to feel powerful, though the Narrator's physical condition worsens while Tyler Durden's appearance improves. While Tyler desires "real experiences" of actual fights like the Narrator at first, he manifests a nihilistic attitude of rejecting and destroying institutions and value systems. His impulsive nature, representing the id, is seductive and liberating to the Narrator and the members of Project Mayhem. Tyler's initiatives and methods become dehumanizing; he orders around the members of Project Mayhem with a megaphone similar to camp directors at Chinese re-education camps. The Narrator pulls back from Tyler and arrives at a middle ground between his conflicting selves.
Fight Club examines Generation X angst as "the middle children of history". Norton said it examines the value conflicts of Generation X as the first generation raised on television: this generation had "its value system largely dictated to it by advertising culture" and was told one could achieve "spiritual happiness through home furnishing". His character walks through his apartment while visual effects identify his many IKEA possessions. Fincher described the Narrator's immersion, "It was just the idea of living in this fraudulent idea of happiness." Pitt said, "Fight Club is a metaphor for the need to push through the walls we put around ourselves and just go for it, so for the first time we can experience the pain."
Fight Club also parallels the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause; both probe the frustrations of the people in the system. The characters, having undergone societal emasculation, are reduced to "a generation of spectators". A culture of advertising defines society's "external signifiers of happiness", causing an unnecessary chase for material goods that replaces the more essential pursuit of spiritual happiness. The film references consumer products such as Gucci, Calvin Klein and the Volkswagen New Beetle. Norton said of the Beetle, "We smash it ... because it seemed like the classic example of a Baby Boomer generation marketing plan that sold culture back to us." Pitt explained the dissonance, "I think there's a self-defense mechanism that keeps my generation from having any real honest connection or commitment with our true feelings. We're rooting for ball teams, but we're not getting in there to play. We're so concerned with failure and success—like these two things are all that's going to sum you up at the end."