Freak Engine

Fight Club is simply one of the best translations of a book to the screen…ever.  If you’ve read Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club you’ve pretty much seen David Fincher’s Fight Club and vice versa.  I saw the movie first so the book was a little bit redundant and boring.  I could predict every turn of phrase and every image.  There were slight differences, of course, but they hardly mattered.  That doesn’t mean that I hated the book…only that I felt like I’d read it before.

The meat of Fight Club exists in both works.  That’s hardly ever the case in Hollywood film translations of literary works.  Just ask Stephen King.  The best parts of King’s novels (to me anyway) are his characters and their internal struggles and observations.  Yes, sometimes rabid dogs attack people in cars and that can be exciting but it’s only interesting if you care about those people in that car and you’re clued into what they’re thinking.  Mostly this is left offscreen in Cujo.

In Fight Club, whether we know it or not on first viewing, much of what we see is internal.  That’s why the voiceovers work.  We see the world from the point of view of the lonely, nameless,  insomniac narrator (Ed Norton).  The extreme closeups used throughout the film mirror the hyperfocus of the main character.  They show the details first and the big picture later, much like the way the movie treats its audience.  Everything resonates with the main point which is…well, I suppose that depends on your personal point of view.  You could see Project Mayhem as either the salvation of our culture or the death of it.  The movie (and book) are really more concerned with the reconciliation of the two main characters.

Nihilism, terrorism, humanism, and many other isms are espoused by Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and even though some of his arguments contradict themselves they can still be persuasive.  But does that mean those arguments are endorsed by the filmmakers (and the writer of the book) as well?  I’d argue that they’re not.  But at the same time, I think that there’s a lot to be learned from Tyler Durden, soap magnate and part time terrorist.

I think the original novel was a response to the overwhelming, politically correct corporate speak that we are subjected to daily in advertising and news.  Fincher uses the very format of the film to reinforce this idea.  Tyler Durden is essentially the voice many of us would like to hear and believe.  He is anti-media.  In one of the film’s more brilliant moments, Durden’s close up vibrates to the point where the projected film appears to be pushed off it’s sprockets by his force of being.  He also appears as single-frame “subliminal” blips within scenes that happen before he’s introduced.  Both main characters exist within boundaries that they loathe and by the end of the film they have each broken free in their own way.

I should also mention the score by the Dust Brothers.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with their name, you’re very likely familiar with their work as producers.  They produced the best records by both the Beastie Boys (Paul’s Boutique) and Beck (Odelay).  Their music mirrors Fincher’s shots and editing in such a way that I can only imagine the sounds and images evolved simultaneously.  Their work on this picture is flawless.  It amazes me that they haven’t been asked to compose music for any other films.  Oh and I almost forgot – the movie ends with a Pixies song (Where is My mind?).  How awesome is that?

All in all, this is an almost perfect film.  It’s simultaneously sad, funny, horrifying, repulsive, exciting…you name it…AND it’s filled with interesting ideas that you can take home in your mental pockets.  What else could you really ask for?