Starring: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter
Overall Rating: 100.0
The movie that made me a film freak. Before watching Fight Club, movies were just a source of entertainment for me. After Fight Club, they became an artform. The first time I heard David Fincher, Brad Pitt, and Edward Norton's commentary about the making of this movie and learning all of the subtle nuances that Fincher added in to honor the great Chuck Palahniuk's anarchistic masterpiece, I was mesmerized. For anyone who's seen the movie multiple times, I'd suggest reading the trivia page on IMDb and see how of these nuances you missed during your first few viewings. I'm guessing it's a majority. Watching Fight Club is like watching a baseball game, every time you watch, you see something you've never seen before.
In addition to the brilliant film-making by David Fincher, there is also a lot of substance from Palahniuk's source material. Every man on this planet has a spot deep within them that just wants to see the world crumble around them. Palahniuk imagines a world where a simple man lives his life knowing he's an insignificant smudge on this thing we call Earth. His name is Tyler Durden, and In Tyler We Trust.
David Fincher was even forced to place advertising inside his movie by Fox, as they had a deal with Pepsi. To comply, Fincher put a visible Pepsi and Mt. Dew vending machine at two points of the movie. They also happened to be two of the most violent, gut-wrenching parts of the movie to intentionally make the viewer sick as they saw those machines. In the Fight Club world, this is a beautiful, calculated move.
Fight Club creates a new breed of macho-ism. It's not how one looks that defines him as a man, it's how one acts. Fuck designer shirts and 7-minute abs. Living in a society that focuses more on what Kim Kardashian's farts smell like, rather than mass genocide taking place in third world countries can do nothing but make anarchy look pretty damn sweet. As you're watching the destruction on the screen, it's not horrific, it's gratifying. Fuck credit cards and coffee shops.
The Dust Brothers provide a fantastic industrial soundtrack to accompany the dark images being shown. Add in one of the top uses of a song in any film, with the Pixies' "Where is My Mind" closing out the final moments of the movie, and you leave the film feeling slightly exhausted, but in a good way.
A socially powerful film, Fight Club is one of those movies that any young man should watch to try to find out more about himself before entering "the real world".
Individual Ratings
Enjoyment Factor: 10
Dialogue: 10
Acting: 9
Direction: 10
Audio/Visual: 10
No comments:
Post a Comment