WARNING: Spoiler Alerts. If you haven't seen "Fight Club", don't watch this
If you take a quick look at this video, you'll see a visual approximation of my head after watching the movie "Fight Club" for the first time. While I don't normally watch movies, this one absolutely sucked me in and blew me away. From the gradual build of Fight Club to Project Mayhem to the insane plot twist involving Tyler Durden to the high quality acting of Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter, this movie absolutely astounded me.
But, my policy with art, media or literature is that the creation in question must stand up to multiple views, reads or listens to truly be considered great. And so, back into the world of "Fight Club" I descend, rewatching it on my computer whenever I get a chance. And I'll be damned if the second time isn't better than the first. I had been sure when I started that I would be able to catch a slip on the writer's part; somewhere where a character reveals or acts contrary to the fact that Brad Pitt's character and Edward Norton's character are one and the same. But there's nothing. Not a single slip of character, not a single slip of dialogue that could even begin to give the secret away. The real brilliance of this though, is that the writers also manage to avoid giving you Edward Norton's character's name until the reveal, that the interactions between Brad Pitt's character and other characters in the film make perfect sense even when you go back and look at him as the same person as Edward Norton. The first time I watched it, I never found myself asking what the main character's name was. I simply assumed that I knew. And now that I'm watching it a second time, I'm finding that I'm never asking how Tyler Durden managed to do two things at once, because he doesn't.
Even now, after my second watching, there are still things I don't understand, lines that I haven't figured out, moments that don't make sense. So I guess it's back down the rabbit hole for another viewing. Look for an update to this post describing my third run through and until then, remember: The first rule of Fight Club is do not talk about Fight Club
A cult classic indeed. This is one of those films that have such an effect on its audience that viewers can usually remember exactly when/where they first saw it. I was your age and visiting my older brother at Bucknell. The student union building offered $2 movies and I remember my brother and I attending a movie that neither of us had heard of at the time and knew absolutely nothing about. Psychological and mental health films are always fascinating: Shutter Island, Identity, etc, but Fight Club takes the cake in pure genius, creativity, and execution.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, and I'm glad you've met Tyler Durden.