Fight Club

Fight Club

1999

Director: David Fincher

Screenplay: Jim Uhls

139 Minutes

Fight Club is a philosophical film. It holds wisdom far beyond our grandparent’s reach and sets a standard for humanity’s actions against itself.

But, it all started with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt).

For the quotes, wisdom, philosophy placed within the actions and dialog of this film, it came at a time when people needed an escape. We bought our happiness. We paid our dues. And we were ants marching on a log heading closer to our ultimate demise. Then this film came out:

“Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is…”

And with it, Tyler changed lives. He inspired people to stand on the wall. And he gave meaning to hundreds of people that had no purpose. He was an alter-ago. He was a man’s man. And he was everything we wanted to be, then and now.

“All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.”

In the scene above, Tyler is discussing materialistic goods with the Narrator (Edward Norton). Tyler mentions, “The things you own end up owning you.” This then leads to Narrator’s apartment exploding. This leads to moving in with Tyler. And that leads to Fight Club.

But every second of this film is Tyler. We follow the Narrator, but Tyler is our hero. And heroes get the best dialog:

“You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.”

And

“It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.”

And

“Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space.”

And

“Self improvement is masturbation”

And finally:

“How much can you know yourself if you've never been in a fight?”

In the end, Fight Club is epic. It was an epic shooting schedule of 138 days with over 300 scenes shot on 200 locations. Director David Fincher, who is notorious for doing numerous takes, had Brad Pitt and Edward Nortan do 38 takes in Lou’s Bar after Narrator’s apartment blew up. And with a 71 million dollars budget, you get one of the greatest films in the history of cinema.

But the quote of the film, having no philosophical involvement, goes to Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) during the pillow-talk scene.

The studio wanted to the original line “I want to have your abortion” cut, thus Fincher made a deal he would cut that line, but the replacement line couldn’t be cut.

Fox Studio’s agreed, thus Marla says, ‘I haven’t been fucking like since grade school.”

And she has Tyler to thank for it.