Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 22-May-05
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Fight Club (1999)

There's a scene in "The Ten Commandments" that pisses me off, so of course I think about it often: as Moses crawls across the desert mere minutes away from death, the bombastic narrator states that he is finally ready to be molded by his maker. The notion that a man must be destroyed before he can be saved fairly revolts me. It indicates a streak of masochism in the human psyche (and sadism in the envisioned Creator), and I lament that the value of simple, happy goodness is generally underrated.

It's strange, then, that "Fight Club" thoroughly delights me, since it starts with the premise that pain and conflict are the surest way to spiritual enlightenment. I suppose it doesn't hurt that it's one of the funniest movies I have ever seen, or that it features terrific acting and stylish directing by David Fincher. Then again, it could be the rare instance where I relate to contemporary times more than past ones: a robed Charlton Heston fleeing the persecution of the pharaoh in the oases of ancient Egypt just doesn't speak to me as much as an Oxford-shirted Edward Norton escaping the alienation of his capitalist society by beating the snot out of his friends in a barroom basement. In bygone ages, life was naturally hard. Nowadays, maybe we need to make it so.

The fighting in "Fight Club" (of which there is quite a bit) is aimed toward the goal of "hitting bottom," i.e., sloughing off the trappings of modern life (the need to control and possess, and the material things we acquire because of it) and letting "that which does not matter truly slide." The instigators of the fisticuffs are the narrator (Norton), a lonely insomniac who inspects car crashes for a living, and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a charismatic loose cannon who produces soap from illicitly obtained liposuction waste. From the moment these two meet on a plane, strange and wondrous things begin to happen. Norton's repressed character moves into Tyler's ramshackle old mansion, expands his strange friendship with an equally angst-ridden woman (Helena Bonham Carter), and gives up his hobby of attending group meetings for people with terminal illnesses (none of which he has). Instead, he finds release in recreationally fighting his roommate in late-night public places, where they soon attract a small group of like-minded men and form a club of pugilists who experience epiphany in the flow of blood, the smack of flesh against bone. As the months go by and the narrator watches on with combined horror and envy, Tyler transforms the club into an underground army willing to do anything to further his nihilistic creed.

Perhaps we don't need to be stripped and flayed in order to speak to God, but I'll wager that most moderns have wondered whether a jolt — a financial loss, a UFO abduction, a near-death experience — would do them some good. Built into our grasping, shallow, plastic-covered world is the nasty suspicion that we're moving away from the basic elements of our nature, which amounts to a punishable treason. Tyler Durden knows this and "Fight Club" knows this, although it doesn't insist as he does that the inspiration of raw torment always points in the right direction. The movie's finale is more disturbing in a post-9/11 world than it was probably meant to be, but in any context it provides an unnerving sendoff that leaves what came before open to interpretation. Fortunately, however, it isn't all about philosophy. "Fight Club" is a visceral experience that makes you feel (surprise, exhilaration, glee), which is a relatively clean and harmless way of getting a salubrious thrill.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.