I watched it for the first time last night. Not what I expected. Please give one movie-review type line that captures the essence of this extraordinary movie. I will begin:
What can possibly go wrong when a pencil-pushing insomniac (Ed Norton) meets up with a man of extraordinary will, and a revolutionary attitude regarding the general direction that capitalism is taking society (Brad Pitt).
What can possibly go wrong when a pencil-pushing insomniac (Ed Norton) meets up with a man of extraordinary will, and a revolutionary attitude regarding the general direction that capitalism is taking society (Brad Pitt).
42 comments:
In space, no one can hear you talk about fight club.
Pitt plays a puggish Puck in a peckish performance. Phooey.
"In the tragedy in question, for example, he condemned the ideas but admired the style, abhorred the conception but praised all the details, found the characters impossible but their speeches marvelous."
-Flowbert
A little authenticity goes a long way. Especially when it's a fist smashing into your forehead. If the Fight Club mentality ever went mainstream you'd be stunned how many would make a beeline back to capitalist false consciousness.
Pitt's housecoat was the star of the show.
"Don't let the trailers fool you, this isn't a remake of Bloodsport."
The brilliance, if it can be called that, was making Pitt imaginary. It never occurred to me that that's what the movie makers were doing.
The movie makers were flattering me with the idea that a guy like Pitt was helping the "little guy".
flattery of the "mark," the sucker, is the first step in any confidence game. Mamet explains how flattery and self-flattery are keys to understanding how people become and remain "progressives."
Even after being shown, in the movie, that Pitt was not real I still resisted the idea.
I was bamboozled. I was sold.
"Sometimes the person you have sex with and the person you encounter outside the bedroom are two completely different people."
Helena Bonham Carter is overrated.
Whaaaaat? I saw it when it was new and that's about all I remember.
I shall never see fight club, therefore, need never talk about fight club.
Pitt, shown as any sort of fighter, is laughable. Both on film and in person. Seems a pussy, though a pretty one, for the ladies.
If I piss me off enough, I will kick my own ass, and take the rest of you with me.
Fight Club is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get."
In fight club, first prize is a Cadillac, second prize - steak knives, third prize - you're fired.
Fight club is only for closers.
Fight club is like "the way we were" only more realistic.
Funny you should say that, rc. I was just thinking what an unusual movie it is. Since Pitt is a figment of Norton's imagination, you have to wonder, what the subterranean, psychological impetus was for having Pitt walking around in a kitschy chenille robe. Ditto for taking suctioned body fat from the doctor's office to make soap (ingenious, by the way). Is there any proof Carter is real?
Jimmy carter was all too real.
Sadly, for the USA.
As for "Fight club" - the whole thing was an illusion.
My favorite sidelight on "Fight Club" is that the novelist, Chuck Palahniuk, was inspired to write it by attending the Landmark Forum -- the workshop which evolved from Werner Erhard's est Training.
The famous "Rules" scene of Fight Club is based on the reading of the agreements at the beginning of the Landmark Forum.
However, "Fight Club" is not exactly the sort of feel-good story of transformation which the Landmark folks like to brag about.
rc, even his apartment blowing up?
Very interesting, creeley. I'm going to wiki that.
As it happens, I watched "Fight Club" again a few months ago. It held up better than I expected, even though I knew the ending.
People who like FC might check out the director's previous effort, "The Game," starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn -- a similar mindf*ck movie. Quite good if you like that sort of thing.
For the truly adventurous, I recommend the Landmark Forum -- a real-life mindf*ck. It's the best ontological bang-for-the-buck money can buy.
Deborah: I seem to remember the Forum / Fight Club connection being referenced in wiki, but no longer. Landmark is intensely litigious. Publications and websites are often pressured to remove mentions of Landmark. But here's a version of the story from New York magazine:
"It's weird to think about how skeptical I was when I first went to the Forum," says Chuck Palahniuk, 39, author of Fight Club. "I brought a book with me in case I was bored. I immediately started railing against the leader about how they were just using me for my money. Then, when I was walking out, it struck me that I was 26 years old and I was never going to take another risk in my life. I was the one being an asshole! So I went back and said, 'Okay, I'd like to take a risk, where do I sign?' After that, I bought a word processor. That was my first step to being a writer."
-- Chuck Pahlaniuk, quoted in Pay Money, Be Happy
Okay, creeley, just read it. Interesting. Couldn't find any Landmark rules, except not missing any class. But look:
"Ideas presented, asserted and discussed include the following:
There is a big difference between what actually happened in a person’s life and the meaning or interpretation they made up about it[14]
People pursue an imaginary someday of satisfaction[6]
Human behavior is governed by a need to look good [27]
People add meaning to events in their life which are not necessarily true[6]
People have persistent complaints that give rise to unproductive fixed ways of being[27][28][29]
People can “transform” by a creative act of bringing forth new ways of being, rather than trying to change themselves in comparison to the past[6]
Course participants are encouraged to call people they know during the course who they are incomplete with and either be in communication with the other person or be responsible for their own behavior.[6][27][29]
The Tuesday evening session completes the Landmark Forum with several further distinctions and sharing by participants about the results they got. Course attendees bring guests to learn about the Landmark Forum."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmark_Worldwide
Couldn't find any Landmark rules, except not missing any class.
Funny about that. One of the rules of the Forum is not to share the content of the Forum.
Remind you of anything?
Uhhmmm...gimme a minute.
'Night, all :)
G'night. You did the get the parallels between Fight Club and the Forum.
Fight Club is brilliant and original, but not quite so original as is commonly thought. In many ways it is a very twisted, male-only version of the Forum.
Much of the Forum time is occupied by participants fighting (verbally) with the Forum Leader.
One sentence - I see imaginary people.
Creeley, seems the ideas they discuss some Zen and Albert Ellis in them.
So, you've actually attended?
Sixty...I'm glad I didn't have that spoiler. I had it for Sixth Sense, so I've never seen it.
I watched The Sixth Sense twice, sadly, did not catch on until the end, then I watched it again to see if M. Night Shama-whatever had slipped up - he hadn't, it was consistent, but I was just not as perceptive as Forrest Jr. I didn't see shit...
Creeley, seems the ideas they discuss some Zen and Albert Ellis in them.
Deborah:
Werner Erhard was quite the intellectual magpie.
If you listen to the big Alan Watts tape series, "Out of Your Mind," you can find the blueprint of the est Training on tapes 4 and 5. (Erhard was part of the audience for those Watts lectures.)
You can also find Scientology, Silva Mind Control, and Abraham Maslow in the est Training. In the Forum, Erhard removed all traces of Scientology and injected a fair amount of Heidegger.
But it's more than a discussion of ideas. Whatever Erhard's faults, and there are many, the est Training and the Forum created staggering experiences for participants which left them reeling and, I would say, vulnerable for recruitment into his organizations.
I still recommend the Forum -- with the proviso that one must distinguish the experience from the organization.
Short of that, you can read Luke Rhinehart's "The Book of est," surprisingly back in print, which is a generic but accurate recreation of the standard est Training as it existed in the seventies and still quite similar to today's Forum.
Always reminded me of the Jim Carey line in Liar Liar in the bathroom scene when he's beating himself up to get out of being a lawyer on a divorce case when a random guy walks in on him beating himself up and he says, "What are you doing?" and Carey looks at him and says, "I'm kicking my ass!!!"
That's what Fight Club was, it was beating yourself mentally, spiritually, and physically to get out of doing the shit you know you don't want to do, but have to because in the pursuit of making a living, you have to get in line with the rest of the cogs as you figure out a way to get out that line as soon as possible with your sanity intact.
Sixty, with FC I caught a couple inconsistencies, which were intentional clues for the viewer, but I didn't put it together.
Creeley, very interesting. I've listened to Watt's The Way of Zen, abridged, on tape (not narrated by Watts). It had a couple very brief clips from some of his lectures.
I'll definitely look into the Rhinehart book.
Meth, interesting take. Dude was definitely leading a life of quiet desperation.
Deborah: As good as his books were, Alan Watts really shone in his lectures. There are plenty of them on Youtube. He had one of the best speaking voices I've heard plus a marvelous laugh.
Here's Part One of the series I mentioned.
deborah said...
Meth, interesting take. Dude was definitely leading a life of quiet desperation.
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way, the time has gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say...
I misunderstood you?
deborah said...
I misunderstood you?
No, not at all. When you said 'quiet desperation' I heard the last lyrics in Pink Floyds "Time". That's why I typed it out. :D
Awww. I missed that 'cause I don't know a lot of PF lyrics.
Have you listened to the commentary track on the Fight Club DVDs? They have the writer and the director talking about the plot and ideas a lot more than the usual actor-fellating mutual-admiration-society commentary BS, and the writer at one point described the story as a comedy about what might happen when unsupervised, frustrated frat boys discover Nietzsche. Since nobody other than philosophy majors have ever really heard of any philosophers after Nietzsche... it's been a while since college, what's Heidegger on about other than that semantic horseshit about being and essence being somehow distinct from each other?
No I haven't heard the commentary. Sounds about right :)
Had you learned that Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table?
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