FIGHT CLUB (1999)

Few films have left such an indelible imprint on popular culture as Fight Club. In depicting a society bereft of hope, a gritty civilisation still coping with the death of God, one could argue Fight Club permanently killed the American Dream. Capturing the zeitgeist of an angst-ridden public subconscious, a populace fearful of the new world that is slowly taking shape around them, Fight Club is the film that started a new millennium.

Our nameless Narrator (Edward Norton) hasn’t slept in six months. He works his white-collar job dispassionately, roaming the office like a mindless drone. Desensitised by modern society, he finds himself without purpose, excitement, or meaningful human connections. Then he meets Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), a self-destructive, but alluring young woman, and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a soap salesman who leads our narrator into a world of violence and chaos…

Fight Club was perhaps the perfect film to close out the 20th-century. Featuring a preoccupation with modern alienation, the emasculation and subjugation inherent in consumer capitalism, and the psychology of dictatorships, David Fincher’s masterpiece reveals the concerns of a generation entering a new millennium. Themes and ideas are innovatively interlinked, with Nietzschean philosophy, Buddhist tenets, and anarchist ideology all being coalesced into an assemblage of revolutionary rhetoric. But what, exactly, makes Fight Club so important?

There are lots of different answers one could give to this question—the fight club that Durden and the Narrator start appeals to people for several reasons. But it’s rather tellingly a men’s club, which reveals the primary function of the association: it is a tacit way of fighting back against an oppressive society, a way of asserting one’s manhood in a civilisation that has ostensibly robbed them of their masculinity.

The fear of emasculation pervades Fight Club from the beginning. In one of the first scenes, the Narrator’s face is buried in Bob’s (Meat Loaf) breasts. A former bodybuilder and steroid abuser, Bob was the image of physical perfection. Having been advertised in muscle magazines (a symbol of the omnipresent manipulation in consumer society), Bob forgoes steroids after a cancer diagnosis and becomes a feminised husk of his former self. His damaged endocrine system spikes oestrogen, and he develops breasts.

From the hyper-masculine personification of virile musculature to a weeping caricature of emasculation, Bob typifies many of the men’s fears in the story: that something intangible has been taken from them, something they may never get back. In a word: testicles. At the seminar for testicular cancer survivors, a banner hangs that reads: ‘Remaining Men Together.’ Everyone there—except the Narrator—has lost something they considered an inextricable component of their masculinity.

Indeed, everyone in the film appears concerned about their penis and testicles, often to amusing effect. When the Narrator bemoans the loss of his apartment and all the quirky furniture it contained, Tyler remarks in a bizarre non-sequitur: “Could be worse. A woman could cut off your penis while you’re asleep and toss it out the window of a moving car.” A very normal concern for a man in the late-20th-century.

A man sobs after losing his wife to someone capable of reproducing, a primal demonstration of the virility he lacks. While some have lost their testicles to cancer, others may lose theirs to knife-wielding thugs. On more than one occasion, somebody almost has their genitals mutilated as a form of complete humiliation. But why is it that balls, penises, and masculinity are so pervasively on our characters’ minds?

While some are depressed about having lost their testicles to cancer, the rest of our characters are afraid of losing their amorphous sense of masculinity. Fearing the feminisation of consumer capitalism (personified by the likes of Bob), the Narrator and Tyler Durden exhibit extreme behaviour in an attempt to escape the civilising effects of contemporary society.

The driving force behind the epidemic of societal emasculation is consumerism. The Narrator often describes himself using passive terminology: “Like everyone else, I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct.” The act of settling down, of pursuing a career, and serving as one of many cogs in a wheel, is framed as being the act of an impotent fool. By living in a superficial society, a person’s identity becomes as thin as a receipt: “I would flip through catalogues and wonder: ‘What kind of dining set defines me as a person?’”

It would seem as though Fight Club was a direct response to films and TV shows that glamorised consumerism. In Consuming Passion, an essay dissecting Sex and the City (1998-2004), Noël Carroll analyses how the popular television programme deifies frivolous consumption, mostly by conflating the things we want with things we need.

The American philosopher wrote: “Consumer society tends to promote the impression that the objects of desire—accosting us on every side by means of the mass media—are actually things we need. Moreover, this is often achieved by making consumers think that the products on offer can be ingredients in the construction of the kind of person we want to become.” As a result, a dining set, some lamps, or a quirky coffee table become an inseparable part of a person’s identity. It’s for this reason that Tyler Durden educates his men: “You’re not your fucking khakis.”

Perhaps even worse, people are not only turned into mindless consumers, but they themselves become objects of consumption. This is perhaps best seen in how rich, fashionable women buy premium soap, which is rendered from human fat; even the excesses of consumer capitalism (namely, the fat obtained from the wealthy and obese) can be turned into a product, one sold rather ironically at extortionate prices.

The Narrator derides the self-improvement fanatics that are featured on billboards and Calvin Klein posters; as the men in the fight club explore the violent potential their bodies possess, models are turning their bodies into products for consumption. The Narrator also whimsically refers to passengers on aeroplanes as “single serving friends,” as though every experience in our lives—including the conversations we have with people when we are paying for a service—are insidiously commodified. Not even the nuclear family is sacred; they too become franchises.

And though the narrator discusses his lifestyle obsession with frustration, lamenting his attachment to objects and the society that has instilled this quality in him, he’s still despondent at the thought of his burning Swedish furniture: “You tell yourself: this is the last sofa I’ll ever need. No matter what else happens, I’ve got the sofa issue handled.” His choice of words is very revealing: consumption itself isn’t pleasurable, but a problem we must solve, a neurosis ubiquitous in the modern age. Purchasing unnecessary household items is not fun, but the compulsive habit of an anxious person.   

This is something Tyler identifies in a pithy assessment: “The things you own end up owning you.” It’s a theme that Fincher reinforces throughout the film. The Narrator lies on his sofa, mindlessly consuming daytime television despite being half-asleep, all while being bombarded with infomercials and advertising. 25 years earlier, the protagonist from Alice in the Cities (1974) excoriated US television. This is an issue which has got worse, not better.

A central thesis of the film is how consumerism not only robs men of their masculine identities, but average people of their ordinary lives. Indeed, by making everyone’s life painfully ordinary, it seems that no one truly lives at all; we merely exist, to paraphrase the great Oscar Wilde. The Narrator’s job, whizzing him from one location to the next without a second to spare, always keeps him busy, a drone diligently slaving away for the hive. In his short, transient moments of true freedom, he chooses to browse an IKEA catalogue or watch television in a vegetative state: “This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.”

There is something very Kafkaesque about Fincher’s Fight Club. Much like in Office Space (1999), a workplace comedy released earlier that year, cubicle life is framed as being utterly devoid of purpose. It’s not so much that the work is inane, or tedious; it’s that it is completely without meaning. You could disappear tomorrow and few people would notice—certainly not the company. The Narrator considers himself very clever for identifying societal ills, but merely being clever is getting him nowhere: “How’s that working out for you?” Durden enquires, smirking at the man who’s squandering his life.

As such, a desire to escape this hopelessly superficial consumer society leads people to take extreme measures, including (but not limited to) fighting in pub basements. Tyler becomes something of a Messianic figure: “Welcome to fight club…” The orgy of violence on Friday night promises disenfranchised young men the one thing they lack in their lives of comfort—an opportunity to reaffirm their masculine potential, manifested in their capacity for violence and suffering. Bob, the big man with bigger breasts, is freed by the fight club; he regains a sense of his masculinity by exorcising his repressed aggression. In short, Fight Club is freedom.

However, it’s not all as simple as that. Ironically, in joining an underground anarchist cult, one that’s intent on returning civilisation to rubble, the message of liberty and equality that Tyler professes becomes contradictory. “Sooner or later, we all became what Tyler wanted us to be,” the Narrator informs us. Tyler hasn’t stepped forward as a saviour, but established himself as a dictator. It’s no accident that his followers begin to look, sound, and behave like fascist thugs.

While he criticises the brainwashing nature of media, suggesting it diminishes people’s free will and capacity for critical thought, Tyler indoctrinates scores of men into indentured servitude. This is evident from the first tenet of Project Mayhem: “Do Not Ask Questions.” Total, blind obedience is required from all in Tyler’s service. The hypocrisy of his philosophy can be seen as soon as the group begins expanding.

Tired of being slaves to corporate culture in an unequal society, they believe they have been emancipated, but truly, they have only assigned themselves a new master. Unfortunately, people who are frustrated with society are incapable of discerning the pitfalls of alternative options—they simply want change, to feel different than they have felt for so long. It’s for this reason that populist politicians, who bolster their campaigns by instilling fear in their populace, are often so successful.

Similarly, Tyler’s protégés can’t identify the logical shortcomings of his plan because he is an exceptional demagogue. First, he identifies with their plight, imbuing them all with a special importance. Second, he provides them all with a cause to work towards, implying every one of them is important to achieve their objective: “A monkey ready to be shot into space!” Tyler frames himself as an agent of a great cause, frequently implying they are at the forefront of lasting societal change.

It’s unclear what this great leap forward (or backward) will entail. Based on the rhetoric Tyler and his janissaries use, it involves a return to a state of nature. In an attempt to rid themselves of the corporate bondage and wage slavery that characterises their civilisation, these men will do anything to return their world to rubble: “In the world I see—you’re stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Centre. You will wear leather clothes that last you the rest of your life.” In Tyler’s fantasy, consumerism is abolished, falling away as an anachronism of the old world, and commercial buildings become havens of organic life.   

Though Tyler’s wistful description of such a majestic world evokes a sense of the ethereal, it is also a chimaera: there’s no going back to a hunter-gatherer society. As Yuval Noah Harari explains in his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind, that lifestyle became an impossibility with the advent of agriculture; once the switch was made to an agrarian civilisation, the population grew exponentially as there was suddenly an abundance of food. To return to such a state of nature would require a significant cull of the population, which is practically impossible. As Harari elucidates: “The trap door swung shut.”

Therefore, the dream of economic equilibrium is just that… a dream. But revolutions have been started with less; a promise of something better is all these disillusioned young men need. Tyler provides them with meaning in a world where there is none. Eloquently, he reveals precisely why everyone is so depressed in contemporary society: “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war… Our Great Depression is our lives.”

This is a rather perfect example of the nihilism that plagues many people today. The American Dream is cursed for providing its populace with false hope: “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.” Fight Club represented a vocal attack on American ideology. As an incisive and embittered dissection of national ethos, Fight Club became notoriously controversial, especially after it was revealed that the film had inspired young men to start their own brawling associations.   

Perhaps what’s most intriguing about these excerpts is that they reveal a cyclical aspect of history. About one century prior, Europe was experiencing a similar epidemic of nihilism. However, it was not the death of the American Dream that engendered such a malaise in 19th-century Europeans, but the death of God. The Renaissance and scientific innovation had supplanted much of Christian thought, so much so that ordinary folk in the late-1800s felt like all was meaningless.

Enter Friedrich Nietzsche. His philosophy can be found throughout Fight Club. A popular misconception is that Nietzsche was a nihilist, but this is far from true. The German philosopher openly opposed the spread of nihilism in his native Europe, theorising a way that people could find value in lives that have no inherent meaning. Though nihilism was inevitable following man’s removal of the Christian authority that prevailed over European society, Nietzsche believed that two distinct forms of nihilism were possible: active or passive.

The passive nihilist mournfully resigns themselves to their fate, much like the Narrator does watching television with a comatose expression. The knowledge that their existence is inherently meaningless renders the passive nihilist crestfallen and inconsolable. However, the active nihilist is different: they find meaning in the void.

As Nolan Gertz puts it in his fantastic 2019 book Nihilism:

“To put forward a vision of the future is to engage in what Nietzsche calls ‘active nihilism’. Rather than sit back and let the present destroy the future (passive nihilism), to engage in active nihilism is to destroy the present to create the future, to destroy the destructive ideals of the present in order to create new ideals and bring about the future that we want.”   

This rather aptly describes Tyler’s philosophy, and it’s what Nietzsche referred to as a transvaluation of values. As Christian teachings were being placed under scrutiny by rational thinkers, he believed it presented the perfect opportunity to create a new system of thought. The person who could create their own meaning, who could free themselves from the oppressive value system of contemporary society and live according to their own set of rules, would be the Übermensch. This is Tyler Durden: the man who has liberated himself from the limiting conceptions of herd morality.

Tyler strives for enlightenment—but it comes at a cost. As Nietzsche writes in Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?” This rhetoric is reminiscent of a sequence where Tyler burns the Narrator’s hand with chemicals, telling him that he’s coming closer and closer to hitting rock bottom: “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”   

The suffering which the Narrator attempts to escape from in his group therapy sessions is what Tyler values more than anything else. He believes that, in destroying oneself, the room is made for the construction of new values, like a phoenix rising from the ashes: “Self-improvement is masturbation. Now, self-destruction…” Both for the individual and society as a whole, a violent upheaval is required for progress to be made.

This is how Nietzschean ideology coalesces with anarchism; for a transvaluation of values at a societal level, it necessitates the destruction of past values, particularly those that were fundamental for the American establishment. This mirrors the fertile destruction theory of Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian revolutionary anarchist. Tyler identifies credit card companies—the embodiment of late-20th-century capitalism—as the principal target, loosing his horde of iconoclasts to return the world to a state of bliss. Symbolically, they’re striking right at the heart of the American Dream: destroying the monuments of a national falsehood.

Those who die for this cause achieve beatification: “His name was Robert Paulson… His name was Robert Paulson…” And for those who are so deeply entrenched in this cult, it all does seem meaningful. That is because they are a part of something where they feel as though they matter; consumer capitalism may not have robbed them of their masculinity, but it has certainly left them all feeling very lonely.

There’s a sense of cosmic isolation in Fincher’s Fight Club. In particular, there’s a melancholic aspect to the relationship between Marla and the Narrator; one can’t help but feel as though, in a different place or time, they could have been a happy, functional couple. But they both are victims of late-20th-century angst, pessimistic about life and the way things are headed. They are lonely and want meaningful connections. This is why they attend self-help classes: “When people think you’re dying, they really listen to you.”

Nobody listens to each other anymore. In an individualistic, self-obsessed culture, one that associates personal identity with what one owns, there is little room for genuine interaction. That is why support groups for the terminally ill and fight club are so valued by Marla and the Narrator: in a world of pointless distractions, they both want to feel something real. Be it pain from a beating, sexual ecstasy, or the emotional agony of existential dread, the pair of misfits just want to escape the numbing effect of contemporary society; the easiest way to do so is by engaging primal instinct, which is perhaps the only thing that can be trusted in an increasingly alien world.

Needless to say, Fight Club incorporates a slew of fascinating ideas and connects them seamlessly; it’s massively well-written. Author Chuck Palahniuk’s source material and Jim Uhls’ screenplay keep our attention despite the almost constant changes in narrative direction: the plot never becomes predictable, boring, or simplistic, much like the legion of imitators that Fight Club inspired, such as the hopelessly inane Green Street (2005). Just when you think you know what’s going to happen next, Tyler comes out with the line: “Tonight, we make soap.”

It also has one of the very few good examples of a flashforward. It’s a narrative device that I dislike, mostly because it’s often employed to tantalise the viewer needlessly, spoiling an important plot point in the process. However, that’s not the case here. Despite occurring at the end of the film, it reveals absolutely nothing.

Director David Fincher manages to avoid ruining the film’s most shocking moment despite drip-feeding the information to the viewer. If you’ve made it this far, I imagine you’ve already watched the film, but if you haven’t, prepare for a spoiler. That the Narrator constantly divulges snippets of his dual personality makes re-watches endlessly enjoyable. He informs the audience how Tyler often speaks for him, even rhetorically asking us: “If you wake up at a different time and in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?”

Somehow, we never see it coming. What’s more, the twist never becomes the sole focus of the film, as in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense (1999). We’re excited to witness the clues—“Ah, look! They have the same briefcase!”—but our attention and intrigue are maintained outside the twist sequence. Perhaps most impressive of all, one of cinema’s greatest revelations becomes an afterthought; the story functions so well as it is.

That’s because of the phenomenal direction from David Fincher. The VFX he crafted with Kevin Tod Haug created the unique aesthetic that Fight Club offers. I believe it’s also the first time that Fincher employed his omniscient perspective, creating a rather singular style that he would repeat in Panic Room (2002), and Gaspar Noé would mimic that same year in Irréversible (2002). Oftentimes, it feels as though Fincher’s camera is autonomous; the film has a mind of its own.

Along with Fincher’s expert direction, the editing in the film is second to none. James Haygood—who also worked with Fincher on The Game (1997) and Panic Room—does a superlative job of tying the film together, stitching the film’s unconnected sequences into a uniform whole using Edward Norton’s monotonous voiceover. Due to Haygood’s work, the story sprints forward at a blistering pace, and we are often unaware that the story is branching off into several directions.

Along with the incredible editing, the music binds this film together: the pulsating rhythm creates a frantic, desperate pace to the story. The Dust Brothers contributed their particular brand of electronic, computerised sampledelia, which included pounding drum loops. And of course, The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” managed to capture the feel of the film—as well as the mood of a generation.

That is why reading Fight Club as a fascist manifesto on the importance of reasserting masculinity through violence is to misunderstand the film. While we may desperately want to break free from the drudgery of life in consumer capitalism, Durden’s methods are shown to be as misguided as they are dysfunctional.

On the cusp of the new century, buildings collapse and society seems to be reduced to smouldering embers. It echoes the concerns of a generation heading towards an uncertain future: where do we go from here? We can’t be sure. On the verge of a new millennium, we feel isolated, abandoned, and rather scared.

The ending is always surprisingly moving. As civilisation ends before them, two lost souls, both of whom are terrified of being vulnerable, reach out and hold each other’s hand. There are decisive moments in your life when an abyss opens up in front of you. In those frightening times, having the comfort of human connection is indescribably powerful. It’s why despite the philosophical subtext, the socio-political critique, and the ideological underpinnings of the story, the most powerful image in the film is when two lovers embrace each other, waiting for the arrival of the new world.

GERMANY • USA | 1999 | 139 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: David Fincher.
writer: Jim Uhls (based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk).
starring: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf & Jared Leto.