Okay, here's the deal. Without bragging too much, I have to tell you that stress is not really a part of my lifestyle. Granted, Carver Point is not the hotbed of controversy, traffic, and strife. I mean, we have crime here now and then, but more often than not, you know who did something by hearing how it was done. Nobody but Clete Sparks would break into the Pop-N-Shop and steal one copy of Wrestler's Digest and two Old Milwaukee tallboys. If there's a big traffic problem at the Court Square, check your watch. Between 9:00 and 9:30 AM, it's probably Mrs. Flumash trying to parallel park in front of the Sewing Circle to get her needlepoint supplies. If it's 3:30 PM, it's Junior Marchand trying to find his way home from work (Junior's the engraver over at the jewelry store, and he sees a bit poorly without his magnifying glasses on.)
So, see, there's not a lot to get all worked up about. Me, I get a little bowed up after a bad day at the clinic, but a nice stogey, a homemade cheesesteak, and a Cagney movie will change my frame of mind right quick. Do I need a change from my comfortable rut? Not on your life, pal. I've been to the Big City plenty, and, aside from a better selection of cigars and a restaurant that doesn't write its menu on a napkin, who needs them? My rut is quite fine, thank you. But, I know people who live there, working their cans off and drumming their fingers on their steering wheels, who could use something, anything, to break out of their funk.
Finding this escape is what's at the core of David Fincher's new movie, Fight Club, starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. It also makes for a fully fine piece of film that works as a condemnation of the very violence it glories in, and as a funny piece of social commentary to boot.
Ed Norton stars as "the narrator" for the movie. He works for a car manufacturer, and spends his life traveling from one wreck site to another, investigating fatal mechanical failures. He's a schlep, basically, working in one of the most un-happy jobs imaginable, and he's quickly burning out on the business of death. If he's not circling like a vulture for work, he's alone at home, shopping online for condo furnishings. His only escape comes when he sneaks into support group meetings, like those for cancer patients and alcoholics. Apparently, any emotion is better than what he's got.
Well, Norton meets up with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), an ultra-macho guy who makes homemade soap and likes to talk in fortune cookie sayings. Durden lives in a rundown mansion full of leaks and creaks, and, for lack of any other real life, Norton moves in with him. Durden and his zest for living amaze him. Norton has this friend, Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), who's just about as freaky as they come, and she begins to hang with the two guys too. Before you know it, she and Durden become VERY loud and gymnastic lovers, almost tearing the house down at one point.
Durden and the narrator come up with the idea of Fight Club as sort of a way to be "real men" again. Simply stated, they get together with a few other men, and beat the living hell out of each other in the basement of a local bar. Why? 'Cause it's a way to be wild and uncaring. Nothing more. It's a way to escape the rut of life and actually live like MEN should. Word spreads about the club, and more start popping up all over the country. Suddenly, it's like a manly whoop-ass cult.
But, then, the fighting isn't quite enough, so Durden starts pulling pranks. Then, he pushes the pranks to the level of semi-terroristic activities (translation: blowing stuff up.) That's where the narrator begins to realize that Durden may not be all there. You think...?!
Look, folks, it'd be easy for me to just say that this is a cool movie because it glorifies all that "tough guy" mentality that keeps me buying WWF videos and laughing at Farrelly Brothers movies. But this thing is so much more than that. On the surface, it's one of the textbook examples of director David Fincher's unique camera eye. If you remember Se7en, you remember how dark that movie was. Fincher loves the grit, the grime, and the absence of light. In Fight Club, he uses all three to the best advantage possible.
He also seems to have a very funny streak of dark humor, too. It seems so unusual to find yourself laughing at parts of this, because you're laughing at grown men battering themselves to pieces. But that makes the underlying levels of the film work. I mean, think a minute. Starting with that book Iron John, and culminating in those Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-views, the whole idea of the male gender becoming "MEN" again is everywhere today, and, for the most part, it's absolutely ridiculous. But, can anyone deny the popularity of the UFC specials, or the "WWF Raw", or, for that matter, the X-Games stuff? It's all about glorying in the splendor of the promise of major violence. What is manlier than stomping a mudhole in someone and walking it dry? Who wouldn't want to watch a street luge race and see some guy lose it at 84 m.p.h. down and roll 'til something stops him?
I'm being facetious, of course, but yes, I admit, I watch these things, and find myself mesmerized by the craziness. And, if you're truthful about it, you watch them, too. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one ordering these things on my cable box.
All the while doing this, though, Fincher manages to show a really disturbing picture of how some of these neo-fascist groups form, and how they find members. As Fight Club begins to spread its twisted gospel of violence across the country, the members become brainwashed by what Durden tells them, and they treat his pithy sayings like holy text. As a group forms, they target the people who need a direction, and, by offering them that direction, no matter how off-kilter it is, they save the person from the doldrums of their current life.
Messages aside, Fincher makes this movie tick like a Rolex. Mixing the dark, gritty visuals with some impressive editing, he keeps the rhythm of the movie flying. The energy flows through every scene, and you honestly find yourself fascinated by it all, much like the narrator himself, and you get sucked into the story. Of course, Fincher serves us his little gross-out scenes, and his satire is as biting as a bottle cap on a bare foot. We should expect nothing less.
And, Brother Fincher gets major-league performances from his actors, especially Norton and Pitt. Both are comfortable in familiar territory, with Pitt hanging close to his characters from 12 Monkeys and Se7en, and Norton being an odd combo of his characters in Rounders and American History X. Notice that I mention roles that got Pitt and Norton a lot of notice and a few award nominations, because their names will probably be stirred into the Award Stew come February. Bonham Carter, Lord love her, may have finally gotten away from the Merchant-Ivory stuff for good here. It'd be hard to go back to the corset and bustle set after screaming and banging her way through a passion-pumping session with Pitt. That, and it may take a good month or two to get the eye makeup off.
Fight Club is an excellent movie, but I promise you, it's not for everyone. There's violence enough for three Rambo movies, bad language, nekkid folks, and sexuality a-plenty. Yes. We're in love-it or hate-it territory here. You won't walk out of this movie and say to a friend, "Well, it was OK, I guess." It's going to get under your skin quickly and impress you, the way films like Blue Velvet did, and the way Brazil did, the way 12 Monkeys did. Or, it's going to completely bother you to distraction, the way Blue Velvet did, the way Brazil did, the way 12 Monkeys did.
I thought Fight Club was one of the more impressive movies of the year, and I loved it. But, I loved Brazil, Blue Velvet, and 12 Monkeys. I think, if you are a true film fanatic, and you wouldn't be here if you weren't, you're gonna remember Fight Club for a long time.
Image copyright 20th Century Fox.
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