Classic 90s Movie: “Fight Club”
May is Classic 90s Movie month. Today’s guest post comes from Josh Barkey
Movie Title: Fight Club
Year: 1999
Writers: Chuck Palahniuk (novel), Jim Uhls (screenplay)
Lead Actors: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter
Director: David Fincher
IMDB Plot Summary: An insomniac office worker looking for a way to change his life crosses paths with a devil-may-care soap maker and they form an underground fight club that evolves into something much, much more…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUXWAEX2jlg
Then came this book-turned-movie. Fight Club caught the zeitgeist and rode the wave into our mass-consciousness. It was wildly entertaining, yes, with all the violence and lust and Brad Pitt’s pectorals necessary for mass appeal — but it also tapped into something deeper, some inchoate longing we all felt for the primal roar that would slough off our middle-class ennui for good. Among my friends, at least, the boxing gloves came out (and bare-knuckles, too… but I’m not gonna talk about that).
While no stable, healthy person would agree with the lengths to which the titular fight club took its quest for catharsis, there was nonetheless contained within the popcorn-flick sensibilities the “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not gonna take this anymore!” clarion call of our generation. For this and so much more, Fight Club was and remains a classic.
My Favorite Moment In The Movie: I want to say something all film-sexy, like when Tyler Durden reaches up and taps the dot-thingy while splicing penii into kid-flicks, or that time the Narrator’s got his face squished in between his testicular cancer group buddy’s “bitch tits.” But the truth has still gotta be the big reveal. The moment. That best-film-twist-EVER, when ermagersh — but no. No, I won’t do that. I won’t ruin it for any head-up-their-own-colon-canal people out there who for some inexplicable reason have not yet watched this absolute gem.
My Favorite Dialogue In the Movie: “Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. 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’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all 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.”
Key Things You Should Look For When Watching This Movie: Can I say everything? Or actually, no. Watch it the first time without looking for anything. Just absorb. Then go back and be amazed as the entire thing blows your mind the second time through. Oh, and read the script, too. It’s a master-class.
Fight Club without Tyler Durden:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTwDf63vd40
We already have a set of 80s Movies. This month we cover 90s movies. So thanks to all of you for your participation in this project, creating a resource for writers, movies they should watch to help learn the craft of screenwriting!
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