Fight club film analysis1

NHTV Breda
International Media and Entertainment Management
Study Year: 2007/08 – Block C
CO2 Movie Analysis
Lecturer: Robin Terwindt
A Film Analysis about “Fight Club”
Maria Pepelanova
ID: 071265
Class: 1ME-06b
Dario Zaeck
ID: 071570
Class: 1ME-06b

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ..............................................................................................................3
2. Narrative Structure ...................................................................................................4
2.1 The Story............................................................................................................4
2.2 Plot .....................................................................................................................5
2.3 Plot Structure......................................................................................................8
2.4 Conflict lines ......................................................................................................9
2.4.1 Illusion vs. Reality.......................................................................................9
2.4.2 Order vs. Chaos / Human vs. Society........................................................10
2.4.3 Human vs. God / Religion.........................................................................10
2.4.4 Past vs. Future ...........................................................................................11
2.4.5 Culture vs. Nature .....................................................................................13
2.5 Conflict Triangles.............................................................................................14
3 Characterisation.......................................................................................................15
3.1 Jack...................................................................................................................15
3.2 Tyler Durden ....................................................................................................16
3.3 Marla ................................................................................................................16
3.4 Boss ..................................................................................................................17
4.1 Editing..................................................................................................................18
4.1.1 Spatial coherence: 180°-system ....................................................................18
4.1.2 Gimmick........................................................................................................18
4.1.3 Tyler’s appearances before Jack meets him..................................................19
4.2 Mise en scène .......................................................................................................23
5. Cultural Frame of Reference..................................................................................24
5.1 Director.............................................................................................................24
5.2 Novel ................................................................................................................24
5.3 Film influences, parallels and references .........................................................26
5.4 Generation X ....................................................................................................26
5.5 References to Historical Figures ......................................................................27
5.6 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...................................................................................28
5.7 Themes .............................................................................................................29
5.7.1 Lack of Meaning in Modern Life..............................................................29

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5.7.2 Selling and/or buying of identity...............................................................30
5.7.3 Self-improvement versus self-destruction.................................................32
6. Conclusion..............................................................................................................33
7. List of works cited..................................................................................................34

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1. Introduction
Simply by writing this report we are breaking the first two rules of Fight Club. If you
don’t know what we’re referring to, then you’ve been missing out on one of the best
films of the last decade.
Our task in writing this report is to analyse the 1999 film FIGHT CLUB directed by
David Fincher. Our analysis is roughly divided in three parts.
The first part deals with Fight Club's narrative structure, the conflict lines and its
characters, the second one with the cinematic apparatus and the third with its cultural
frame of reference.
We have viewed the film extensively and have furnished our comments and
conclusions with examples and quotes. The tools for this analysis have been given us
through two blocks of film analysis lectures at the International Media and
Entertainment Management course, as well as having been derived from a number of
printed and online sources. The sources that have been most relevant to us in our
research were Looking at Movies by Richard Barsam.....

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2. Narrative Structure
2.1 The Story
While the plot of Fight Club only covers a period of a number of months, the story in
fact covers a much longer period of time, citing events in the protagonist (we will
refer to him as Jack) ‘s life that shaped him into the character we meet at the
beginning of the film. It can therefore be said that its beginning is in Jack’s
childhood, when his father leaves the family and returns to his life only at decisive
stages, but proves unable to provide the answers to life that his son is looking for.
The story then leaps forward to Jack’s adult life, at an unnamed point in his late
twenties or early thirties. He has a job with a major car company, investigating car
accident sites. Despite having the job, apartment and lifestyle that are supposed to
make him happy, he feels dejected and unsatisfied with his life. After suffering from
insomnia for six months, he finds relief when he starts to attend support groups. The
genuine concern shown by the people there, and his ability to find release through
crying, allows him to sleep soundly again. This new balance is upset by the
appearance of Marla Singer, another imposter who attends the groups for her own
purposes. Her presence there reflects Jack’s own lie, and he begins to suffer from
insomnia again.
His continuing sleepless misery pushes him to create a split personality, called Tyler
Durden, who he “meets” at one of his business trip flights. After returning home to
find his apartment blown up, the protagonist calls Tyler and is invited to stay over at
his place, on the condition that they first have a fist fight. The fight seems to be a
new kind of therapy, and they continue doing it regularly, soon attracting many other
people. This eventually becomes an organised ‘fight club’ with its own rules and
branches across the country.
Jack is satisfied with his new life until one day Marla Singer reappears. She calls him
on the phone saying she overdosed on pills. Jack’s alter ego rescues her and develops
a sexual relationship with her. Under Tyler’s initiative, ‘Fight club’ evolves into a
highly-organised vandalist anti-capitalist organisation called ‘Project Mayhem’. Jack
begins to feel estranged from the new direction Tyler is taking the organisation in,
and feels deeply jealous of the relationship Marla has with Tyler. After having a fight

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with alter ego, Jack stops seeing him. When a project member, a friend of Jack’s
from one of the support groups, is shot on a mission, Jack is outraged at how
inhumane ‘Project Mayhem’ has become, and attempts to sabotage it. In his attempts
to do so, a participant reveals to him that he is in fact Tyler Durden – and the founder
himself.
Jack discovers plans of ‘Project Mayhem’ to blow up credit card company
headquarters, but no one pays attention to him at the police, where many officers are
also club members. In the end, he tries to diffuse the bombs in one of the buildings
himself, but in this futile race against his second self, is confronted by Tyler. Jack is
held at gun point by Tyler at the top floor of an adjacent building, but once he
realises that they both share the same body, he kills Tyler by shooting himself. At
this point ‘Mayhem’ members bring Marla to the same place, and are ordered by
Jack to leave them alone. Jack begins to reassure Marla that everything is alright,
while outside the windows the entire block of financial buildings collapses when the
bombs detonate, signalling the beginning of a ‘new era’.
2.2 Plot
The plot has a summary relationship to the events that unfold in the story, showing
us key moments in several months of the life of Jack - from the moment in which he
starts searching for a cure for his insomnia till the moment he kills his alter-ego
Tyler.
The main premise for the effectiveness of the plot is the withholding of information
from the spectator. The information that is concealed from the start is that Jack and
Tyler are in fact one and the same person. This makes the revelation towards the end
of the film a strong surprise moment for the viewer, who then tries to reassemble the
story information with the new discovery. Like THE SIXTH SENSE and THE
USUAL SUSPECTS, FIGHT CLUB is a highly successful experiment with plot
order. We as viewers are encouraged to watch the film again – this time paying close
attention to the details of the plot and putting the pieces of the puzzle together. The
puzzle is actually remarkably well-constructed, consistently portraying the responses
of the characters around the protagonist is such a way that they show their awareness
of Jack’s identity as Tyler, yet never give away this fact to the unsuspecting viewer.

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In fact, much of the pleasure of the film is derived from being shown the crucial
information right in the opening sequence of the film – which starts in the
protagonist’s brain – as well as in the opening line “I know this because Tyler knows
this”, but never realising its significance until the end. Details like Jack and Tyler
having the same suitcase, Tyler always knowing what Jack is thinking, Jack
demonstrating his solo-fighting skills in front of his boss, and Jack being able to
work night jobs because of his insomnia, are hints that create a build-up for the
revelation and make the twist credible.
Although the flow of the film sometimes appears to be a stream of consciousness of
the narrator, the plot is actually chronologically presented, except for a plot frame
that consists of the final gun point scene. The film thus begins and ends with the
same scene, though bringing it to conclusion the second time. The plot also makes
essential use of flashbacks, through which the protagonist relives parts of Tyler’s role
when he realises his split personality.
The plot makes use of repetition to establish the ringing telephone as a signifier that
a turning point or revelation is about to happen. We can see this at several points in
the film. The first is after Jack decides to call Tyler on the phone to ask him to stay at
his place – it is from this point that the two become more than ‘single-serving
friends’. Another is when Marla calls Jack during his idyllic phase of living together
with Tyler, to announce that she is attempting suicide. From this point on Jack’s
relationship with his house mate is strained by jealousy over a woman. Yet another
phone call reveals to the protagonist the extent of the permeation of Project Mayhem
into all levels of public life. Perhaps most importantly, Jack finally confirms his
suspicions about his identity by calling Marla on the telephone.
The plot also holds non-diegetic elements in addition to the story. Aside from the
opening and closing titles, an important feature for setting the atmosphere of the plot
is the musical score, created by the Dust Brothers. The producer duo created a post-
modernist soundtrack that includes drum loops, electronic scratches, and

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computerized samples because ‘Fincher wanted to break new ground with everything
about the movie, and a nontraditional score helped achieve that.’1
What holds the fabric of the film together is the off-screen first-person narration. It
is Jack that tells us his own story, and we can not only see but also hear his
weariness. On his odyssey from a lonely office worker to a carefree anarchist, his
voice shows how his point of view changes from despair to conviction to confusion
and rejection. Furthermore, it is this subjective narration that provides most of the
humour of the film, through Jack’s ironic and cynical descriptions of himself and the
people he interacts with. In the scenes where Tyler is shown working his night jobs,
the narrator even breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly.
This moment, as well as other diegetic and non-diegetic elements, define FIGHT
CLUB‘s self-awareness as a film. It reminds the viewers tongue in cheek that they
are watching a movie through such details as Tyler showing the “cigarette burns”
visible when a film reel is being changed in a cinema. Similarly, pornographic
frames edited into FIGHT CLUB itself never let the audience forget that it is also a
film that can be tampered with – like the “Little Mermaid” Tyler edits. Another
example is the use of flashback humour. When the film chronology catches up with
the scene shown in the point of attack, the protagonist says “I still don’t know what
to say”, which is an obvious reference that we’ve seen this before. However, rather
than break the suspension of disbelief, these references seem to create a sort of
unspoken bond with the audience, a self-irony, and a rebelliousness towards the
confines of the film’s own fictional nature. The message somehow seems to be that
even the conventions and the restrictions of the medium will not be abided by, that
all systems and rules can be mocked.
1
SCHURR, AMANDA, Score one for musicians turned film composers, in: Sarasota
Herald-Tribune, 1999-11-19

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2.3 Plot Structure
The inciting moment of the plot is 20 minutes after the beginning - the moment when
Jack meets Tyler. This catapults the story into action, as Tyler challenges all of
Jack’s perceptions about life and introduces him to a new way of living.
The key scene is in the 66th
minute – the second fight club scene. While it can be
argued that the first fight club gathering is the key scene, it is in the second gathering
that Tyler delivers the speech that ends with: ‘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.’ His
words sound defining for the film’s spirit and message.
The turning point is 100 minutes into the film, when Project Mayhem member Bob
gets shot in the head. Although according to film theory the turning point should
upset an apparently re-established balance within the story, which isn’t the case with
this scene, the death of Bob can be considered the turning point as it pushes the
narrator from discontent apathy in the middle of Project Mayhem, to actively fighting
the movement that has spiralled out of control and into fascist dogma. Jack’s ensuing

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search for the truth and for the missing leader of the clubs marks his final break with
Tyler’s philosophy.
The climax is 6 minutes before the end, when Tyler threatens Jack with a gun on the
top floor of a building, which ends in Jack shooting himself in the head. Until the last
moment the audience does not know if Jack will survive, and also feels regret for the
death of Tyler – who despite everything remains an extremely likeable screen
character.
2.4 Conflict lines
Without a conflict there would be no story. Furthermore, Fight Club’s story criticizes
today’s society, especially in people’s way of working, buying, identifying and living
their life, to such an extent that there are several conflict lines in Fight Club.
2.4.1 Illusion vs. Reality
Illusion is a highly used image of Fight Club. The buying of identity and defining
oneself with materialistic objects is an illusion in itself and is only made up by the
consumers.
In fact, Jack identified himself through materialism as well as he experiences his
schizophrenia afterwards so that he jumps from one illusion right into the next.

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2.4.2 Order vs. Chaos / Human vs. Society
These two conflicts lines can be put together because they reflect each other.
“Chaos” stands symbolically for Project Mayhem and in other words: Everything
Jack and Taylor set up.
Even though Tyler is just the other part of Jack’s schizophrenia, the two together
with their nationwide-recruited Fight Club army, as humans, rebel and fight against
society, wanting to leave their mark on it and improve it, even if their methods are
radical, violent and, consequently, against the law.
Fight Club’s end is the chaos’ climax where the actions that were necessary in order
to realize Project Mayhem, are carried out. Although the film suggests that a new
world order is coming with the financial collapse, hence the Adam and Eve
reference, this is hardly to be considered seriously.
2.4.3 Human vs. God / Religion
While burning the Narrator's hand with lye, Tyler Durden says:
“Listen to me! You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He
never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that
can happen.”
Narrator: “It isn't?”
Tyler Durden: “We don't need him!”
The dialogue, above, indicates that Tyler, the Narrator’s other personality, is partial
to anti-God behaviour, which he always tries to teach Jack about. During the course

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of Fight Club, many other hints make reference to being against religious faith. (“We
are God’s unwanted children” and others.)
2.4.4 Past vs. Future
An important conflict line that is dealt within Fight Club and that is crucial to
understanding Jack’s character as a whole, especially his psychological problems, is
the conflict between his past and his future. Until the movie’s very last spoken line
David Fincher reveals secrets about him and gives the viewer the chance to deduce
what happens to Jack and, in this respect, Tyler as well.
Just when the destructive power of Project Mayhem is shown, Jack implies a clear
break with the events we have witnessed in the film, by saying to Marla:
“I'm sorry... you met me at a very strange time in my life.”
However, the conflict between Jack’s past and future does not only refer to his
psychological circumstances (i.e. – his insanity turning to realisation), but also to his
mental change. He shows progress concerning the overcoming of the loss of his
condo, thus changing from a capitalist to an anti-capitalist. Jack’s characteristics
represented the typical capitalistic behaviour in the western hemisphere. Meeting
Tyler, who is a complete anti-capitalist, Jack grows to be the same in the course of
the movie.
Therefore, in one scene Jack ponders whereas the viewers can hear his thoughts:
“I should have been looking for a new condo. I should have been haggling with my
insurance company. I should have been upset about my nice, neat, flaming little shit.
But I wasn't.”
In addition to that Jack illustrates in self-explanatory words what happened to him:
“Look, nobody takes this more seriously than me. That condo was my life, okay? I
loved every stick of furniture in that place. That was not just a bunch of stuff that got
destroyed, it was ME!”

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Additionally, the course of the story uncovers information about the Narrator’s past
with regard to his parents, their life and the fact that his dad left when he was six
years old. Then, he married another woman, had kids with her and the circle started
all over again. Every six years, he went to a new city and started a new family.
In this respect, it looks like the Narrator’s father always was very unhappy and lived
an unfulfilled life.
Concluding the above, firstly, David Fincher included another example, perhaps
unnoticed, within the story, which totally underlines Tyler’s theory about the
depressed, sorrowful and dysphoric men.
Secondly, it might be a hint for the possibility that Jack’s psychological problems
may be formed in early childhood.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that Jack’s current psychological confusion is based on his
past very much. On the one hand, there is Jack’s life and the way he used to live and,
on the other hand, there are the memories of his childhood. Until now he just did not
realize how he experienced and how he suffered in the bygone times of being a child.
Due to his Jack’s unsolved past and his fear about the future he occasionally thinks
about it:
“Except for their humping, Tyler and Marla were never in the same room. My
parents pulled this exact same act for years.”

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2.4.5 Culture vs. Nature
The Fight Club movement founded by Jack and Tyler and the organisation of Project
Mayhem is the movie’s symbol for nature. They fight and rebel against the system,
against society and therewith against culture. All the values and norms that
internalize mainstream culture are refused and rejected by the Fight Club. Their
thoughts and opinions stand up against the culture’s capitalistic behaviour. The
frustrated nation of men participating in Fight Club cannot identify with the cultural
hegemony of today. They feel lost and misunderstood. All their life, while growing
up they have been told that they will achieve something, that they can move the
world with the jobs they will have. The system has overshadowed their lives from the
very beginning.
The most conclusive quote in Fight Club which reflects the confrontation of culture
versus nature, is the one where Tyler Durden and all the other Fight Club members
are down in the basement and he says:
“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.”

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2.5 Conflict Triangles
The film centres around the narrator – so he is definitely the protagonist. His main
conflict can be considered to be with “the system”, represented in the film by Jack’s
boss. In this conflict, Tyler is Jack’s teacher and helper, showing him new
perspectives in life and encouraging him to be ever more radical. In this triangle
Marla occupies the centre as the wanted person.
On the other hand, we can clearly see a conflict in the film between Jack and Tyler,
which is in a way an internal conflict as they are both the same person. Jack stands
for being respectable, hard-working, obedient to one’s place in society, and
successful; while Tyler stands for being free, careless, real, and scorning society’s
expectations. In this conflict, Marla is the helper that helps Jack realise who he is and
what he wants, and it is out of concern for her safety that he opposes Project
Mayhem so strongly at the end of the film.

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3 Characterisation
3.1 Jack
“You met me at a very strange time in my life”
The protagonist of the film and the nameless narrator we refer to as Jack, is a young
professional who spends his days working a job he hates and his nights devouring
mail order catalogues in order to buy himself the perfect life, all the while enduring
severe insomnia. It is suggested that it is from early childhood that he begins to feel a
disappointment with authority and dissatisfaction with the values of society, as
represented by his father. He feels alienated from the system, finding an almost
compulsive need to meet society’s demands and indulging in consumerism, while
simultaneously remaining unfulfilled.
The emptiness Jack feels inside is symbolized in the film by the icy cave that
represents his inner world when he meditates. This is combined with a desperate
desire for something real, anything real that will break the bleakness and banality of
his yuppie life. His frustration and his need for emotional stimulus in a barren
modern world are expressed in sporadic fantasies of destruction – from fictional
plane crashes to mauling the face of a handsome young man.
The reason that support groups initially help Jack sleep is that they offer emotional
release. He is able to cry and is listened to genuinely – “When people think you are
dying, they really, really listen to you instead of just waiting for their turn to speak.”
Because of the hardship they are going through, the group members are honest and
intense in their interactions in a way that is completely absent in the alienated
relationships in the rest of society.
Jack starts of as a man striving for success and self-perfection, as is expected of him
by society. He minds his health by not smoking, wears clean, ironed suits with a tie,
cleans his condo obsessively and brushes his teeth devotedly. However, in the course
of his relationship with Tyler, this changes. As he embraces the concept of self-
destruction, he begins to smoke, to neglect his appearance, and to ignore all kinds of
public opinion of him. However, as soon as he feels threatened – such as during
Marla’s affair with Tyler – he slips back to grooming and cleaning as a psychological
attempt to regain control of a situation he feels insecure in.

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Jack is a round character, because he is a complex and three-dimensional figure,
possessing differing and often contradictory traits.
3.2 Tyler Durden
‘All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck
like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the
ways that you are not.’
Handsome, eccentric, rebellious, confident - Tyler was indeed born out of all the
unfulfilled wishes of the narrator. In popular culture perceptions of schizophrenia (at
times disputed by actual medicine), whenever a psychologically unstable person
faces a situation they cannot face, they invent a double personality to handle it for
them. Typically, this personality is bold, aggressive and outspoken. Similarly, Tyler
represents a way for Jack to break free from his cocoon and do all the things he could
never imagine himself doing, such as saying socially inappropriate responses in a
conversation (‘What do you do for a living?/ ‘Why? So you can pretend you are
interested?’).
Tyler is mainly defined through his opposition to things. He is anti-consumerism,
anti-society, anti-self-improvement, anti-compliance, anti-mass-culture, anti-God.
His character is so reactionary that he might at times be taken as a flat character.
When Tyler transforms the fight clubs into a revolutionary army, the protagonist only
half-accepts this, as this brings an aspect of fascism and callousness that go beyond
the borders of the quest for happiness.
3.3 Marla
“Somehow, I realize all of this – the gun, the bombs, the revolution -- is really about
Marla Singer.”
Chain-smoking femme fatale Marla both attracts and repulses Jack. The conflict
between Jack’s desire for Marla and his hatred of her actually pushes him to create
Tyler, once she takes away his relief from the therapy groups. In a way, she acts as
the woman that brings discord, as she ‘ruins’ Jack’s peace whenever she appears –
whether in the support groups or the home he shares with Tyler. She is a round

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character in that she is simultaneously the ultimate cynic and nihilist, but also a
romantic – hoping for a loving relationship with Jack.
3.4 Boss
‘It must've been Tuesday. He was wearing his cornflower-blue tie.’
Jack’s boss is a flat, minor character. His main purpose in the film is to represent the
system – which Jack initially secretly despises, but conforms to (as evidenced by his
putting up with his boss’ orders), while later ignores (hardly hearing his boss at all)
and finally completely overpowers with aggressive behaviour (when he blackmails
his boss into giving him a salary without ever having to work again).

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4.1 Editing
4.1.1 Spatial coherence: 180°-system
The scene where Tyler pours lye on Jack’s hand, stands exemplary for the spatial
coherence and its use of the 180° degree rule.
In all the scene’s frames, the 180°-axis is never crossed so that the viewer’s
viewpoint on the occurrence is always from the A-side. Even at the time when Jack’s
struggle with the chemical burn gets more hectic, the viewer’s point of view stays on
the same side.
Therewith, the purpose of the 180°-system is the consistency of Jack and Tyler,
regarding their positions within the frame, the their eye lines, its match and the
consistency of the screen direction during the whole in order to have a logical
continuity.
4.1.2 Gimmick
Frame 195973/200194 - Time: 02:16:13.707/02:19:09.799
There is a penis that lasts for three frames which should allude to Tyler’s job in the
cinema.
Frame 47270/200194 - Time: 00:32:51.678/02:19:09.799
As an addition to the previous gimmick a cigarette burn has been added in upper
right hand corner which occurs by switching the film roles.

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4.1.3 Tyler’s appearances before Jack meets him
There are a couple of appearances of Tyler before Jack meets him in the airplane and
he is introduced to the viewer. As a proof that with creating Fight Club, the director,
David Fincher, kept to the commercial narrative structure, Tyler’s appearances
happen in the movie’s Set up (Act 1) which takes place in the film’s first 20 minutes.
Tyler’s first flash appearance occurs in the fourth and the last one in the 19th
minute.
Attentive viewers might already realize in the Set up that Tyler is a part of the
Narrator’s imagination because it is noticeable that Tyler only appears where the
Narrator’s eyes look.
This theory can be applied for every premature appearance of Tyler but the fifth one
on the airport. Tough, as a contrast to the other scenes, Tyler appears as a real person
in that scene whereas the other ones are flashes.
In fact, Tyler’s appearances are perceived unconscientiously by Jack but still they
picturize Jack’s upcoming schizophrenia for the viewer.
Frame 5894/200194 - Time: 00:04:05.828/02:19:09.799
The first time Tyler appears in Fight Club and moreover, obviously, to the Narrator
is when he is in the Office, standing in front of the copier and suffering from
insomnia. Tyler flashes on the screen’s left whereas he has a quite bewildered faces.
Jack’s schizophrenia begins here.

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Frame: 9063/200194 - Time: 00:06:18.002/02:19:09.799
Some minutes ago, the doctor refuses to give the Narrator medicine against his
insomnia whereas the Narrator complains about his decision and begs him for mercy.
If he wants to see real pain, he should swing by First Methodist Tuesday nights and
see the guys with testicular cancer, the doctor replies, and retorts: "That's pain".
Precisely at the time the doctor says “pain” it is the second time the Narrator sees
Tyler. He stands smiling behind the doctor’s left shoulder and looks very self-
confident. It can be assumed that at this point Tyler laughs about him because in the
first place the Narrator does not receive any medicine and in the second place Tyler
knows he is going to break into the Narrator’s life.
Frame 10861/200194 - Time: 00:07:32.994/02:19:09.799
In the following scene takes place in the support group the doctor advised the
Narrator to drop by. In the frame Tyler flashes, he has his left arm around the
lecturer, glasses on and stands with poise right next to him.

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Frame 18114/200194 - Time: 00:12:35.504/02:19:09.799
Tyler’s fourth flash occurs right after Jack’s visit at another support group. This
example serves good for clarifying that it’s Jack who sees Tyler in his mind.
Tyler comes accurately into view in what direction Jack’s line of sight is.
Frame 208351-28461/200194 - Time: 00:19:42.472-00:19:47.060/02:19:09.799
Right at the moment when Jack is on the airport and asks himself if he could wake up
as a different person if he wakes up at a different time in a different place Tyler
walks by behind Jack.
In this scene Tyler’s act of coming into view is still mysteriously but the first one
where Tyler appears as a visible character, even although he is in the scene’s
background.

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Frame 29187-29133/200194 time: 00:20:17.341-00:20:19.259/02:19:09.799
The fifth and last appearance of Tyler, before he meets Jack in the airplane on his
return trip, happens during the period Jack watches TV in a hotel. Jack switches it on
whereby the hotel’s TV commercial is automatically played.
Tyler is the waiter on in the bottem right of the TV screen.

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4.2 Mise en scène
Fight Club’s set up in terms of the mise en scene helps creating atmosphere, brining
and supporting the director’s intention and message.
On the one hand, it is exagerrated contrast with a hyper-real design and degrading
with Tyler and on the other hand, there is flourescent lighting bland and which is
realistic without Tyler.
Desaturated colours and mostly night-time form the image and appearance of Fight
Club. During the whole movie, the setting is torn-down and deconstructive with Dim
Yellow Lighting.

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5. Cultural Frame of Reference
5.1 Director
David Fincher began his career doing special effects for Richard Marquand’s
RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) and Steven Spielberg’s INDIANA JONES AND
THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984), later doing music videos for artists like Madonna
and the Rolling Stones. He went on to direct SE7EN (1995), PANIC ROOM (2002)
and ZODIAC (2007) aside from FIGHT CLUB (1999).
The film Se7en shares with Fight Club the appearance of Brad Pitt in a leading role,
while all of Fincher’s films offer a pessimistic view of the human condition, through
dark, stylish design. Even though he is a Hollywood director, he is a real auteur and
realises a vision in each of his movies. 2
5.2 Novel
Fight Club was adapted from the novel of the same name, written in 1996 by Chuck
Palahniuk. The screenplay was very faithfully adapted from the book, with an
amazing amount of lines directly quoting it, and the characters completely faithful to
the original. The only difference is the ending, from the point where Jack realises he
has invented Tyler. In the book, Project Mayhem attempts to destroy the national
museum by bombing the office skyscraper next to it, and Tyler intends to die as a
martyr inside the office building. Jack is held at gunpoint by Tyler at the roof of the
building, but his aggressor disappears the moment Marla walks in with support group
members, as “Tyler was [Jack’s] hallucination, not hers”.3
The bombs expected to
detonate do not do so, as Tyler has gotten the mixture wrong. Clear-headed for the
first time, the narrator shoots himself in the head, only to awake in a mental
institution. There, infiltrated members of Project Mayhem inform him that their
operations still continue and that everyone awaits the return of Tyler. In this sense,
the novel’s ending is much more pessimistic, and never lets Tyler disappear
completely, unlike the film. What David Fincher thought about this difference was
that he felt novel too obsessed with Tyler Durden and so he changed the film’s finale
2
DIXON, W. W., Film Talk- Directors at Work, (New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London: Rutgers
University Press: 2007)
3
PALAHNIUK, CHUCK, Fight Club, (W. W. Norton & Company: 1996)

25
to let him go - "I wanted people to love Tyler, but I also wanted them to be o.k. with
his vanquishing." 4
Chuck Palahniuk was delighted at the accurate screen adaptation of his book. In an
interview he even said that he was “sort of embarrassed of the book, because the
movie had streamlined the plot and made it so much more effective and made
connections that [he] had never thought to make”.5
What is important to mention from a cultural point of view, is that most of the events
in the film are actually based on the author’s real life experiences. He goes as far as
to say that “Everything [in the movie was based on real things] except the clubs
themselves.”5
The inspiration for the film came from a particularly heavy fight
Palahniuk had at a camping trip, after which the Monday at work he discovered that
no one would look at his battered face or question him about it. This gave him the
thought that ‘that if you looked bad enough, you could do anything because nobody
will ever call you on it.’ The author frequently got involved in fights afterwards,
provoking them in bars and public places, mentioning that the exhilaration and
exhaustion of physical fights allowed him to sleep remarkably well afterwards (in
which we can see a parallel to Jack).6
The support groups in the film are recreated from the author’s experience as a
volunteer in a hospital, where he escorted terminally ill people to the groups and sat
with them for the duration. He recounts a feeling of guilt at being the only healthy
person there, and the idea came to him of someone who could actually fake a disease
just to access the intimacy and sincerity of the groups as a sort of emotional
catharsis.
Project Mayhem was based on the Portland Cacophony Society, which Chuck was a
member of. The activities of the society involve costumed pranks in public places
and quirky stunts, all meant to be guerrilla resistance towards cultural hegemony.
Meanwhile, antics like Tyler’s fooling with the five-star restaurant food, and quotes
like ‘We are the all singing all dancing crap of the universe’, were drawn directly
from Palahniuk’s friends and acquaintances.5
4
WISE, DAMON, Menace II Society, (Empire Magazine, December 1999)
5
A DVD Talk Interview, Interview With Fight Club Author Chuck Palahniuk, 2008
http://www.dvdtalk.com/fightclub.html, 28 March 2008
6
MORTON, MERRICK, Playboy.com - Arts & Entertainment -The Playboy.comversation - Chuck
Palahniuk, (20th Century Fox)
http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/dotcomversation/palahniuk/07.html, 26 March 2008

26
The significance of the fact that the film’s roots lie in the author’s reality rather than
his imagination is that the themes of the film are thus less radical and far-fetched
than it may seem. Rather, they are a reflection of a part of society that already thinks
and feels this way. We are therefore closer to justifying a description of FIGHT
CLUB as a wake-up call for a disenchanted youth at a loss for meaningful values in a
commercialised world.
5.3 Film influences, parallels and references
David Fincher and actor Edward Norton have compared FIGHT CLUB to THE
GRADUATE (1967) and REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955). 7
In a sense, both
films were iconic for their respective generation, and tapped into the pulse of the
frustration the youth was experiencing at the time. Thematically speaking, the films
each featured a young man that does not have well-defined aims in life and feels lost
in his stage of life – whether high school or graduation from college. Edward Norton
also felt the end of FIGHT CLUB to be parallel to that of THE GRADUATE. He
says of the latter, ‘You don't know what [the protagonist] has accomplished exactly,
but you get the sense that he's reached some kind of middle ground between his old
self and this side of himself that he's been battling.’ This sounds very much like
resolution of Fincher’s film, where the narrator has grown to share many of Tyler
Durden’s qualities, but has defeated him in the final battle with himself.
When Jack refers to the ‘50s’ American sit-com ‘OZZIE AND HARRIET, he is
referring to the fact that his life with Tyler was so blissful that it was like the perfect
American family portrayed in the series.
FIGHT CLUB has been compared to Kubrick’s CLOCKWORK ORANGE, in
thematic relevance and also the tendency to be misunderstood. The film
BEAUTIFUL MIND also features a protagonist that is schizophrenic.
5.4 Generation X
Generation X is a term popularized in the nineties. It refers to the generation after the
Post-WWII baby boomers, also called the “baby bust generation”. The Baby
7
TEASDALL, B., Edward Norton Fights His Way to the Top, 2008
http://www.reel.com/reel.asp?node=features/interviews/norton, 20 March 2008

27
Boomers had been marked by a mentality of openness and prosperity, they were the
rock and roll generation. They had freed themselves from society's oppressive views
at Woodstock and had smoked their weed, until finally they settled down. Between
1964 and the 1980s, Generation X was born. The generation had little interest in
religion, turned away from their parents and established their own values. They
listened to punk music, with lyrics of general abandonment and rage against “the
establishment”. Generation X had trouble finding an enemy to fight, and so it seemed
everyone became the enemy.
Chuck Palahniuk, was himself born in 1964. Arguably, he's within the X Generation.
At any rate, it is apparent that there are great similarities between the themes in Fight
Club and the mentality of Generation X. The ‘Space Monkeys’ in the film want to let
go of the obsession with money, status and success, just like the disenchanted Gen
X-ers. They share the same socio-cultural background of divorced parents, distrust in
the government, birth control availability, mass media advertising and deeply-rooted
cynicism.
5.5 References to Historical Figures
Interspersed in the film are scenes where Tyler and Jack discuss important
personalities which they would like to fight. Their list starts with the authority
figures in their lives – the boss and the father – but goes on to include famous figures
such as : Gandhi (Indian politician and world-famous pacifist), Lincoln (American
president), Hemmingway (American writer), William Shatner (American actor : Star
Trek). One interpretation of this discussion could be that the two men would like to
rebel against their inherited culture as a whole – which for them encompasses
American literature, film and politics. The addition of Gandhi to the list could be
ironic, as he was the main world activist against violence. On the other hand, fighting
in the film stands for connection with other people and true feeling, rather than its
usual sense of violence and opposition. Therefore, the desire to fight these
individuals might be the wishful desire to get to know them on a personal, close
level, perhaps because the duo admire them.

28
5.6 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
“Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” was a novella written by Robert Louis
Stevenson and published in 1886. The story tells of a British doctor by the name of
Henry Jekyll who goes on to discover a chemical potion that can separate the good
and evil inherent in all men into two separate personalities. In the end, his evil self -
acting by the name of Mr. Hyde - takes over and his malicious deeds can only be
stopped through suicide.
Treating the concept of the struggle between good and evil inside a man’s heart in an
allegorical way, and portraying vividly the phenomenon of a split personality, the
characters Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have become a classic element of popular
culture. In everyday use “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is used to refer to a person who
acts inconsistently and distinctly from one situation to the next.
This is certainly the way the narrator of Fight Club would have appeared to the
people around him, as his stepping in and out of Tyler’s personality would have
made for some very strange and confusing behaviour patterns on his part. At a point
in the film, Marla actually makes this direct comparison, telling Jack that he is ‘Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Jackass’. Also, the idea of good and evil being embodied by each half
of the split personality is interesting to interpret in the context of the film. Jack and
Tyler are polar opposites, in that the former represents pacifism, the desire for self-
improvement and a concern for others, while the latter represents violence, self-
destruction and a recklessness that holds no regard for life, friendship or love.
It is interesting to note that the only escape from Tyler is similar to the demise of
Hyde – through suicide. In the case of the film however, the suicide is mostly
symbolical, as the narrator survives. In the end of the story he rejects the radical
outlook of Tyler and finds a balance by settling half way between his two personas –
still Jack, but greatly changed through his relationship with his eccentric and unruly
alter ego.

29
5.7 Themes
At first glance, Fight Club asserts some very primitive themes of anarchy in its plot.
It might be perceived to promote violence and civic disobedience for their own sake.
It sports a long list of subversive messages and terrorist dogma, and seems to find in
Tyler Durden its knight in shining armour - a man who is devoid of feelings of duty,
and who is free to the point of lacking human attachments. But beneath the layer of
humour and violence, the viewer cannot escape a more powerful feeling that what
the film really portrays is a deep sense of being lost existentially.
5.7.1 Lack of Meaning in Modern Life
Tyler tells us that the men of our time have no real wars to fight, and that our war is a
spiritual war. The people that are drawn to Fight Club are not criminals, nor are they
castaways. They are normal people, living normal every-day jobs, may even have a
wife and kids at home. But they are all unsatisfied, and feel turned down or neglected
by the system. They have spent their lives striving to get what everyone tells them
they are supposed to have. They are but consumers, yet materialism has failed to
make them truly happy. Their world is one where advertising dictates their goals and
corporations set the rules. The heartlessness of the corporate world is exposed in the
scene where Jack investigates a car crash at his job, later explaining the company
policy: ‘The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we
initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable
rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times
C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.’
In an inhumane system where they are but cogs, in a society obsessed with lifestyle
and overachievement, in relationships that are alienated – modern man is left helpless
and apathic.
Fight Club offers an answer. The answer is letting go. The answer is stripping the
brands off your body, stripping the social roles and expectations, putting away even
your identity – which the men do when taking off their clothes before starting a fight.
The answer is letting go of words and goals and fears – which the men do during the
fight. The answer is accepting that pain and death are inevitable – which the men do
when they end a fight feeling reborn. Overcoming the fear of pain and death holds

30
the deeper meaning that to experience life fully, in a real, meaningful way, one has to
embrace its imperfection, its transience and its ability to hurt you.
Tyler tries to teach this philosophy to Jack throughout the film, through statements
like: ‘Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be
complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... let’s evolve.’, ‘You are not special. You
are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as
everything else.’ Especially significant is the intense scene where Tyler burns Jack’s
hand with lye to teach him a lesson: ‘Stop [struggling]. This is your pain – your
burning hand. It's right here. Look at it. [..] First, you have to know that someday
you are going to die. Until you know that, you will be useless.’
5.7.2 Selling and/or buying of identity
One of Fight Club’s most famous and significant quotes is the following where, in
the film’s beginning, Jack says:
“I would flip through catalogs and wonder, "What kind of dining set defines me as a
person?" We used to read pornography. Now it was the Horchow Collection.“
In fact pornography, which in this quote stands for everyone’s basic need, exists for
the purpose of sexual arousal and sexual relief. It is a substitute essentially for sex
and is based on the 'Physiological needs' described by Abraham Harold Maslow in
his 'Maslow pyramid'. Therefore, pornography has its function in satisfaction of one's
sexual urge which is a fundamental basis in life.
In contrast to that Jack expresses that at the present time it is the 'Horchow
Collection' which has replaced pornography to satisfy one's needs. The latter is a
tremendous offence against the human instinct of self preservation and moreover
against the basics of humanity. Every human has the impulse to fulfil his primary
needs. It can not be exchanged with the purchase of unique furniture, lighting, decor
for every room, a valuable stereo or wardrobe. Luxury linens with a free monogram
for bed, bath, and tabletop, unique dinner sets or flatware do not make us happy.

31
Arriving at his hometown’s airport from his business trip, Jack’s baggage has been
displaced and in his thoughts, he sorrows:
“I had everything in that bag. My C.K. shirts... my D.K.N.Y. shoes...”
Even though, his loss only concerns inanimate objects, Jack is so very
materialistically-orientated that he grieves over them. His mourning increases when
he hears about his exploded condo.
In the film, Tayler Durden says: “The things you own, they end up owning you.” His
point can clearly be seen in the face of Jack – who has misdirected his efforts in life
from a spiritual struggle for self-actualisation, to the search and purchase of perfect
household furnishing. Tyler goes on to say that the true values in society are replaced
by an obsession with external facades and performance: ‘We're consumers. We are
by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't
concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500
channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.’

32
5.7.3 Self-improvement versus self-destruction
Before Jack develops insomnia and schizophrenia, he has a decent life. He has a well
paid job, a beautiful condo that defines him as a person. Self-improvement
determined his life. On that score, he started to tidy up his condo when he felt
frustrated or when he did not know how to spend his time in another useful way.
Marla is the movie’s true manifestation of self-destruction. She crosses the street
without looking out for cars, smokes, tries to commit suicide, does not have a job,
and steals clothes.
Tyler Durden: “Self improvement is masturbation. Now self destruction...”
During the course of the movie, Jack started to see his life differently. He distances
himself from self-improvement and starts adapting Tyler’s way of living. Through
the eyes of Tyler the answer to self-improvement is self-destruction. “Stop being
complete” and “Stop being perfect” are his complains towards society.
From Tyler’s point of view, the release from self-improvement leads to being free
and not afraid of death and pain.

33
6. Conclusion
Even though Fight Club addresses issues that are very predominant in our society
today, David Fincher was able to carry out these matters on screen with a great
devotion to black humour. 8
Aside from having a unique production design and a
decadent urban atmosphere, the movie is equipped with a variety of stylistic devices,
especially with the clever use of irony. If the viewer understands Fight Club and
furthermore that Jack has schizophrenia, then a lot of scenes seem blunt in a comical
kind of way, because the viewer notices what happens and moreover what the scenes
reflect. 9
Violent, controversial, thrilling, darkly comic; these are but some of the words that
can, and have been, used to describe Fight Club. Its exhilarating, genre-busting mix
of drama, action, satire and psychological thriller breathed new life into mainstream
cinema upon its release, and successfully proved that Hollywood can indeed make
great, original films after all. David Fincher’s direction is flawless, the acting is
universally excellent and the script will undoubtedly make an impact on you quite
unlike any other film you’ve ever seen.
8
CONARD, M. T., The Philosophy of Film Noir, (The University Press of Kentucky: 2006)
9
DIXON, W. W., Film Talk- Directors at Work, (New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London:Rutgers
University Press: 2007)

34
7. List of works cited
BARSAM, R. and GOCSIK, R., Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film:
Multimedia Package with Writing about Movies Booklet, Two DVDs and Access to
Looking at Movies Online, (Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.: 2006)
SCHURR, AMANDA, Score one for musicians turned film composers, in: Sarasota
Herald-Tribune, 1999-11-19
WISE, DAMON, Menace II Society, (Empire Magazine, December 1999)
A DVD Talk Interview, Interview With Fight Club Author Chuck Palahniuk, 2008
http://www.dvdtalk.com/fightclub.html, 28 March 2008
MORTON, MERRICK, Playboy.com - Arts & Entertainment -The
Playboy.comversation - Chuck Palahniuk, (20th Century Fox)
http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/dotcomversation/palahniuk/07.html, 26
March 2008
DIXON, W. W., Film Talk- Directors at Work, (New Brunswick, New Jersey, and
London: Rutgers University Press: 2007)
PALAHNIUK, CHUCK, Fight Club, (W. W. Norton & Company: 1996)
TEASDALL, B., Edward Norton Fights His Way to the Top, 2008
http://www.reel.com/reel.asp?node=features/interviews/norton, 20 March 2008
CONARD, M. T., The Philosophy of Film Noir, (Kentucky: The University Press of
Kentucky: 2006)
BORDWELL, D. and THOMPSON, K., Film Art: An Introduction – Seventh
Edition, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004)

35
PRINCE, S., Movies and Meaning – An Introduction to Film – Third Edition,
(Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004)
NELMES, J., An Introduction to Film Studies – Third Edition, (New York:
Routledge, 2004)

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