Schizophrenic security cameras

Rating: 7/10 (4 April 2006)

If Jack and Tyler are one and the same person, then why do the security cameras near the end of the movie show two persons instead of one guy fighting himself? Of course these cameras don't offer the real, omniscient perspective, as they are part of the narrator's story being Jack's flashback, but at this point of the story (within the narrator's story) Jack is aware (at least part of the time) that Tyler is his imaginary friend. Also when proceeding from the narrator's point of view, meaning that everything, thus also the images shown by these cameras, are part of the narrator's projection, the cameras should have shown either only one person or alternating images (Jack fighting with himself, Jack fighting with Tyler) reflecting the state of his mind at that particular moment. Or, could it be argued that these cameras are the element in the movie subverting its interpretation, that Tyler 'really' exists, that the idea of Tyler being imaginary is imaginary itself? I think it would increase the story's credibility because indeed, as someone else remarked here, a fight club started by a lunatic hitting himself in the face... One should have to do a very close analysis of the plot details to say whether this interpretation could be maintained, although I'm afraid that the plot wouldn't be watertight neither.