Fight Club Review

Rating: 8/10 (27 September 2017)

Fight Club is one of those movies where each time you rewatch it, you realize more and more things that you did not pick up on the previous rerun. When you watch Fight Club, you might think that it is simply about members of a club that all they do is fight one another. When really it is a much deeper and dramatic story than it seems.
The story follows an unnamed man played by Edward Norton and narrates the entire movie. The narrator lives a boring life where he has a boring job that is meaningless and doesn't care for. The narrator's life becomes meaningless to him and starts to fall into a depression which gives him insomnia. After many weeks of sleepless nights, the narrator visits his doctor to try and get help with his insomnia but is no help and suggests visiting support groups. After going to a few the narrator relies on them to vent so he can get sleep. When he notices a woman named Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) starting to go to each support group as well he develops insomnia again. The narrator finds himself on an airplane for a business trip and meets a man named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). When the narrator returns home from the business trip he discovers that his condo was blown up, he decides to move in with Tyler in an abandoned house and also start a "Fight Club" in at a local bar. The purpose of the club was for men to get all their frustrations out about themselves, society, or anything by fighting one another. After some time Tyler decides to make the club members to start revolting against society by destroying all the popular consumer products and committing acts of terrorism known as Project Mayhem. Tyler disappears and the narrator is the one left in charge. He keeps running into people he knows from Fight Club and determines that he is Tyler. The movie ends with the narrator and Marla at the top of a building watching the financial buildings crumble to the ground due to Project Mayhem's plans.
In Fight Club, David Fincher uses multiple camera angles to make the audience feel a certain way at different times. In the fighting scenes in the bar, the cinematographer uses low angle shots whenever Tyler speaks showing that he is the one in charge. The use of close up shots of the bloodied and beaten faces of club members makes the audience react in the way Fincher intended you to. The cinematographer also filmed the fight scenes in a way which makes the viewer feel like they are actually in the fight. The camera bops back and forth, falls down with the fighters, and shows the nasty and grotesque injuries up close and personal to make you feel like you are the one beating someone up.
Lighting is a major role in this film as well. Fincher uses expressional lighting a lot throughout the film. In the scenes in the basement of Lou's Tavern, there is only a few lights hanging from the ceiling to make the scene feel more dark and mysterious. The use of expressional and low lighting throughout the film makes Fight Club have more classic noir characteristics with a modern twist of the time.
Not knowing that the narrator was Tyler until finding out towards the end of the film added to the film. It made you think differently of the narrator and left you wanting to find out more about Tyler just like the narrator is trying to do. Each time I rewatch Fight Club I still find myself learning more and more about the narrator and Tyler. Edward Norton and Brad Pitt did an amazing job in this film and the attitude and characteristics they have added to the feel of the film.
"His name was Robert Paulson."