Introduction

This introductory chapter discusses the importance of studying David Fincher's Fight Club (1999). Studying Fight Club is a response to a number of issues. Firstly, the film has, since 2009, been an optional examined text in the WJEC's A2 Film Studies course in the UK. Secondly, the film's director, David Fincher, and the key cast of Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter remain powerful Hollywood voices, whose work range from the mainstream to the art house. Fincher in particular is now widely regarded as a contemporary auteur with the facility to explore the zeitgeist in a stylish and substantial way. Finally, there is the need to revisit Fight Club in terms of its broad cultural impact and continuing relevance. The film still packs a powerful punch, with its perceived machismo remaining its most frequently explored aspect and indeed gender identity and post-millennial male anxiety are certainly important critical angles. This book pushes the analysis of the film beyond gender, exploring it in terms of its attack on postmodern culture via a proper understanding of Friedrich Nietzsche: a philosopher who is often negatively attributed to Fight Club's philosophy.

Fight Club’s Critical Reactions and Cultural Contexts

This chapter explores the critical reactions to Fight Club (1999). Fight Club has a complex, postmodern approach to genre and narrative; it is a generic hybrid that resists categorisation and a narrative that avoids precise resolution. Critical responses were wide ranging but the most vociferous and aggressive were from renowned critics like Roger Ebert and Alexander Walker who found the film repellent and nihilistic. Many critics linked the film to an infantile reading of Nietzsche, which further raised the spectre of the Nazis and helped endorse the view that Fight Club was politically dangerous and morally repugnant. However, critical opinion was split, with some reviewers seeing Fight Club as a brilliantly effective critique and biting satire of contemporary life. The film also created censorship issues for the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) who insisted on minor cuts to two scenes of fighting. The chapter then considers the cultural contexts of Fight Club. In 1999, the fear of the ‘Millennium Bug’ was indicative of a general anxiety over many aspects of Western culture. These were focused on notions of gender and in particular male anxiety of emasculation and feminisation, as well as generational mistrust and unease.

Fight Club’s Production and Promotion

This chapter identifies the key elements of Fight Club's transition from novel to film. Fight Club is in some ways a paradoxical film: both a product and a critique of big business. Fox and Regency, two big players in Hollywood film production, put 67 million dollars into Fight Club because the talent package was strong. They believed the film would do well — and despite a less-than-hoped-for initial box office run, they have been proved right. Emerging from the world of advertising and music videos, Fight Club's director David Fincher has now established himself as a modern-day auteur. The chapter then considers the performances of the film's cast, including Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter. It also comments on the marketing of the film. Fox did not know how to sell Fight Club and so seriously misjudged its marketing and release. Fincher's original and seditious concepts for the marketing were rejected for more conventional action-orientated fare, aimed at a male youth market. This backfired in the post-Columbine climate and failed to connect with the broader youth market, which has now found significance in the film and elevated it to cult status.