Revisiting David Fincher's "Fight Club"

Somebody, I can’t remember whether it was Groucho Marx or Woody Allen, once said that he wouldn’t belong to any club that would have him as a member.  This is the first flash of wisdom that comes to my mind after seeing what the central character of Fight Club experiences.  Perhaps it has something to do with my being male, and this flick is nothing if it isn’t an insight into the pent-up aggression that all men (or at least the straight ones) in modern society must feel, at least at one time or another.  The violence for which this movie is primarily known is certainly not the worst in modern cinema, but it has to be some of the most intense.  If there’s a movie I’ve seen that is more grotesque and disturbing, while at the same time engrossing and fascinating, I can’t quickly think of it.

Edward Norton portrays a man, whose name is not initially given to us, who can’t sleep.  Why can’t he sleep?  He’s not sure.  He only knows that he’s miserable.  He hates his job.  He hates his boss.  He hates living alone.  He can’t find any meaning to his life.  He narrates this story with the type of lines Hunter S. Thompson or Robert B. Parker would write in their pulpy novels; the kind of things only a man would say, and most likely only to other men (in one scene, “I want to destroy something beautiful; I wanted to break open oil tankers and pour crude on all of those pretty French beaches I’ll never see,” etc.).  He goes to all sorts of group therapy meetings, dealing with afflictions from which he doesn’t suffer, using the suffering of others to make his own seem less by comparison.  This newfound outlook brings him sleep, until he notices Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) appearing at all of these meetings, too.  She’s another like him, and it eats at his craw that there’s someone else in the room that isn’t really in pain; he needs to know he’s the only one in the room who’s really okay.

He next meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a stranger on an airplane that speaks to him more directly than perhaps anyone ever has, and seems to understand his inner torment better than even he does.  When our Narrator’s condo explodes in a mysterious gas explosion, he ends up rooming with Tyler in a dilapidated, run-down shack of a house where Tyler makes soap and explosives out of human fat garnered from liposuction clinics which he sells to department stores for twenty bucks a cake (“selling the fat asses of old ladies back to them,” as the Narrator puts it).  Tyler spews anarchic philosophy about being free of society’s rules, not being a slave to our possessions, the hell of being raised by women in a society of male rules.  Tyler begins a wild, raucous sexual affair with Marla, the shallowness of which disgusts our Narrator.

Somewhere in all of this, the two men begin fighting; not out of any disagreement, but supposedly for the adrenaline rush, or hostility towards the world at large, or maybe just because they don’t have anything more meaningful to do.  It becomes an ongoing thing, and pulls in other men who see them fighting and want to share in the energy.  Large numbers of strangers meet on a regular basis to pound the living snot out of each other, then return to their lives the next day, the bruises and gashes and broken noses not seeming to have any effect on their ability to hold jobs.  The sounds of fists landing on jaws and skulls landing on concrete floors pulses along with images of swollen cheeks bursting and eyes blackening, all the more disgustingly interesting for being in slow motion.  Our Narrator tells us that one never feels more alive than after a fight (as my last fight was in the fifth grade, my memory is a bit dim on that), and the club grows and grows.  Perhaps he just finally wanted to be in a club that would have him as a member.

The climax of the film is one of the better "twist endings you're likely to ever see, and in a somewhat unrealistic fashion, brings order to all this chaos.  David Fincher has composed a film that, for me at least, escapes a simple description.  There are turns in the film that demand we suspend our disbelief, or perhaps force us to.  Instead of turning me off to what came next, such turns lured me into what came next.  If I could think of movies with similar imagery to list for comparison, I'd do so, but none come to mind.

I have been a fan Fincher's since his days making music videos (his video for Steve Winwood’s “Roll With It” is still one of the most visually engaging videos of which I can think, and it was made almost twenty-five years ago).  His earlier films Alien³ and The Game were both visually impressive, but it's probably best that he made Fight Club when he did, as given how he has "graduated" to more commercially-acceptable fare like The Social Network and the remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, he probably wouldn't have been able to make a film like this now.

Different viewers may have different takes on the deeper meaning of our Narrator’s struggles with his outlook on life and Tyler Durden’s ultra-radical, nihilistic rants and raves, any of which may have merit.  As for myself, I don’t think the meaning is as deep as some others have stated, but I do think it’s deeper than a mere statement about men needing to find an outlet for the pent-up aggression in an ever-increasing pansy-fied society.  Fight Club is not for the faint of heart; humorous in places due to its out-and-out assault on our ideas of logical behavior (especially its closing scene), but gut-wrenching in others as we realize the depths of madness to which the Narrator has fallen.  I couldn’t not watch this movie.  On that basis, I recommend it, but if you do see it, don’t come whining and crying to me if you couldn’t take it (how’s that for focusing my male aggression?).

Do I have thoughts on "The Bourne Legacy"? Oh, do I...

Now, I know what Joe Average-Moviegoer has been saying since seeing the first TV spots back in March - What? Another Bourne movie?  Wait a minute – Matt Damon isn’t in it!  How the hell can it be a Bourne movie?  Sure, I understand the gut reaction to label this film as a cash-grab made to lure unsuspecting schmucks into blindly forking over their twelve bucks just because it has “Bourne” in the title, but I could argue that anybody who buys a ticket to a movie without any understanding of said movie might deserve whatever disappointment he/she may find.  If you know anything about Tony Gilroy, however, you’d know you probably didn’t have much to worry about.

I dig Tony Gilroy’s work.  I think he’s one of the best screenwriters working over the last fifteen years.  As primary screenwriter of two different fantastically-successful three-film franchises since 2001 (the Ocean’s series as well as the Bourne films), he has shown an ability to create interesting, watchable characters who speak clever, witty and intelligent dialogue, and to place them in situations that, even if far-fetched, keep the attention of contemporary audiences riveted to the screen (and given the gnat-like attention span of today’s audiences, this is no small feat).  I also firmly believe that Michael Clayton, his directorial debut, is one of the more underrated flicks of the last decade, despite its Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.  For these reasons alone, I was willing to give The Bourne Legacy a chance.

When the first attempt at making a fourth “Bourne” film, one that would have included Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, etc. and been directed by Supremacy and Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass (and also written by Gilroy), fell apart before shooting began, I, like most folks, figured that this was the end of the series.  However, if there’s a buck to be made, Hollywood will find some way to get it, so producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy asked Gilroy to write a new script and take over the director’s chair to see what he could do.  I would’ve had much, much stronger reservations about this flick if ANYBODY else had made it, since Gilroy was as much responsible for the franchise’s success as Greengrass and Damon.

All that being said, he pulled it off, folks.  Gilroy has created a “paraquel,” a story that takes place simultaneously with the events of The Bourne Ultimatum.  We learn that the Treadstone project is just one of many Defense Department operations involving scientifically-tailored intelligence agents.  As a result of Jason Bourne’s and Pamela Landy’s actions in the previous film, a Defense Department heavy named Byer (Edward Norton), decides to “shut down” all of the programs by killing off the field agents, as well as the scientists who created the methods by which the agents are maintained.  One of these agents is Aaron Cross, played by Jeremy Renner, who escapes the attempt on his life in Alaska, makes his way back to the mainland, and contacts the scientist who monitored him, Dr. Shearing (Rachel Weisz) just as the CIA has arrived to shut her down, too.   Rescuing her, he learns that she knows how to free him of the medications he requires to maintain his peak physical and mental condition, and the quest to compete this process, being pursued all the while by Byer’s compatriots, takes us to the conclusion of the movie.

Jeremy Renner does a great job at NOT playing another Jason Bourne, which I think was a terrific decision on his and Gilroy’s part.  His Aaron Cross does not have the constant look of confusion that Bourne displayed due to his amnesia, nor is he as monotone in his demeanor as Bourne.  Cross actually smiles once or twice during this story, and Renner plays him as a curious, inquisitive type who wants to learn more about this “program” he’s joined as a means of becoming something better than he was in his life before volunteering.  Contrary to Jason Bourne, Aaron Cross remembers very well what he used to be, and wants very much to not go back there.   Rachel Weisz also brings her character above the stereotypical “damsel-in-distress” level, as despite it being obvious she is woefully unprepared for facing the consequences of her work outside of the laboratory, she does not shrink from what Aaron demands of her, and even plays an integral part in saving them from the final baddie near the film’s conclusion.

Legacy is not as frenetic, hyper-edited as the previous films were, and this seems a good thing to me.  Gilroy’s previous directorial efforts have all been a bit more cerebral than the Ocean’s pictures and the Bourne movies as a whole, requiring an audience to actually pay a bit of attention, and Legacy is no exception.  When I heard that bioengineering would be a component of the story here, I was afraid the movie would degenerate into science fiction somehow, but those fears were unfounded, and paying attention to the processes Dr. Shearing explains at different points of the movie made enough sense to me that I could easily invoke the Suspension of Belief that all moviegoers must grant movies at some point or another.  This is a Thriller, though, so there must be action scenes, and there are definitely a couple good ones here (the climactic motorcycle chase through the streets of Manila ranks right up there with anything from the other films).

It was fascinating to see a depiction of events surrounding the mayhem and carnage resulting from Jason Bourne’s actions in the previous films.  Some of the supporting characters from Bourne Ultimatum momentarily pop up here, and even provide enough fodder for another film, one which I could easily see either having a place in it for Jason Bourne’s return, or be a very interesting story without him.