Ohyea

David Kiepert

Staci Bleecker

Introduction to Modern Cinema

03.12.2014

First Rule of Fight Club: Never Talk About Fight Club

Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, Chuck Palahniuk’s 1996 novel Fight Club skyrocketed to critical acclaim and box office success with the release of the 1999 movie of the same name. Following his breakthrough 1995 thriller Se7en, director David Fincher would bring to life his next big hit with this intense, extremely dark, and brutally violent portrayal on the downfall of an overly materialistic modern civilization. Though the film was brutally violent and contained many misogynistic themes, the strong cinematography and visual design propelled the film to captivate audiences out of their comfort zone.

Fight Club is about a man known solely by the credits of the film as the “Narrator.” The Narrator is stuck in the corporate world and finds no purpose in his life except fulfilling his life with expensive clothes, a high-rise condo, and fancy furniture purchased from a catalog. As a chronic insomniac, the only way he can sleep is by attending different support groups. One night on a business flight he meets Tyler Durden. Tyler is appealing, abrasive, and bold character that doesn’t care about the materialistic things in life. In reality, Tyler Durden is actually the Narrator’s dual personality. The two personalities then build an army of blue-collar men known as the “Fight Club.”

The cinematographer, Jeff Cronenweth, undoubtedly does a tremendous job encapsulating an incredibly grungy aesthetic that makes the film so unique. When the Narrator had scenes with Tyler, they would make all the characters a bit shiny, to give off a lurid tone. The “real-life” scenes of the Narrator without Tyler were simply bland and normal appearing. The costumes together with makeup in the film are characteristic of deeply desaturated colors. Many scenes throughout the film exhibit both practical and natural light simultaneously,...