I saw this movie in theaters opening night and have watched it at least once a year since. I’ve never seen it and not walked away without a new POV about what it means. I think you nailed it about the way you see things differently the older you get. Chuck and David Fincher are a dangerous narrative combination.
First off, l think this is one of the best book to film adaptations in existence. Second, l think the real genius of it is that it is kind of a Rorschach test and mirror. We all bring our own inner selves to this film and walk away with different themes and messages. And l think that is one of the marks of true art. Yes, Fight Club is entertaining. But it is so, so much more than that.
Yeah, it is an emotional rollercoaster. I wonder if that's what it is actually about. Like literally every emotion we experience as individuals and as a part of a collective
You're going through a phase just like the disaffected youth who showed up to be humiliated for the cause. It always starts with 1 sip of koolaid @@nogrecords
I like the idea that he actually has testicular cancer. That's why the doctor sent him to that self help group and the insomnia that he does have was just a way of him not dealing with it. Losing your balls is losing your masculinity and Tyler being hyper masculine is the side he clings onto whereas Marla being a woman with no balls (something he might face one day) is pulling him back to reality. All the unrealistic stuff in the movie isn't real. And at the end he comes to terms with what's happening and kills Tyler and sides with Marla.
His entire reason for being there is emotional release, since Marla came in it wasn’t just his experience anymore, he had to find another way and that was Fight Club
Saw it in theater when it came out, was not what I was expecting from the trailers. My head was spinning. Got the DVD a year later. Possibly the most re-watchable movie ever made.
Marla is his guilt. That’s why she keeps showing up when she does, and why she looks worse and worse as time goes by. “Maria’s philosophy of life is that she could die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn’t.” Marla is a literal representation of our inability to let go of our guilt.
My head cannon is that she looks worse throughout the movie because Tyler is becoming the dominant Alter The narrator is spending less time as Marla and more time as Tyler
His name was Jack. He actually says it throughout the movie. “I am jacks wasted life with no meaning”. And “I am Jacks raging bile duct”. No one puts it together until the end
Marla is real, her behavior changes when she’s treated differently because of his multiple personalities, it’s a normal reaction, you even have a clip of her explaining this when she calls him Tyler….
I think all these interactions are within the narrators mind. Marla is a personality of the narrators and her and Tyler having sex is him masturbating. "Self improvement is masturbation" is a line in the films and whenever Tyler and Marla are having sex the narrator is always reading, exercising or grooming etc.. ie self improving..
The fear of death theory seems very plausible Tyler even has a line during the chemical burn scene where he tells the narrator that he has to know he’s going to die instead of fear he’s doing to die
To me, the chemical burn scene was a direct illustration of a quote by Nietzsche, "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." Tyler is teaching Cornelius to quit trying to escape from reality and force himself to stay in the moment, because it is suffering that is life's ultimate purpose.
Ok, Palahniuk...its pronounced Paula-Nick. And he's one of the greatest novelists of the 21st Century IMO. And Ed Norton's character is commonly referred to as "Narrator" or "Jack", as in the "I am Jack's _____" recurring literary device. I have never heard anyone refer to him as Cornelius. (Except for Meatloaf lol)
The one big hole in your Marla theory is one of the guys in the support groups tries to talk to her but Cornelius grabs her and beats him to the conversation. This show that she is there and although no one get to talk to her she exists within the world. Additional she talks to the person behind to counter while selling the cloths and cars beep at her while she is standing in traffic. It is actually a good theory but only if Cornelius is obsessed with her and uses her as a template for the idea in his head.
As a huge fan of the film, I gotta say that it's probably meaningless. Nothing gets resolved. The main character goes on a bit of urban adventure. Comes close to death as humanly possible, and goes back to normal boring life. This movie is like a guide to all those people who never tried anything in life that's out of the ordinary, and then are somehow shocked how monotone their lives are.
Fight Club is absolutely a modern retelling of a story by Edgar Allen Poe called "William Wilson". For some inexplicable reason NOBODY has ever discussed the absolute truth, nor made the connection. There is no legal reason to avoid admitting this, as all of Poe's tales are in the public domain. If you are a fan of Fight Club, please read this story and you'll understand the origins of F.C.'s major themes. Then post your responses & let me know what revelations you've gained. Thank-you
I really love that insight Chuck gave that men have less literature and representation to their internal struggles. Especially the need for aggression and the appreciation of it.
It’s interesting. The older I get, the less fear of death I feel for myself, but the more fear I feel for the people I would leave behind to fend for themselves. Or, the more in deep denial I am about my fear of death for myself. I think it’s the former, but I can’t rule out the latter.
We used to have to go out and hunt for our food, protect our families from harm and invaders. Life was tough, brutal, harsh. Today, we sit on our couch, watch TV and drink cold beer from the fridge. Life is too easy. Because of this ease, we are having trouble regulating our emotions and mental well-being. Oh, and we never speak about Project Mayhem.
Exercise is good, it used to be forced, exercise or die, now we can live without it but doing so is like trying to dun dun dun live without sleep, it’s not a real life
Life is more difficult and hard then ever,because if we want to free urself,we have to resist to consum things they want to sell us!Trie to resist overpriced prossest unhealty food trie to resist netflix HBO Disney,overpriced cars TV Starbucks Soda oversized Houses cars!All this things enslave most americans,so they live from paycheck to paycheck in fear that they lose their job!
My take on the movie is pretty straightforward: it is about masculinity. The masculinity of rebellion, of anarchy, of following a leader (i.e. of an army, police: manly jobs), of rough play as a bonding experience. These are of course inconsistence: we rebell against conformity by following a leader. The various forms of masculinity that we disregard in order to live in modern society.
The book definitely makes you feel like you're living in that house while you read it. The further details about Marla's mother. Became a big fan of Chuck's books. His appearances on Joe Rogan were fascinating too.
The slide part for me was about "letting go". Like when you're a kid, that's why the penguin had a child's voice. The narrator only let go when they got into the car accident.
The Darla theory you have doesn’t make sense because you could see the space monkeys at the end of the film apprehending her While she’s yelling and screaming at them..
Without even watching this video… on a broader scale it’s about the nihilism of generation X as opposed to previous generations. We are basically the “we don’t give a shit“ generation. We were constantly searching for meaning in our dull and mundane early adult years and unlike our parents we had nothing REAL to fight for. There was no World War 2 or Vietnam, nothing to fight for, nothing to protest against except our own meaningless lives and the constant search for our purpose and rebellion NOT to work boring, meaningless 8-5 jobs and live out in the suburbs with 2+ kids and live the same boring day on a loop and end up divorced and miserable like our parents. so in the 90s men (and women) woke up from the “Just say no” bs, false idealism, and forced consumption and consumerism mentality forced upon us in the 80’s and we rebelled against it. We also became more self aware and started to resent the lies that were told to us in our youth. struggling to find our identity and so we looked for it in violence, drugs, and anarchy. Rebels with no cause. That’s basically the main premise of this movie. Of course there are other theories, but basically Brad Pitt a.k.a. Tyler Durden sums it up in his brilliant monologue where he stares straight into the camera and talks about how were the first generation mainly grown up with single moms and because of that idols were not our fathers, they were violent (and non violent)antiheroes from movie and TV, like Kurt Cobain who were the antithesis of our parents heroes. …..While being a very Different movie on the surface, other movies like “Trainspotting” held similar themes. I compare Pitts “your not your f’ing Khakis” speech to Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor)‘s superior “Choose Life” monologue with Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” playing over his brilliant narration. Two of the best if not THE best movies of the 90’s. They were the right movies at the perfect time. Had either movie come out a decade earlier or a decade later it wouldn’t have worked.
I'm not smart enough to posit my own theory about what this movie means. But I do think it's more a story of the times, just like most movies. It's about technology taking over every aspect of our lives, and us not experiencing anything for ourselves anymore. And obviously partially about materialism. BUT, I'll also note that only explains the movie up to a certain point. So maybe it's about death, or most likely, it's not just about one thing. Life, love, boredom, anger, depression, happiness and sadness, fear of missing out. Either way, it's a hell of a movie. That's for damn sure
To build on your theory about him being scared of death, I also noticed in the movie that the more a character is afraid of dying or places a value on something the more it goes wrong for them and begins to fall apart.
When I saw the movie in the theater, the movie stopped and the house lights came up just when Tyler and the Narrator were about to fight. I 100% believed (at the time) that it was intentional and thought it was awesome that they split the movie in two like Tyler was split in two.
This movie can be analyzed through the spectrum of all sorts of different philosophies and psychoanalytic theories. Jungian, Freudian, Taoist, Eastern, Western, individualist, collectivist. You name it. 5:50 Ackchyually, that symbol's called the "taijitu." The principles of yin and yang are what it represents. Coincidentally, Tyler is the yang to Cornelius's yin (see also The Dude/yin and Walter Sobchak/yang). 9:26 / 9:39 Birds are masters of land, sea, and air. Most species focus on one or two. Penguins swim the way other birds fly. So when the penguin slides, he has a way toward freedom if the slide leads to water. 11:58 / 12:05 Yang and yin, respectively. In Taoism, yang is usually associated with order and obedience, whereas yin is more chaotic and free-spirited. But then, each has a portion within the other, so the symbolism still works. 12:34 Gandhi was critical of unmanliness. He despised how the British disarmament of India had made Indian men "unmanly." Anyway, I like Tyler's reasoning for wanting to fight Lincoln: He knew Lincoln would present a challenge because of his size and reach. I wonder if he knew at the time that Lincoln had been a pro wrestler in his youth and was pretty much a giant in his time and place, referring to himself as "the big buck" of his "lick." At the time, "lick" meant something to the effect of "neck of the woods" (like French Lick, etc.).
Marla is totally real. There is a guy in one of the early meetings wearing a black jacket that tries to approach her but Cornelius intercepted. Then you have the police at her apartment, the waiter at the restaurant and the members from project mayhem bring her to Cornelius at the end. Plus, if she wasn't, what's he doing with himself? I know he ain't moaning like a ghost with himself dats fo sho
"Self Improvement is masturbation". Every time Tyler and Marla are having sex, The Narrator is exercising, or reading. Tyler and Marla having sex is Jack masturbating.
First watched this movie in the Cinema field in Glastonbury 2001, but the sun started to come up about 20 mins before it finished so I missed the twist at the end. Some months later when a friend asked me if I'd seen it and what did I think about the twist at the end I said " Yeah it's good but a bit over-rated, and what twist?" He laughed in my face and said FFS watch it back bro. If you ain't seen the twist you ain't seen the film. Of course he was right LOOOL😂
the guy is going full psycho and imagining Tyler and Marla. You know he imagined Marla because in laundry mat he says you can’t have my whole brain. Meaning that personality of his can’t take over his mind completely everyday like Tyler has done before. Then he is trying to negotiate with himself how much Marla can take over on those days of the week
Sleep is directly tied to exertion, we sleep more deeply after having actually used our bodies, as we limit natural spaces and the need for physical exertion sleep is not as restful, but we still crave stimulation and so we become consumerist zombies, it’s realllly simple
Always thought Fight Club is solipsism. If the house is on Paper Street, a street which cannot exist in reality, then everything in the film is in the narrators head. Reality, is confined to Tyler’s/Jack’/narrator’s head.
They just don't make films like this anymore where you can watch them time and again and still pick it apart. I have lost count how many times I have watched this. I can remember when it came out, me and my friends would watch it regularly and discuss theories on it. Films nowadays feel like a watch once and you're done type affair.
heres a theory that gonna blow up your friends minds: bob is the main character. the narrator is bobs mind and tyler and marla are his wish and his fate.
I really wish we had more male oriented films especially with the rise of OnlyFans and Twitch girls and numerous men willing to just give away X amount of money to them on a whim literally for no reason. Fight Club was truly ahead of its time and is the true definition of a social commentary. We were spoiled to get Fight Club and American Psycho only one year apart.
I assumed it was just not to follow crowds. In today's society, it is relatable with a certain group that I'm not going to mention their name bc they automatically respond when you do.
he is also Marla Singer , and the main character navigate between Tyler and Marla slippery as soap, because he doesn't have the moral fiber necessary to position himself as a rock in the world, he still doesn't know who he really is .... slipperying between masculinity and feminility
In my opinion the film (even when I was young and watched it) it was always about not being a follower, you need to dedicate yourself to something as a man that’s just how it is if you want to be able to be a productive human being
I think Fight Club is telling a spiritual story. The narrator is engaged in some kind of “spiritual materialism” with his yin-yang table and sterile office life. Then, as with prince Siddhartha, he leaves his safe environment and experiences ageing, sickness and death. But the guided meditations don’t bring relief and he creates a false ego in Tyler and tries to punish his body and give up material possessions. Still no good. Eventually he realises that to achieve true enlightenment (and not the premature enlightenment that Tyler refers to) he must kill his ego, dis-illusion himself and encounter reality for what it truly is.
Yes but she never speaks to anyone when she’s not in the presence of Tyler or The Narrator- which means he could be the one speaking when she orders the special. 🧼
The server recognizes her presence, which works against the idea of her being an alter. However, "Cornelius" is a very unreliable narrator. He believes that other supporting characters speak directly to "Tyler"
Weirdly enough Marlon never says the narrator's name, Tyler durden, until his mind is ready to accept and wants to know who Tyler is. She always leaves the room as Tyler enters or enters as he leaves. She is another personality, she's a part of his brain, and throughout the movies brain is not ready to accept that he is Tyler, and so as a part of his brain she protects him from that knowledge by never saying his name to him, never being in the room with Tyler And the only reason Tyler saves her is because she swallowed a bunch of pills while in control of The narrator's body, so saving her is really just saving himself I love that we're decades later and people are seemingly just now starting to discover and realize that there was a second twist in fight club that they never saw. We all know the narrator is Tyler durden, but few people walked out of the movie theater realizing that the narrator is also Marla And the end of the movie is him choosing to live as Marla
Fight Club is absolutely a modern retelling of a story by Edgar Allen Poe called "William Wilson". For some inexplicable reason NOBODY has ever discussed the absolute truth, nor made the connection. There is no legal reason to avoid admitting this, as all of Poe's tales are in the public domain. If you are a fan of Fight Club, please read this story and you'll understand the origins of F.C.'s major themes. Then post your responses & let me know what revelations you've gained. Thank-you
I saw a video recently that pointed out the scene where the narrator goes to a bar and sees the guy with his head in a brace. The guy appears behind the bar from nowhere, one second there is no one there then this big guy appears. Plus all the chairs in the establishment are on the tables as if it’s closed. Suggesting that this is in his imagination too.
Unfortunately, I can’t agree on the theory that Marla might not be real. The first time I watched the movie, I thought that too I already knew from spoilers that Tyler wasn’t “real”, although the narrator IS Tyler So i assumed, from the start, that Marla wasn’t real either. As the movie progressed, I dissected Marla’s character more and more, and I do think she’s real. You bring up the fact that she never interacts with anyone other than the narrator, which isn’t true. We see her fighting off a group of project mayhem members in the final act, as well as selling her clothes to a pawn shop. So in the end, I do believe she’s her own unique character.
I think a message for modern times that this movie conveys is: if people knew how to punch and take a punch maybe there would be less gun violence. Everyone just goes right to the gun these days., because they don't know how to do anything else, because they don't expect anything else in return.
For me its about freeing yourself!We can do that in diffrent ways!Refusing to have a car,only working if we want to and not because we have to!Most people would just have to stop waesting their hard earnd money for useless shit for some time to free themself!No bullshit Starbucks no trash fastfood no processt food,no TV no netflix,no apple phone no car or just an unsexy olld Prius beater,say no to all useless shit!Make a long trip in Europa with your bicycle,do thing dont buy tings,feel alive and free!
I disagree with the interpretation that Marla is an imaginary yin to Tyler's yang. I see her role in the story as a representation of how a man's truest sense of responsibility comes from having to look after someone else. There's nothing else that dulls the juvenile self-destructive impulses of a young man like choosing to have responsibility to another.
An ex girlfriend of mine's theory was that almost the entire film was a dream!? 😱🤦♂️ Every time we'd argue about it, no matter how many holes were poked in her hypothesis, she never budged...she was determined to die on the the hill called, "worst Fight Club Theory of All Time" 🤙🙂👍
Great movies have a way of capturing the spirit of a time and place. For me, Fight Club does that and more. It represents the darkest corners of generational angst and the duality of man at the dawn of the new millennium. It’s about suppressed males of Generation X struggling to find purpose and identity in a consumer driven post-Reagan America. It’s a time in America where manufacturing jobs - primarily occupied by men- had left the country. It’s a time when Americans were being told by their Presidents that buying things was an act of patriotism, fueling the capitalistic machine. Tyler Durden talks about his generation never having been tested with a great war or depression. No true rite of passage. No major contribution to society. Regulated to mundane day jobs that largely cater to the servicing of others. And emasculation on a grand scale by way of the deterioration of the nuclear family. Divorce rates were at an all time high during the 80s. Many boys grew up without full time fathers. The first half of the film is congregation and reconciliation by way of cathartic release. Men freeing themselves from the shackles of capitalism and reverting to a primordial state of being. The second half is coordination and execution by way of full scale dismantling. Burning the foundations of society to the ground. It’s a shame that so many have misunderstood the spirit of this movie to the point of corruption.
"Marla doesn't exist." Ok, let me do you one better: the narrator doesn't exist either. Fight Club is whatever the viewer thinks the plot is while staring at nothing on a screen for 2 hours
On the idea that Marla is not real. (which is a great idea) I can't help but remember the waiter referencing her to "Cornelius" about the soup warning. -?-
I know quite a few men, including my brother, who took Fight Club’s surface message about masculinity and missed anything deeper. “We’re a generation of men raised by women, do you think another woman is the answer?” I know a guy who stopped buying IKEA because of Fight Club making him feel ashamed about it. Regardless of the interpretations that can be made: the effect the movie had was to stir up toxic masculinity in the culture. Witness the fact real Fight Clubs got started after the movie came out.
IDK if it had anything to do with this film directly, but I do find sort of ironic how a lot of the behavior of the main characters seems to embody what we now refer to as "toxic masculinity". I actually had to study this in a film class where, even more ironically, I was the sole female. But of course, that's just looking at from today's world. Just a little food for thought. =)
you ever found it interesting that the Narrator choose his alter ego to be a man who makes soap because all Tyler Durden wants to do is wash away the infection of materialism from the world in order to cleanse humanity. Plus, his apartment burning looks like eyes of fury in the sky. A self reflection of narrator's soul screaming "this world is bs, because won't let me be me!", hints why he can not find peace = sleep.
Don't know where I sit on the whole "Is Marla real ?" thing, but if she's not that could explain why he insists they can't go to self-help groups on the same night.
I saw this movie in theaters opening night and have watched it at least once a year since. I’ve never seen it and not walked away without a new POV about what it means. I think you nailed it about the way you see things differently the older you get. Chuck and David Fincher are a dangerous narrative combination.
This and Collateral are in my yearly rewatch list.
First off, l think this is one of the best book to film adaptations in existence. Second, l think the real genius of it is that it is kind of a Rorschach test and mirror. We all bring our own inner selves to this film and walk away with different themes and messages. And l think that is one of the marks of true art. Yes, Fight Club is entertaining. But it is so, so much more than that.
As much as I love the novel, Uhls' script is a masterclass in adaptation.
Fight club is simply Art
One of the best movies ever made. It's an emotional rollercoaster. Thanks for the video.
Yeah, it is an emotional rollercoaster. I wonder if that's what it is actually about. Like literally every emotion we experience as individuals and as a part of a collective
It was the first time. Once you see it and know the twist it's much less exciting.
You're going through a phase just like the disaffected youth who showed up to be humiliated for the cause. It always starts with 1 sip of koolaid @@nogrecords
@@nogrecordsit’s social commentary about soci and mental health
I never watched any other movie like this. This movie is unique from every other movie. One of the best movies ever made. A cult classic ❤
This comment reads like a bunch of tagline reviews you'd find on the back of a DVD.
I like the idea that he actually has testicular cancer. That's why the doctor sent him to that self help group and the insomnia that he does have was just a way of him not dealing with it. Losing your balls is losing your masculinity and Tyler being hyper masculine is the side he clings onto whereas Marla being a woman with no balls (something he might face one day) is pulling him back to reality. All the unrealistic stuff in the movie isn't real. And at the end he comes to terms with what's happening and kills Tyler and sides with Marla.
I thought only cephalopods could get tentacular cancer.
@@jess_n_atx maybe he was a cephalopod 🤷♂️
His entire reason for being there is emotional release, since Marla came in it wasn’t just his experience anymore, he had to find another way and that was Fight Club
thats what happens when you take everything personally@@silverblue73
@@silverblue73 Marla was the reality of the cancer creeping into his fantasy
Saw it in theater when it came out, was not what I was expecting from the trailers. My head was spinning. Got the DVD a year later. Possibly the most re-watchable movie ever made.
The great ones always provoke the "what if" factor. That's what makes Fight Club one of the most timeless films to date.
Wrong again, our protagonist does not fear death but fears never having lived, thus the extreme measures of Fight Club
Marla is his guilt. That’s why she keeps showing up when she does, and why she looks worse and worse as time goes by. “Maria’s philosophy of life is that she could die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn’t.” Marla is a literal representation of our inability to let go of our guilt.
My head cannon is that she looks worse throughout the movie because Tyler is becoming the dominant Alter
The narrator is spending less time as Marla and more time as Tyler
From a Fruedian Perspective.
Tyler is Edward's ID (Instinctual Desire)
Edward Norton is the Ego
Marla is SuperEgo
His name was Jack. He actually says it throughout the movie. “I am jacks wasted life with no meaning”. And “I am Jacks raging bile duct”. No one puts it together until the end
Marla is real, her behavior changes when she’s treated differently because of his multiple personalities, it’s a normal reaction, you even have a clip of her explaining this when she calls him Tyler….
And she has multiple interactions with space monkeys. “I recommend the lady doesn’t have the chowder”, the bus scene, and the kidnapping at the end.
And she sells the clothes she steals at the beginning
I think all these interactions are within the narrators mind. Marla is a personality of the narrators and her and Tyler having sex is him masturbating. "Self improvement is masturbation" is a line in the films and whenever Tyler and Marla are having sex the narrator is always reading, exercising or grooming etc.. ie self improving..
The fear of death theory seems very plausible Tyler even has a line during the chemical burn scene where he tells the narrator that he has to know he’s going to die instead of fear he’s doing to die
To me, the chemical burn scene was a direct illustration of a quote by Nietzsche, "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering."
Tyler is teaching Cornelius to quit trying to escape from reality and force himself to stay in the moment, because it is suffering that is life's ultimate purpose.
Ok, Palahniuk...its pronounced Paula-Nick. And he's one of the greatest novelists of the 21st Century IMO.
And Ed Norton's character is commonly referred to as "Narrator" or "Jack", as in the "I am Jack's _____" recurring literary device. I have never heard anyone refer to him as Cornelius. (Except for Meatloaf lol)
Yeah this narrator is a bit lost
R.I.P Meat Loaf
Marla calls him Cornelius as well
The one big hole in your Marla theory is one of the guys in the support groups tries to talk to her but Cornelius grabs her and beats him to the conversation. This show that she is there and although no one get to talk to her she exists within the world.
Additional she talks to the person behind to counter while selling the cloths and cars beep at her while she is standing in traffic.
It is actually a good theory but only if Cornelius is obsessed with her and uses her as a template for the idea in his head.
If the narrator can interact as his alter ego then mala can too as another personality
As a huge fan of the film, I gotta say that it's probably meaningless. Nothing gets resolved. The main character goes on a bit of urban adventure. Comes close to death as humanly possible, and goes back to normal boring life.
This movie is like a guide to all those people who never tried anything in life that's out of the ordinary, and then are somehow shocked how monotone their lives are.
Tldr how's that for meaningful statements
He goes back to normal boring life?
Fight Club is absolutely a modern retelling of a story by Edgar Allen Poe called "William Wilson". For some inexplicable reason NOBODY has ever discussed the absolute truth, nor made the connection. There is no legal reason to avoid admitting this, as all of Poe's tales are in the public domain. If you are a fan of Fight Club, please read this story and you'll understand the origins of F.C.'s major themes. Then post your responses & let me know what revelations you've gained. Thank-you
I really love that insight Chuck gave that men have less literature and representation to their internal struggles. Especially the need for aggression and the appreciation of it.
At this point in life you can basically slap Fight club on any video, and fill that with crazy ideas about the meaning, and I’ll watch it
That’s exactly what they’re doing, manufacturing views, just like Matrix theory videos lol
It’s interesting. The older I get, the less fear of death I feel for myself, but the more fear I feel for the people I would leave behind to fend for themselves. Or, the more in deep denial I am about my fear of death for myself. I think it’s the former, but I can’t rule out the latter.
We used to have to go out and hunt for our food, protect our families from harm and invaders. Life was tough, brutal, harsh.
Today, we sit on our couch, watch TV and drink cold beer from the fridge. Life is too easy. Because of this ease, we are having trouble regulating our emotions and mental well-being.
Oh, and we never speak about Project Mayhem.
Every decision we make is based either off of comfort or egoism nowadays. There are no more heroes left. At least that's what they want you to think 😂
Exercise is good, it used to be forced, exercise or die, now we can live without it but doing so is like trying to dun dun dun live without sleep, it’s not a real life
Life is more difficult and hard then ever,because if we want to free urself,we have to resist to consum things they want to sell us!Trie to resist overpriced prossest unhealty food trie to resist netflix HBO Disney,overpriced cars TV Starbucks Soda oversized Houses cars!All this things enslave most americans,so they live from paycheck to paycheck in fear that they lose their job!
People weren't even talking about 'alpha males' when the film came out. A Milennial review of this film is redundant.
My take on the movie is pretty straightforward: it is about masculinity. The masculinity of rebellion, of anarchy, of following a leader (i.e. of an army, police: manly jobs), of rough play as a bonding experience. These are of course inconsistence: we rebell against conformity by following a leader. The various forms of masculinity that we disregard in order to live in modern society.
The book definitely makes you feel like you're living in that house while you read it. The further details about Marla's mother. Became a big fan of Chuck's books. His appearances on Joe Rogan were fascinating too.
Dude, I LOVE that Marla theory! It really holds some water, and presents a very interesting twist on an already compelling story. Kudos for sharing!
I always saw the message as don’t follow crowds and to what makes you happy… that’s what the”slide” part is about
Maybe also dont buy to much useless shit you have to work hard for!
The slide part for me was about "letting go". Like when you're a kid, that's why the penguin had a child's voice. The narrator only let go when they got into the car accident.
it's not about the fear of death, but more about the fear of wasting your life
My favorite movie of all time. Brilliant observations JoBlo!
The Darla theory you have doesn’t make sense because you could see the space monkeys at the end of the film apprehending her While she’s yelling and screaming at them..
I remember watching this movie for first on Christmas Day in 99' and it was one of those films that stuck to me.
The freedom to let what truly does not matter slide.
Without even watching this video… on a broader scale it’s about the nihilism of generation X as opposed to previous generations. We are basically the “we don’t give a shit“ generation. We were constantly searching for meaning in our dull and mundane early adult years and unlike our parents we had nothing REAL to fight for. There was no World War 2 or Vietnam, nothing to fight for, nothing to protest against except our own meaningless lives and the constant search for our purpose and rebellion NOT to work boring, meaningless 8-5 jobs and live out in the suburbs with 2+ kids and live the same boring day on a loop and end up divorced and miserable like our parents. so in the 90s men (and women) woke up from the “Just say no” bs, false idealism, and forced consumption and consumerism mentality forced upon us in the 80’s and we rebelled against it. We also became more self aware and started to resent the lies that were told to us in our youth. struggling to find our identity and so we looked for it in violence, drugs, and anarchy. Rebels with no cause. That’s basically the main premise of this movie. Of course there are other theories, but basically Brad Pitt a.k.a. Tyler Durden sums it up in his brilliant monologue where he stares straight into the camera and talks about how were the first generation mainly grown up with single moms and because of that idols were not our fathers, they were violent (and non violent)antiheroes from movie and TV, like Kurt Cobain who were the antithesis of our parents heroes. …..While being a very Different movie on the surface, other movies like “Trainspotting” held similar themes. I compare Pitts “your not your f’ing
Khakis” speech to Mark Renton (Ewan
McGregor)‘s superior “Choose Life” monologue with Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” playing over his brilliant narration. Two of the best if not THE best movies of the 90’s. They were the right movies at the perfect time. Had either movie come out a decade earlier or a decade later it wouldn’t have worked.
Bravo.
I come back to check on this channel yearly. And without doubt, 3 new videos. Props bro. 😅
I'm not smart enough to posit my own theory about what this movie means. But I do think it's more a story of the times, just like most movies. It's about technology taking over every aspect of our lives, and us not experiencing anything for ourselves anymore. And obviously partially about materialism. BUT, I'll also note that only explains the movie up to a certain point. So maybe it's about death, or most likely, it's not just about one thing. Life, love, boredom, anger, depression, happiness and sadness, fear of missing out. Either way, it's a hell of a movie. That's for damn sure
To build on your theory about him being scared of death, I also noticed in the movie that the more a character is afraid of dying or places a value on something the more it goes wrong for them and begins to fall apart.
When I saw the movie in the theater, the movie stopped and the house lights came up just when Tyler and the Narrator were about to fight.
I 100% believed (at the time) that it was intentional and thought it was awesome that they split the movie in two like Tyler was split in two.
This movie can be analyzed through the spectrum of all sorts of different philosophies and psychoanalytic theories. Jungian, Freudian, Taoist, Eastern, Western, individualist, collectivist. You name it.
5:50 Ackchyually, that symbol's called the "taijitu." The principles of yin and yang are what it represents. Coincidentally, Tyler is the yang to Cornelius's yin (see also The Dude/yin and Walter Sobchak/yang).
9:26 / 9:39 Birds are masters of land, sea, and air. Most species focus on one or two. Penguins swim the way other birds fly. So when the penguin slides, he has a way toward freedom if the slide leads to water.
11:58 / 12:05 Yang and yin, respectively. In Taoism, yang is usually associated with order and obedience, whereas yin is more chaotic and free-spirited. But then, each has a portion within the other, so the symbolism still works.
12:34 Gandhi was critical of unmanliness. He despised how the British disarmament of India had made Indian men "unmanly." Anyway, I like Tyler's reasoning for wanting to fight Lincoln: He knew Lincoln would present a challenge because of his size and reach. I wonder if he knew at the time that Lincoln had been a pro wrestler in his youth and was pretty much a giant in his time and place, referring to himself as "the big buck" of his "lick." At the time, "lick" meant something to the effect of "neck of the woods" (like French Lick, etc.).
Marla is totally real. There is a guy in one of the early meetings wearing a black jacket that tries to approach her but Cornelius intercepted. Then you have the police at her apartment, the waiter at the restaurant and the members from project mayhem bring her to Cornelius at the end. Plus, if she wasn't, what's he doing with himself? I know he ain't moaning like a ghost with himself dats fo sho
"Self Improvement is masturbation". Every time Tyler and Marla are having sex, The Narrator is exercising, or reading. Tyler and Marla having sex is Jack masturbating.
"I seen Fight Club 28 times" - Fred Durst
First watched this movie in the Cinema field in Glastonbury 2001, but the sun started to come up about 20 mins before it finished so I missed the twist at the end. Some months later when a friend asked me if I'd seen it and what did I think about the twist at the end I said " Yeah it's good but a bit over-rated, and what twist?" He laughed in my face and said FFS watch it back bro. If you ain't seen the twist you ain't seen the film. Of course he was right LOOOL😂
the guy is going full psycho and imagining Tyler and Marla. You know he imagined Marla because in laundry mat he says you can’t have my whole brain. Meaning that personality of his can’t take over his mind completely everyday like Tyler has done before. Then he is trying to negotiate with himself how much Marla can take over on those days of the week
Fred Durst saw this movie about 28 times
Sleep is directly tied to exertion, we sleep more deeply after having actually used our bodies, as we limit natural spaces and the need for physical exertion sleep is not as restful, but we still crave stimulation and so we become consumerist zombies, it’s realllly simple
Fair play dude normally I'm pissed when an ad comes on but that was quite clever...
I AM JACK and I Approve this Message...His name was Robert Paulson😎❤
Really enjoyed this 👍 I've never got my head around it, I haven't seen it in 15+ years....
More sudden Bob Brains than I was expecting, almost choked on my venti half--caff Frappuccino
Always thought Fight Club is solipsism. If the house is on Paper Street, a street which cannot exist in reality, then everything in the film is in the narrators head.
Reality, is confined to Tyler’s/Jack’/narrator’s head.
One of the rare movies to show me something new every year I watch it. I think you're right on with that interp. Kudos~!
They just don't make films like this anymore where you can watch them time and again and still pick it apart.
I have lost count how many times I have watched this. I can remember when it came out, me and my friends would watch it regularly and discuss theories on it. Films nowadays feel like a watch once and you're done type affair.
heres a theory that gonna blow up your friends minds: bob is the main character. the narrator is bobs mind and tyler and marla are his wish and his fate.
I really wish we had more male oriented films especially with the rise of OnlyFans and Twitch girls and numerous men willing to just give away X amount of money to them on a whim literally for no reason. Fight Club was truly ahead of its time and is the true definition of a social commentary. We were spoiled to get Fight Club and American Psycho only one year apart.
Marla is feminine side of the narrator.
Yes, I 100% agree. Thank you for saying that.
I assumed it was just not to follow crowds.
In today's society, it is relatable with a certain group that I'm not going to mention their name bc they automatically respond when you do.
His name is "Jack" as in all of the notebooks in the Paper Street house talking about all of Jacks organs...
I've watched fight club maybe a dozen times while doing security on 3rd shift. Good times
I’m read where nothing in the movie existed, it was all a psychotic breakdown.
the reason this film is so popular is because you all broke the first and the second rule, and i'm indicating that breaking rules is good
he is also Marla Singer , and the main character navigate between Tyler and Marla slippery as soap, because he doesn't have the moral fiber necessary to position himself as a rock in the world, he still doesn't know who he really is .... slipperying between masculinity and feminility
for me he have testicular cancer
In my opinion the film (even when I was young and watched it) it was always about not being a follower, you need to dedicate yourself to something as a man that’s just how it is if you want to be able to be a productive human being
I think Fight Club is telling a spiritual story. The narrator is engaged in some kind of “spiritual materialism” with his yin-yang table and sterile office life. Then, as with prince Siddhartha, he leaves his safe environment and experiences ageing, sickness and death. But the guided meditations don’t bring relief and he creates a false ego in Tyler and tries to punish his body and give up material possessions. Still no good. Eventually he realises that to achieve true enlightenment (and not the premature enlightenment that Tyler refers to) he must kill his ego, dis-illusion himself and encounter reality for what it truly is.
Doesn't Marla speak to the waiter when she orders the special
Yes but she never speaks to anyone when she’s not in the presence of Tyler or The Narrator- which means he could be the one speaking when she orders the special.
🧼
The server recognizes her presence, which works against the idea of her being an alter.
However, "Cornelius" is a very unreliable narrator. He believes that other supporting characters speak directly to "Tyler"
Marla also tells the narrator to shut up and everyone in the restaurant turns and acknowledges her
Weirdly enough Marlon never says the narrator's name, Tyler durden, until his mind is ready to accept and wants to know who Tyler is.
She always leaves the room as Tyler enters or enters as he leaves.
She is another personality, she's a part of his brain, and throughout the movies brain is not ready to accept that he is Tyler, and so as a part of his brain she protects him from that knowledge by never saying his name to him, never being in the room with Tyler
And the only reason Tyler saves her is because she swallowed a bunch of pills while in control of The narrator's body, so saving her is really just saving himself
I love that we're decades later and people are seemingly just now starting to discover and realize that there was a second twist in fight club that they never saw. We all know the narrator is Tyler durden, but few people walked out of the movie theater realizing that the narrator is also Marla
And the end of the movie is him choosing to live as Marla
Tyler sees Cornelius as a flesh puppet essentially...just like the members of mayhem...and the soap.
Fight Club is absolutely a modern retelling of a story by Edgar Allen Poe called "William Wilson". For some inexplicable reason NOBODY has ever discussed the absolute truth, nor made the connection. There is no legal reason to avoid admitting this, as all of Poe's tales are in the public domain. If you are a fan of Fight Club, please read this story and you'll understand the origins of F.C.'s major themes. Then post your responses & let me know what revelations you've gained. Thank-you
My stomach dropped at the last scene when the building beside them came down 😮 this was years before the actual event 😮.
I saw a video recently that pointed out the scene where the narrator goes to a bar and sees the guy with his head in a brace. The guy appears behind the bar from nowhere, one second there is no one there then this big guy appears. Plus all the chairs in the establishment are on the tables as if it’s closed. Suggesting that this is in his imagination too.
"Jack's" (or "Narrator's") name is Sebastian. Canonically.
It's an allegory of Thus Spake Zarathustra
Thx!!!! Never really understood this movie until now!!!!!
Always thought this movie was a bit strange, but I really liked it!!!!!:/:)
Unfortunately, I can’t agree on the theory that Marla might not be real.
The first time I watched the movie, I thought that too
I already knew from spoilers that Tyler wasn’t “real”, although the narrator IS Tyler
So i assumed, from the start, that Marla wasn’t real either.
As the movie progressed, I dissected Marla’s character more and more, and I do think she’s real.
You bring up the fact that she never interacts with anyone other than the narrator, which isn’t true. We see her fighting off a group of project mayhem members in the final act, as well as selling her clothes to a pawn shop.
So in the end, I do believe she’s her own unique character.
I like new outro style
0:10 miss when this was the Joblo intro!!
I don't think Fight Club is about death, because as people get older, they fear death less.
She called 911 before the narrator got a call from her
This film is hell on earth
Can I get that Subscribe button in Cornflower Blue?
The the outside world, they only see the narrator in his work clothes, acting like Tyler.
I think a message for modern times that this movie conveys is: if people knew how to punch and take a punch maybe there would be less gun violence. Everyone just goes right to the gun these days., because they don't know how to do anything else, because they don't expect anything else in return.
For me its about freeing yourself!We can do that in diffrent ways!Refusing to have a car,only working if we want to and not because we have to!Most people would just have to stop waesting their hard earnd money for useless shit for some time to free themself!No bullshit Starbucks no trash fastfood no processt food,no TV no netflix,no apple phone no car or just an unsexy olld Prius beater,say no to all useless shit!Make a long trip in Europa with your bicycle,do thing dont buy tings,feel alive and free!
I disagree with the interpretation that Marla is an imaginary yin to Tyler's yang. I see her role in the story as a representation of how a man's truest sense of responsibility comes from having to look after someone else. There's nothing else that dulls the juvenile self-destructive impulses of a young man like choosing to have responsibility to another.
I had testicular torsion a few years ago and my friends called me “ball cancer” ever since lol. Kinda funny.
You broke the first rule of fight club lol
An ex girlfriend of mine's theory was that almost the entire film was a dream!? 😱🤦♂️ Every time we'd argue about it, no matter how many holes were poked in her hypothesis, she never budged...she was determined to die on the the hill called, "worst Fight Club Theory of All Time" 🤙🙂👍
Cornelius is called Jack.
Great movies have a way of capturing the spirit of a time and place. For me, Fight Club does that and more. It represents the darkest corners of generational angst and the duality of man at the dawn of the new millennium. It’s about suppressed males of Generation X struggling to find purpose and identity in a consumer driven post-Reagan America. It’s a time in America where manufacturing jobs - primarily occupied by men- had left the country. It’s a time when Americans were being told by their Presidents that buying things was an act of patriotism, fueling the capitalistic machine.
Tyler Durden talks about his generation never having been tested with a great war or depression. No true rite of passage. No major contribution to society. Regulated to mundane day jobs that largely cater to the servicing of others. And emasculation on a grand scale by way of the deterioration of the nuclear family. Divorce rates were at an all time high during the 80s. Many boys grew up without full time fathers.
The first half of the film is congregation and reconciliation by way of cathartic release. Men freeing themselves from the shackles of capitalism and reverting to a primordial state of being. The second half is coordination and execution by way of full scale dismantling. Burning the foundations of society to the ground. It’s a shame that so many have misunderstood the spirit of this movie to the point of corruption.
Tyler isn't the imagined one; the narrator is.
That's why he's the only character without an actual name. Because he doesn't exist.
I always read fightclub as a critique of consumerism / capitalism first and foremost.
Glad I waited til the end to comment, exactly, it means whatever you want it to mean, even if the author meant something else.
GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE "All rebels are closet aristocrats"
I regret not seeing this in the theater 😢
At least you saw Morbius in the Cinema that's something right
MORBIUS!
@@123shotas actually, no.
...but Leto IS in both 🤷
Connected universe? 🤔😅
@@Aragorn7884 exactly 😂😂😂
It's the story of ... Brian epstien. Yep. The man who sold the Beatles catalog...
how come the server when marla is ordering food, seems to see her?
You're breaking the #1 rule
"Marla doesn't exist." Ok, let me do you one better: the narrator doesn't exist either. Fight Club is whatever the viewer thinks the plot is while staring at nothing on a screen for 2 hours
Its a gateway thinker movie.
Wait, doesn't the waiter in the restaurant acknowledge her when he advises her not to order the soup? Plus cars honk at her.
On the idea that Marla is not real. (which is a great idea)
I can't help but remember the waiter referencing her to "Cornelius" about the soup warning. -?-
JoBlo? JaneBlo would be more fitting, stick with the Barbie films bud with your feminist catchphrases and 'I don't want to get hurt in basements'.
I know quite a few men, including my brother, who took Fight Club’s surface message about masculinity and missed anything deeper. “We’re a generation of men raised by women, do you think another woman is the answer?” I know a guy who stopped buying IKEA because of Fight Club making him feel ashamed about it. Regardless of the interpretations that can be made: the effect the movie had was to stir up toxic masculinity in the culture. Witness the fact real Fight Clubs got started after the movie came out.
IDK if it had anything to do with this film directly, but I do find sort of ironic how a lot of the behavior of the main characters seems to embody what we now refer to as "toxic masculinity". I actually had to study this in a film class where, even more ironically, I was the sole female. But of course, that's just looking at from today's world. Just a little food for thought. =)
We just had a near-life experience.
Yes. The film is all about having an experience of being alive.
you ever found it interesting that the Narrator choose his alter ego to be a man who makes soap because all Tyler Durden wants to do is wash away the infection of materialism from the world in order to cleanse humanity. Plus, his apartment burning looks like eyes of fury in the sky. A self reflection of narrator's soul screaming "this world is bs, because won't let me be me!", hints why he can not find peace = sleep.
Don't know where I sit on the whole "Is Marla real ?" thing, but if she's not that could explain why he insists they can't go to self-help groups on the same night.