Fight Club: The Destruction of Society

Fight Club is a social satire directed by the talented David Fincher and was adapted from the book of the same title written by Chuck Palahniuk. The film attempts to show the despair involved in living in a consumer driven society and the emptiness that fills people when commercialism takes over their lives. As well done as the movie is, when watching the film you can not help but feel the irony involved that Brad Pitt delivers the most biting lines in the film. Brad Pitt plays Tyler Durden whose Unabomber philosophy on life completely contradicts Brad Pitt’s image as a poster child for the new young pretty boy Hollywood star. Interestingly enough Edward Norton and Brad Pitt play the same schizophrenic character; though this is not evident until the end of the film. Every scene in the movie is some form of social commentary, because of this it is necessary to limit the scope to the most interesting scenes.

The “narrator” played by Edward Norton is as he describes himself: “I was the warm little center of the universe that the delight of this world crowded around.” He has it all, a good job, nice clothes and even a nice place to live. Despite all the things the narrator has, he still feels hollow and incomplete. In the beginning he believes that this emptiness can be filled with personal possessions, but eventually through his relationship with Tyler Durden he learns that his emptiness is something deeper.

The narrator was looking for a way to change his life and put meaning back into his existence; to do this he created Tyler Durden as and alter ego. The narrator wanders through his humdrum life for the first thirty minutes of the film. During this time he is creating Tyler, while this is happening the director splices in single frames of Brad Pitt at 7 key locations of the narrators despair. Tyler is everything the narrator wishes he could be and as Tyler says: “I look like you want to look; I fuck like you want to fuck; I am smart, capable and most importantly I am free in all the ways that you are not.” Tyler’s philosophy is pretty simple, “Self destruction is the answer.” Tyler believes that people try to fill their lives with possessions to try and fill the void they feel in their soul.

Tyler slowly and skillfully leads the narrator away from the “condo life” and into his world. In a poignant speech Tyler gives shortly after the narrator’s condo blows up he says “The things you own end up owning you.” It is a very good point about the way people feel about their belongings; they feel that their possessions are a part of them. This truism is a major theme throughout the film, that is, people make themselves feel better by accumulating