2003 Talk About Movies
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Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

TALK ABOUT MOVIES
March 2003

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Directed by David Fincher. Starring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter. 1999, 139 minutes, USA/Germany, English, Color. Available at Blockbuster Video. Contains graphic violence and sexuality.

Matthew: The narrator starts the film detached from reality, and the only way he can escape his detachment is to get near people who are suffering. It's a nice pointed attack on the world's attempt to hide the fact that suffering and death are two great realities of life.

Ernie: He and Tyler break it down to, "We're all just consumers; that's what's driving us." That's what we do to avoid those realities.

Matthew: Tyler is right to conclude that our Great War is spiritual. In an age where threats to survival have been removed, it becomes clear that the real struggle is spiritual. But Tyler can't believe in God the Father, because his own father bailed. So he's driven to despair. Once the narrator joins him in accepting suffering and death, he attains a certain kind of freedom. That's why he likens the fights to death and resurrection.

Ernie: Going out and starting fights is a sort of preaching to individuals. The onus is on individuals not to become consumers. But when they start blowing up credit card companies, it's the old, "Corporate America is the enemy."

Matthew: It becomes like social Christianity -- "You've got to change the system."

Ernie: The initial point is lost.