10 Years of Fight Club

I was poking around the other day when I stumbled across this DVD review on slant about a 10th anniversary edition of Fight Club. Its a film I've seen several times and would include on any list of films that define my generation.  I saw it first when I was 14 or 15. Truthfully, I didn't understand it at all. Satire was lost on me, but I knew the film wasn't trying to get me to join a fight club, start infiltrating support groups, or blow up buildings. Instead the film sort of took up a passive residency in my brain (the part that wants to say "fuck you" every time people tell me how to live my life and fit in) and really helped me to understand the world around me. The older I got and the more I understood about the world, it seemed like the more I figured out the film.



This is one film with which I can't separate my life experiences from my critical opinions. It has in some way become a part of the fabric of my life. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. This is our generations cult film, regardless of how much we buy into it we can't help but refer to it and think about it. Does this mean that we are a culture of nihilism and anarchism even if those qualities are buried and sublimated (regardless of what everyone now says these are a part of the film, but they aren't the whole thing)? The film offers a "warped but very real sense of hope in its final image of a boy and girl holding hands while the world collapses around them." As Edward Norton says in the DVD commentary, "it's the story of a guy who had to destroy the world so he could have a relationship with a woman. Does modern love require anything less?"

You can read more about the film:
here
here
here
here
and here