2. Introductory Note
• What is it : The following Material was
developed by Media Students for a Group
Presentation on the said topic.
• Target Audience : 1st year BMM students.
• Goal: View the Movie thoughtfully,
responsively and critically, engaging with
the themes, purpose, characters and
motifs.
3. Introduction
• 1st RULE: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB. Lets
just break that rule for just one time.
• Fight Club is a 1999 American film. The screenplay
was adapted from the book “ Fight club” by Chuck
Palahniuk.
• It explores several areas of psychology.
• Insomnia is a huge part of the film as it is the main
cause of several other events that happen in the
story line.
4. Introducing the Characters
• The star cast of the film is
Edward Norton(narrator) whose name is not
mentioned in the book or movie,
Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden,
Bonham Carter as Marla Singer.
5. Introducing the Psychology
• In fight club the main character finds a way to relieve
stress in the day resulting in him sleeping at night time.
• Insomnia may be caused by anxiety.
• Insomnia, Dissociative fugue, and Dissociative Identity
Disorder are the psychological disorder’s the narrator
suffered from.
6. Developement
• The Film is based on Chuck Palahniuk’s 1996 novel.
• Laura Ziskin,Hod of Fox 2000 pictures, had purchased the
rights from Chuck Palahniuk for $10,000.
• Screenplay adapted by Jim Uhls.
• Directed by David Fincher.
• Cinematography by Jeff Cronenweth.
• Production houses are Fox 2000 pictures, Regency
Enterprises, Linson films, Atman Entertainment,
KnickerBocker Films, Taraus Films.
• Officially announced on 20th august 1997
7. Cinematography
• Cinematographer: Jeff Cronenweth
• Nominated by the American Society of Cinematographers
as one of the top 50 best shot films of the past decade.
• Fight Club remains a signifier of Fincher’s influential visual
style, painted in shadows of sickly green and a
postmodern “violence chic” that, intentionally or not, rubs
off of Fincher’s work.
9. Styles used in Cinematography
• Lurid Effect.
• Heavily de-saturated colours.
• Use of natural light as well as practical light.
• Fluorescent lights.
• Subliminal effect intentional for Tyler's presence in
single frames.
• Silver retention was used too.
10. Distinctive Styles
• Shots masking eyes.
• Voiceover.
• Ironic use of subliminal advertising techniques to
introduce characters.
• Tyler in the background – blurred – He fell down the
stairs,like a "little devil on the shoulder".These subliminal
effect shows that Tyler was present at the periphery of
narrator’s consciousness and it all made sense when the
dots were connected in the climax.
• Black humour – very borderline.
• Lighting filters during insomnia.
• Ironic self–reference ‘Flash Back Humour’
11. Psychology Angle
• Fight Club’s narrator’s illness is the manifestation of trite and tedious
modern life.
• Here capitalism pushes fight club members to the edge.
• Stages in the Narrator’s journey through out the movie:
Insomniac
Emotional leech
Fighter
• Narrator’s Internal Conflict:
Dragged Kicking and Screaming
Key idea – the distinctive way that internal conflict presents in this film, is
through the two distinct personalities – which come into conflict as their
values diverge.
• Dramatic Conflict:
When a character is prevented from getting something he or she wants.
Action is the result of conflict:
I want, I cannot have, therefore I act.
12. Psychology Angle:Insomnia
No Sleep, No
Wakefulness
Doc Won’t
Prescribe RX
Feeling sorry
for self
Victimize self
Cure
Insomnia
Meet Tyler Meet Marla
Rush Ruined
Create
Imaginary
Friend
13. Psychology Angle: Dissociative Identity
Disorder
Get a Rush
Join Project
Mayhem
Experience trial
by fire
Tyler sleeps with
Marla
Gets Jealous
Tyler kidnaps
Marla
Shoot Tyler with
a gun
Hailed as Tyler
as Tyler
dissapears
Watch Credit
card building
blow up with
Marla
14. Overview Along with Quotes
• "For six months I couldn't sleep. With insomnia, nothing's real.
Everything is far away. Everything is a copy of a copy of a
copy.“
• "How much can you possibly know about yourself if you've
never been in a fight?"
• "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 every way
that you are not“
• "If you woke up at a different time, in a different place, could
you wake up as a different person?“
• "I am Jack's complete lack of surprise" or "I am Jack's raging
bile duct“
• "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 every way
that you are not"
15. Conclusion
• Fight Club manages to include a bit of fact with its fiction.
• The split between Tyler Durden and the Narrator can
easily be characterized as Dissociative Personality
Disorder.
• The Narrator's unconscious trips around the country
under an alternate identity are perfect iterations of
Dissociative fugue.
• Even the Insomnia which opens the gate for Tyler's
entrance is well portrayed.
• While the cure to the Narrator's Dissociative disorders,
like that of his insomnia, may be a bit unorthodox, the
symptoms are, nonetheless, all there.
16. Cultural Influence
• Gentlemen’s Fight Club
• Was founded in Menlo Park by tech workers in 2000.
• Princeton University Fight Club
• Was founded in 2001, but broke the first rule of fight club by talking
about it.
• Luke Helder
• Planted pipe bombs in mailboxes across the U.S. trying to blow up
a smiley face on the map.
• 17 y.o. founder of Manhattan fight club
• Jailed for planting a bomb outside of capitalist standard-bearer
Starbucks.
17. Few Words of wisdom?
“No fear! No distractions! The ability to let that
which does not matter truly slide!”
“I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect,
I say let’s evolve, let the chips fall where they
may.”
“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free
to do anything.”
“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money
you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive.
You’re not the contents of your wallet. “This is your
life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.”
