Posted on 11/10/2009 2:37:03 PM PST by Borges
Cult films, the critic Danny Peary wrote in his 1981 book “Cult Movies,” “are born in controversy” and elicit “a fiery passion in moviegoers that exists long after their initial releases.” By those measures David Fincher’s “Fight Club,” a movie that stirred vitriolic ire when it came out 10 years ago and today inspires obsessive, often worshipful scrutiny in both lowbrow and highbrow quarters, is surely the defining cult movie of our time.
In his memoir Art Linson, a producer of the film, describes the aftermath of the first screening at the 20th Century Fox lot: ashen-faced executives imagining their higher-ups (including Rupert Murdoch) “flopping around like acid-crazed carp wondering how such a thing could even have happened.”
The nervousness over screen violence was at a renewed high in the wake of the shootings at Columbine High School, and this must have seemed like the worst possible time to release a film in which an army of alienated men, led by Brad Pitt’s charismatic Tyler Durden, an übermensch in a red leather jacket, engage in bare-knuckle brawls, antisocial vandalism and outright revolutionary terrorism. When “Fight Club” opened in October 1999 after much defensive maneuvering from the studio (which delayed the release and struggled to find a marketing hook), the pundits eagerly took aim.
“The critical reaction was polarized,” said Edward Norton, who plays the film’s nameless narrator, “but the negative half of that was as vituperative as anything I’ve ever been a part of.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Wait - I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about this... ?
A truly great movie. Didn’t hurt that Helena Bonham Carter was in it!
I liked it from the start and remember explaning it to people. Michael Medved really missed the ball with this film.
The Big Lewbowski begs to differ, dude.
Fun movie. The book is actually a comedy.
So is the film.
Oh, he has a name all right.
You have more patience than I do. I gave up explaining it to people who said “It’s just a movie about fighting” a loooong time ago.
Really brilliant book though.
I loved the book, and I loved the movie. I just watched it again over the summer. It holds up well ... too well, if you catch my drift.
One of my favorite movies of that decade. Fight Club and Office Space are kind of the visible bibles of the cubicle work-farm generation.
I liked the movie. The climactic punch line stopped being funny after 911 (a little too real) but it was a good movie.
And I agree with the others about Helena. Very good in her role.
Several years ago Fincher made a film called ‘Zodiac’ which I think is one of the best American features of this decade. Very few people have seen it.
Thanks for the movie title - I’m going to check that out - sounds interesting.
“Pitt voluntarily visited a dentist to have pieces of his front teeth chipped off so his character would not have perfect teeth. The pieces were restored after filming concluded.”
http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club_(film)
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The third act, well it didn’t really ruin the movie, but it did stretch the premise a bit too far.
You mean the idea of the ‘Double’?
No, I mean the whole terrorism bit.
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