Cinema
Fight Club
David Fincher · 1999
Synopsis
The narrator, an employee of an insurance company whose job is to investigate accidents, suffers from insomnia and furnishes his flat from a catalogue. He recovers his sleep in support groups for the sick, without being ill himself, until Marla, another impostor, comes to disturb him. On a plane, he meets Tyler, a soap salesman. With his flat destroyed by an explosion, he calls Tyler, who asks him to hit him as hard as he can in front of a bar. He moves into Tyler's large, dilapidated house, and their fights turn into an underground club.
Context
Chuck Palahniuk's book, published in 1996, was bought by Laura Ziskin for a Fox subsidiary; four other directors were approached before Fincher, including Peter Jackson, who was tied up with another film. The film was shown in Venice on 10 September 1999, a month before its American release, and divided the critics: the Englishman Alexander Walker saw in it a toxic experience. The twenty-million-dollar campaign, centred on the fights, was judged too narrow by the producer Art Linson.
Who it is for
A film of two hours nineteen, banned in France for viewers under sixteen because of its many fight scenes, and narrated in voice-over by its narrator.
Prizes and reception
A hundred million dollars at the box office against a budget of sixty-three million, an opening below expectations, then more than six million cassettes and discs sold in ten years.