The Narrator cries into the bosom of one of the testicular cancer victims. I loved this scene because when he lifts his head up he sees the marks his tears left on the mans t-shirt which resemble ink blots - this associates with the concept of mental health and The Narrator almost becoming enlightened. At this point - angelic choir voices emerge from the background as he describes this feeling.
The introduction of Marla Singer is very impressive in the sense that the monotonous drum riff that had been going on in the background is disturbed by an electronic rumble accompanied by the clicking of her heels approaching, with the black clothes and the cloud of cigarette smoke that surrounds her. Her whole image represents disease, and this is emphasised with her first words ‘This is Cancer, right?’.
I noticed that whenever the narrator is concentrating, like on the phone or reading, Tyler can be seen blurred out in the background doing something distracting like playing with nunchucks or riding a bike in the house. I feel like this represents Tyler’s niggling presence in the narrators mind like some kind of parasite. I thought it was really clever in the scene were The Narrator is beating himself up in hiss boss’ office, when he mentions ‘For some reason this reminded me of my first fight, with Tyler’ - because every fight with Tyler is in fact a fight with himself.
Fincher portrays the final scene absolutely perfectly. The hue is moody and dark, the music is just a drone buzz with a plain rhythm that suits the tone of the scene, Fincher portrays the intensity simply by stopping and starting the music at the right points. The narrator begins to take hold of his mind, Tyler - starts to waver. He pulls the cigarette out of his mouth and as he does so- the music stops, signifying an impact. There is brief silence - and the narrator pulls the gun to his own head - the music continues. This alone evokes a literal, hair raising moment (for myself anyway) where the scene becomes intense and you are so completely focused that you become aware that your face is that of someone who’s had a lobotomy.
The concept of smoke is important here, we associate it with both Marla, and Tyler, and we notice that everyone is continuously throwing their cigarette butts on the floor. When The narrator shoots himself, we see there is no smoke, just blood. When the gun wound is shown on Tyler, however - We see only smoke emanating from his mouth and head, along with a ring of smoke from his mouth, as if he were actually smoking. I believe that him smoking all the way through is not only foreshadowing this, but the fact that The narrator represents flesh and blood, and Tyler represents smoke is another aspect of him being non-existent.
My favourite part of the film, of any film, actually - is the very final scene. The dark colouring adds to the simplicity of the scene. You can faintly hear the song starting in the background. ‘Where is my mind’ by the Pixies. It’s a rough, ‘grungey’ kind of song which fits well with the distorted nature of the soundtrack. Marla arrives yet The Narrator is utterly calm despite shooting himself in the neck. The music becomes loud, the buildings begin exploding in front of them, The narrator and Marla - identical. Holding hands. The narrator says ‘you met me at a very strange time in my life’ as the camera slowly zooms forwards, and sanity is restored at the exact same time the world is plunged into mayhem. The perfect scene.
…Continued:
Synapses and Neurones. The introductory credits show the progression from within the brain, to out of the barrel of a gun. This shows this inside of the Narrators brain. the hub of the whole film. It is The Narrators insanity that creates the whole story. This two-section response explores the metaphors and themes in Fincher’s great adaptation from Palahnuik’s fantastic novel, while looking at all the sections I appreciated most.
After becoming obsessed with support groups, he is able to sleep soundly, thus curing his insomnia, he describes it as ‘ losing all hope’ as he becomes more addicted. Since he starts these support groups, a recurring subliminal image begins to appear throughout the film, the image is Tyler Durden in different positions, he appears beside people and around the room for a single frame four times in the film before he actually becomes a character in the film. I really liked this because it represents Tyler’s character rendering inside The Narrators head before he finally appears. (He renders like this because the narrators insomnia was actually just him doing all Tyler’s night jobs, and the support groups were healing him and making Tyler go away, and so Tyler tried to come back stronger by manifesting properly.) Within the same instance, a Starbucks Coffee cup is also present in every scene of the film, this portrays the films message on product placement and the media in a literal sense which I think is very clever considering how often it goes unnoticed.
The fact that The Narrator has numerous names throughout is very clever considering he has dissociative identity disorder, and his name is never mentioned in the film. I feel like the events that happen due to ‘Tyler’ throughout the film are because of the influences The Narrator sees leading up to Tyler’s creation. An example would be in one of the beginning scenes where the narrator sees Tyler on a TV screen wearing a white suit, the same white suit the members of project mayhem wear later on in the film for an assignment.
The Narrator mentions ‘Could you wake up as someone else?’, and as he does, the camera follows Tyler as he moves by as an extra, referencing him in a literal sense. When The Narrators home explodes, throughout the film nobody knows who did it. On the plane scene, almost every aspect of the conversation leads one to believe it was Tyler. The main subject of conversation is Tyler’s knowledge of how to create explosives, and as the scene closes, the narrator says ‘How I came to live with Tyler is…Airlines have this policy about vibrating luggage.’ This leads to the narrator being called in about his briefcase having ‘unsafe materials in’ right after he notices he and Tyler have the same briefcase. This suggests that the narrator knew about the explosives in his luggage subliminally and thus emphasises the thought that he and Tyler are the same person. I think it was extremely clever of Fincher to be able to include all these almost insignificant details as it depicts the progression of insanity and subconsciousness very well.
Upon finding the remains of his house, his first words are ‘How embarrassing’ which reiterates the theme of societies influences on a person. I really liked the part where Tyler and The narrator are chatting at a bar, and Tyler mentions how materialistic The narrator is about his possessions. The screen cuts to the Narrators face and as if to signify an epiphany-like moment, much the same as at the beginning - The audio goes very quiet and distorted, The Narrators face drops, and a ball is struck loudly by some people playing pool in the background, depicting a significant moment. A scene which is interesting is where Tyler and The Narrator get on a bus, and as they do they look around and scowl at the average-looking people in there. After making a comment criticising models and gym-goers, an overweight man dressed shabbily pushes past them to get through the bus, and they barely bat an eyelid. I think this almost insignificant scene plays a big part in showing how the narrator has developed. Additionally, when the man passes the two, he doesn’t say anything while next to Durden, but as he passes The Narrator, he says ‘Excuse me’ as if he’s the only one there.
One of my favourite scenes is after The narrator wakes up from a car crash. We can visibly see a bruise on his head from the accident, however - when he supposedly wakes up the next morning we see the bruise is gone. This is because the Narrator wasn’t actually asleep, he was travelling the country organising fight clubs. Later in the film, The Narrator contemplates how talented Tyler is at causing mayhem. ‘The ability to let what matters, truly slide’. This relates to previously when The Narrator meditates and his subconscious self tells him to slide. I believe this is another instance where he is becoming another person by almost communicating with his past subconscious.
The concept of the smiley face painted on the building as the first major act of vandalism i feel relates to the small smiley face sticker by the telephone in the centre of the house. It’s something everyone in Project mayhem sees every day, and i feel this is why they chose to use it. In the scene where they blackmail the commissioner, The Narrator sort of hovers around without really knowing what’s going on, I feel this represents him spectating himself as Tyler, which also links to the fact that there are no scenes from Tyler’s perspective exactly, which reiterates the fact that he is non-existent. The fact that The narrators job meant he had to travel all over the country constantly by plane in different hotels relates to the fact that he later does the exact same thing while looking for Tyler. The significance of the planes is shown when the Narrator realises who he is. The first time he’s told he is Tyler, he says ‘Please place seat backs into their fully upright position’, The second time - ‘We have just lost cabin pressure’. This portrays the relevance of Airline transport on his life. In the scene where The Narrator is trying to disarm the bomb, the camera moves in a similar way to when he talks about his apartment blowing up. It zooms through the wiring and mechanics with intense music in the background, i feel like this represents The Narrators knowledge of explosives in contrast to Tyler’s, which are essentially the same thing.
