Fight Club - Breaking the First Two Rules.

When set a task to prepare a 3 minute presentation on basically anything, the problem for me is choice. After all, there are so many things that I don't shut up about.

But narrowing it down to media makes things a little easier. I'm going to talk about Fight Club.

Fight Club, 1999

Fight Club is a masterpiece. The acting is spectacular. The cinematography is outstanding. The soundtrack is brilliant and the writing is phenomenal.

The Narrator (Edward Norton) is a young urban professional with insomnia. He is a character shaped by a world of television, advertising and consumerism. 

'I flipped through catalogs and wondered: What kind of dining set 

defines me as a person?'

He is enslaved and emasculated by his own material desires. The Narrator is chasing a dream of spiritual completeness through material gain and because of this, he cannot sleep.

And while we may not like to admit it, most of us can relate in some way or another. After all, what does your choice in mobile phone say about you as a person? And does your profile picture accurately represent your personality? 

Are all your material possessions and online personas consistently representative of your self image?

And then we meet Tyler Durden.

Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) sells soap. More importantly, he challenges everything The Narrator stands for. The foundations of his life and his identity. And this is what makes him so alluring.

'The things you own end up owning you.'

Through this character, the film illustrates the extreme counter argument to materialism. Fundamentally he represents freedom; to The Narrator, Tyler is a spiritual guide. And his path to enlightenment is self destruction. Hitting bottom.

The film concludes after a fantastic plot twist and we see the final step of The Narrators journey to maturity. Without spoiling anything, his enlightenment is reached through the collapse of his idols. The death of his gods.

The fantastic exploration of these profound ideas, through perfectly unified artistic components, are what makes this film a masterpiece.

We are heading in a direction that will allow interactive experiences to more consistently match this standard. 

As the way in which we develop games shifts to allow for greater risk and innovation, we will raise the bar for awesome art!

If you enjoyed that, click here for an analysis of the cinematography and art direction of Fight Club.

Image Credits:

Fight Club (IMDB)
Fight Club (Facebook)
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