CE-5

David Fincher’s 1999 noir film Fight Club, managed to shatter the barriers between reality and fantasy; while simultaneously expressing ideas against the massive consumer culture. The lack of this barrier allowed the film to maintain a psychotic uncertainty for both the characters in the film and the spectators. Fincher achieved the psychotic theme through noir thematic and stylistic devices such as the narration and disorientation of the film. These devices allow the film to be classified as noir.

Fincher established a “nemesis trope” by figuratively expressing the inescapable agent of the unnamed narrator’s downfall through another character, Tyler Durden. The unnamed narrator is presumed to be the protagonist antihero of the film, Jack. Jack, who is portrayed in the earlier scenes of the film as a typical consumer is later “saved” by Tyler; an anti-consumerist who takes it upon himself to destroy all of Jack’s belongings. Durden strongly believes that the things you own, end up owning you, and that it is only after you've lost everything that you are free to do anything. It is through Tyler’s act of salvation that Jack is lead to his impending doom. Tyler helps Jack live his life through “fight club”, a place where men can figuratively liberate themselves from the consumerist culture by fighting each other. The ideas of fight club escalate into a national “gang” of radical men, who take it upon themselves to free the rest of the nation through crime. Jack begins to hate the person Tyler has turned him into, and attempts to terminate the grand radical scheme. Through this attempt Tyler ultimately becomes Jack’s nemesis trope.

Fincher uses noir thematic devices to maintain a psychotic theme within the film and also to express t...

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... time line of events. Which also goes hand in hand with Jacks insomnia, which shatters the barriers between reality versus fantasy, and memory versus dream for the spectator. Lastly the vast and bizarre camera angles from which the film was shot in help maintain the uncertain feeling for the spectator.

David Fincher’s 1999 noir film Fight Club combines both thematic and stylistic devices to maintain a psychotic uncertainty for both the protagonists and the spectator. Furthermore, the devices shatter certain barriers which overall support the psychotic theme of the film. This constant theme in the film is also presented in Jack’s alter ego who later reveals himself to be the narrators “nemesis trope”. These devices tie into the expressed ideas against the consumerist society and societies inevitable doom due to the belief that the things you own, end up owning you.