From Adaptation to Analogy: Comparing and Understanding Artistic Differences between the Film and Original Versions of Fight Club

A pivotal scene accurately encapsulates the philosophy that pervades both Chuck Palahniuk’s original novel Fight Club and David Fincher’s movie adaptation is the so-called human sacrifice scene. Overall, there is fidelity between the adaptation and the original, however, the sacrifice scene in particular stands out as demarcating the two works creatively. Palahniuk’s version has the narrator pointing a gun at convenience store owner Raymond K. Hessel, questioning him, and threatening the clerk with death unless he returned to pursuing previous ambitions. The Narrator tells him: “You could be in school working your ass off, Raymond Hessel, or you could be dead” (Palahniuk 154). The movie portrays this act being perpetrated by Durden instead. The Narrator is present in the scene, however, the script calls for him to be “growing even paler […] slump[ed] against a tree” (Fight Club). This makes the Narrator seem passive rather than active. Why then would Fincher choose to portray the scene the way he did, and what does this change do to the film?

I propose that the difference exists to add a visual element to essential aspects of the story, as well as meet the audience’s artistic expectations of the work. Because this alteration is Fincher’s most significant modification, ultimately, it helps to answer the question of when an adaptation is different than the original work.

The addition of Durden to the scene helps maintain the idea that he and the Narrator are separate people. Later, in the movie and the book, the narrator realizes that Tyler is actually him – a split personality created out of insomnia. The film portrays this through flashback methods. Up until this point, a clear distinction between the two needed to be maintain...

... middle of paper ...

... departure is significant because it alters the fundamental relationship between the main characters and gives the audience of the film a different impression of them than readers of the novel would get.

Despite the difference in which character is important in the scene, it is important to note that the overall feeling remains. The act of threatening Hessel is inherently nihilistic and sadistic. This is a fact regardless of who points the gun at Hessel’s head. Fincher’s choices show that in order to create a truly successful adaptation two criteria must be met. First the story must be changed enough to allow the works to be considered analogous instead of complimentary. Equally important is that the film is philosophically true to the novel. This shows that even if an adaptation keeps the core message the same it can still be a distinctly separate work of art.