1999 was a very good year for movies, but nothing captured millennial angst quite so vividly as David Fincher’s bruising black comedy about what it means to be a man in modern times.
Edward Norton used to be an upwardly mobile urban professional; now, he’s pallid, neurotic and unhappy. In short order he bumps into Tyler Durden (Pitt), his apartment blows up, and everything changes. Gaudy and amoral, Tyler’s an id kind of guy: living on the edge is the only way he knows to feel alive. Pitt’s raw physical grace embodies everything his alter ego has lost touch with; they trade body blows for fun, and you can sense the gain in the pain. At least they are feeling something. Their ’club’ draws emasculates from across the city; under Tyler’s subtle guidance, the group evolves into an anarchist movement.
Jim Uhls’ cold, clever screenplay, from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, is a millennial mantra of seditious agit prop. Shot in a convulsive, stream-of-unconsciousness style, with disruptive subliminals, freeze frames and fantasy cutaways, the film does everything short of rattling your seat to get a reaction. A quarter-century down the road, we have a pretty good idea of who Tyler has become…
Staff Pick: Yanan
From the guitar roar on the Dust Brothers’ opening title track through to the thundering drums of Pixies’ Where Is My Mind? it is pure synapse-splitting sensory overload.
Kevin Maher, The Times
Blistering, hallucinatory, often brilliant, the film by David Fincher is a combination punch of social satire and sociopathology.
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
The movie is not only anti-capitalism but anti-society, and, indeed, anti-God.
Alexander Walker, London Evening Standard
Media Partner
David Fincher
Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meatloaf, Jared Leto
USA
1999
English
Book Tickets
Monday August 31
Indigenous & Community Access
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Credits
Screenwriter
Jim Uhls
Cinematography
Jeff Cronenweth
Editor
James Haygood
Original Music
The Dust Brothers
Production Design
Alex McDowell
Art Director
Chris Gorak
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