Directed by David Fincher, Fight Club is a 1999 film adapted from a 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk. Edward Norton plays the role of the nameless protagonist, an insomniac sufferer discontent with his white-collar job in American society. Referred to as “The Narrator”, he teams up with soap-maker Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) and they go on to form a “fight club”, later revealed to be a foundation for Tyler’s main project: Project Mayhem. There are many messages this film intended to deliver, naturally causing it to be fairly controversial, one of the main messages perhaps being that “the things you own, end up owning you”. This was shown through how Tyler-Durden (who is revealed to be The Narrator’s schizophrenic “other half”) blows up The Narrator’s apartment, to make him realise this.
The opening scene is also the ending of the film. The film transitions in with fast-paced music, with an extreme close up of the detail on the gun, leading up to a shot of The Narrator’s face in-focus at the end of the barrel, whilst the gun in question is blurred out. The Narrator’s thoughts replace the sound in the scene as the music fades out, but he’s cut-out mid thought when Tyler Durden (the holder of said gun) begins to speak. The camera cuts to a close-up side-shot of the barrel of the gun inside The Narrator’s face. Tyler Durden’s speech is collected and calm, which is a contrast to The Narrator’s facial expressions, which now shows him sweating and shaking.
The camera cuts to a high-angle shot from Tyler Durden’s point of view, holding the gun inside The Narrator’s mouth, as he attempts to reply to Tyler’s question “Would you like to say any words, to mark the occasion?” The Narrator’s inner-monologue does not accurately reflect what he really says; it is in fact a contrast, shown when he ponders how clean the gun inside his mouth really is in light of the dangerous situation he has found himself in.
The lighting during this opening scene is extremely low-key. There’s no light coming in from the wall-length windows, and the building itself is abandoned so there are consequently no light sources from inside. This is done to add atmosphere, as the events about to unfold are that of a very grim nature. The Narrator’s inner monologue explains that “The demolition committee of Project Mayhem wrapped the foundation columns of a dozen buildings with blasting gelatine. In two minutes, primary charges will blow base charges and a few square blocks will be reduced to smouldering rubble.”
The camera cuts to a frontal medium shot of The Narrator bound to a chair in the building, and pans into a close-up shot whilst he explains that the situation about to unfold is partially due to a woman named Marla Singer. The camera then instantly cuts to him at a self-help group for men with testicular cancer, his face being pushed into the chest of a man named Bob. This quick-cut to a completely contrasting scene is used to provide comic relief from the previous one.
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