DVDFile

The best thing about Fight Club is that it actually got made. A movie this edgy, this grizzled, this philosophically obtuse was no fringe-y indie that made it into the Hollywood world by word of mouth and elbow grease - Fight Club is an A-list picture, a movie with undeniable star power, big-budget set pieces and special effects: Fox put a lot of money into this thing. And compared to a lot of the more close-to-the-grain flicks coming out at the time (The Mummy, Star Wars), Fight Club is completely anomalous - you'd better believe that a movie this nihilistic probably wouldn't get made in today's cultural climate (can you imagine a studio head green-lighting a film with a final image like Fight Club's in a post-9/11 world?).

Here's the film in a nutshell: The initially mild-mannered Narrator (Edward Norton) is having a crisis. He finds his white-collar job insufferably dull. He tries unsuccessfully to take solace in materialism, only to realize that the accumulation of things is unfulfilling. Unable to sleep, he seeks a prescription from his doctor. The physician instead suggests that he discover what "true pain" is all about by attending a testicular cancer support group and, surprisingly, he finds that there he can unburden himself. He meets a patient (Meat Loaf Aday) who unsubtly represents men's fear of emasculation, the film's basic premise (castration will turn up as a recurring theme). The Narrator becomes addicted to these meetings and others; he finds that the emotional release allows him to sleep at last. Then he meets and is simultaneously repelled and attracted to the darkly sensual Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), who is also an interloper. Her presence makes him emotionally constipated; the insomnia returns.

While flying for business, the Narrator finds himself sitting next to Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Durden immediately pegs the Narrator as a hopelessly lost wimp. The Narrator is drawn to Durden's charismatic power. When the Narrator's apartment is mysteriously destroyed, he gives up his neatly manicured life and joins Durden in his incredibly dilapidated house. Durden teaches his newfound friend how to fight. The two men reinforce one another through brutal bouts and inadvertently create the Fight Club. But once again Marla intrudes; she becomes Durden's enthusiastic lover. The Fight Club grows, fed by frustrated men who feel a need to regain a manhood that life and career and society have all but destroyed.

There's not a lot of reserved reaction to Fight Club: One typically finds it either elegant and prophetic or pompous and shallow. Again, like the work of Oliver Stone or David Lynch, director David Fincher makes Fight Club with a bold, devil-may-care confidence - his film doesn't shy away from anything. And now that the film is a decade old - hard to believe - both naysayers and aficionados can look back on it on Blu-ray Disc with nostalgia-induced hindsight. For example, the film came out on DVD when I was in film school, and it seemed as though all my colleagues had it on their shelves - it was more of a rite of passage than a simple movie-on-DVD.

This writer has always loathed the movie - I appreciate and acknowledge what it attempts to portray, but feel it's all superficial and uninspired - but that's not why we're here: We're here to talk about what the film looks and sounds like on Blu-ray. Come into the ring with me....

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