I have always heard people quote Fight Club, but I have never actually seen the film until this week. I was pleasantly surprised because I was honestly expecting a fight movie. As soon as realized the twist in the ending, I was kind of shocked and immediately thought I need to watch this again.
I believe that Fight Club was a great choice to end the semester because encompasses so many different aspects of cool that we discussed. One of the most prevalent elements of cool throughout the film is cool satire. The film satirizes capitalism and consumerism. The main example that the film uses to represent consumerism is Ikea furniture. In a similar fashion to Robocop, the satire in Fight Club provides lighthearted humor to an otherwise extremely intense movie. Towards the end the film also satirizes the subversion that is essentially the solution to the first problem. Project Mayhem becomes a cult and the film satirizes the members’ undying devotion to Tyler Durdan.
Another important element of cool in Fight club is cool escapism. The narrator escapes from his life by creating Tyler Durdan, a separate personality that comes out when the narrator blacks out and thinks that he is asleep. Tyler is the narrators escape from the life of a consumer, working a boring 9 to 5 job. The narrator’s escape through Tyler, can be compared to the escape that Tony Manero, from Saturday Night Fever, feels when he is on the dance floor.
I believe that Fight Club was a great choice to end the semester because encompasses so many different aspects of cool that we discussed. One of the most prevalent elements of cool throughout the film is cool satire. The film satirizes capitalism and consumerism. The main example that the film uses to represent consumerism is Ikea furniture. In a similar fashion to Robocop, the satire in Fight Club provides lighthearted humor to an otherwise extremely intense movie. Towards the end the film also satirizes the subversion that is essentially the solution to the first problem. Project Mayhem becomes a cult and the film satirizes the members’ undying devotion to Tyler Durdan.Another important element of cool in Fight club is cool escapism. The narrator escapes from his life by creating Tyler Durdan, a separate personality that comes out when the narrator blacks out and thinks that he is asleep. Tyler is the narrators escape from the life of a consumer, working a boring 9 to 5 job. The narrator’s escape through Tyler, can be compared to the escape that Tony Manero, from Saturday Night Fever, feels when he is on the dance floor.
Many of the elements of cool we have seen in film throughout the semester are also present, but in smaller amounts. There is cool love like in the film Jules et Jim. The narrator, Tyler and Marla have a pretty dysfunctional love triangle just like Jules, Jim, and Catherine. Cool imitation is also present. Allan looks up to Bogart in Play it Again, Sam and tries to imitate his cool. In Fight Club, all of the members idolize Tyler and try to be as cool as he is. Cool criminality is definitely a part of Project Mayhem. Like the gangsters in The Public Enemy, the members of Project Mayhem the city by committing a variety of crimes in the night. All of these elements of cool wrapped into a single films makes for one of the coolest movies I have ever seen in my entire life. I can’t believe I had not seen it prior to this week. Fight Club definitely made my favorites list.
Wow, the way you tied the whole class together in Fight Club is beautiful.
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