A scene analysis of David Fincher's 'Fight Club'

This is an analysis of 'Fight Club' based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk. 

Clip 1: (0:00—2:07)

The opening title is a zoom-out from inside of the main character’s head where we see the physiology of his fear, neurons firing and flashing along synapses, until we see the frightened face of the narrator with a gun in his mouth.

Clip 3: (3:54—6:20)

In this series of scenes we see Jack’s life, a life ruled by insomnia, monotony, conformity, and fatigue. The inside of his apartment is full of the latest name brand consumer goods to which he is a slave to, working in an unrewarding unfulfilling job as a recall specialist. Reading catalogs, to him, is like reading pornography in that the stuff in catalogs reflects his ideal self. These scenes end with Jack in a doctors office asking for drugs, something else external to make him feel good and he sees an image of a man blink then disappear. Jack is showing symptoms of DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder or Split Personality Disorder) and Schizophrenia. Symbolically, his personality disorder is divided into three parts, what Freud called the id, the ego, and the superego. At this point, Jack is the superego in that he is careful in observing norms and trends like the cup of Starbucks that he leaves on the copy machine, the trash can by his desk that’s filled with empty name brand food containers, and his apartment in which every item in it is named and priced, including the items in his refrigerator.

When he sees glimpses of Tyler Durden flashing he is receiving a subconscious projection of his ideal self, Superman, or what Freud calls the “id,” the complete inverse of who he is. This is why Durden flashes in and out, because Jack’s superego, which is drawn to conformity and routine and external validation is not ready to accept him yet but because Durden is flashing suggests that Jack is having trouble repressing his id.

Clip 5: (6:21—10:21)

Jack attends a lot of male support groups. This one is for men who survived testicular cancer. As the men talk about the women who left them and had babies with other men, Tyler Durden blinks in and out so fast that no one but Jack sees him.

Again, Jack’ subconscious mind projects his id, or his ideal self. He is unaware that his submerged psyche is rebelling against his superego or what he consciously believes himself to be. The men at this meeting are emasculated or castrated, well on their way to becoming women, in a society that has conditioned men to be excessively narcissistic and preoccupied with how they look (symbolized by Bob, who used to be a champion bodybuilder but due to steroid overuse has grown women’s breasts).

Clip 7: (11:34—19:12)

Jack’s insomnia goes away but when a woman named Marla Singer begins popping up at his support groups, even his testicular cancer support group, Jack’s insomnia returns. The reason why Jack can’t sleep is because Marla reminds him of what he and his male counterparts are becoming. Marla is looking for a man, which is why she does not join Fight Club and starts dating Tyler who, to her, represents a real man.

Clip 9: (21:41—25:47)

Jack meets Tyler Durden on a plane trip. They have the same luggage. Tyler is a soap salesman. Jack is detained by security at the airport because of a vibrating dildo in his luggage. But he doesn’t remember having a dildo. Later, an explosion destroys his apartment and all of the name brand items he’d collected. Tyler Durden left him a card and Jack finds a phone booth.

Finally, Tyler comes out of Jack. This happens as Jack is praying for the plane he’s in to get hit because insurance pays more for airplane collisions.

This idea is an invocation that calls Tyler from Jack’ subconscious. That Tyler sells soap is a metaphor. Tyler is here to clean up Jack’s life starting with his dependence on external attachments to things. Immediately after meeting Tyler, Jack’s place blows up representing the rebirth of Jack, and the psychic inversion of his personality in which his superego takes a backseat to his id, or Tyler Durden.

Clip 12: (32:27—34:10)

This scene doesn't look like it, but this scene is very crucial to understanding Tyler Durden. He works as a film projectionist in a theater. The film projection here is Jack’s subconsciousness. The clip of the penis Tyler sneaks into the film reel is himself. You’ll notice that in the beginning of the film, Tyler appears as a projection of Jack’s subconsciousness, blinking in and out exactly as the penis in this scene. This means that Tyler represents Jack’s ideal of masculinity. This metaphor is reinforced in the initial love scene between Tyler and Marla. Tyler goes over to Marla’s place and there he stands by a dildo on a dresser, intentionally placed there to be compared to him.

Clip 17: (50:15—53:29)

In this clip, Durden pays a visit to see Marla who had called threatening to kill herself with prescription drugs. They have sex and Durden shares this with Jack later who seems appalled.

It seems innocuous but the dildo on Marla's dresser provides a strong clue as to what she was looking for at support groups. Not sex. But notice how the phallus and Durden are juxtaposed against each other. Marla was looking for a man among the eunuchs attending the support groups. This is also why she says to Durden, referencing the dildo: “Don’t worry, it’s no threat to you.”

Clip 26: (1:35:36—1:37:47)

Members of Fight Club disguised as waiters at a Police fundraiser ambush the Police Commissioner and threaten to cut his balls off if he messes with Project Mayhem. Afterwards, Jack sees Tyler hugging one of the Angel Face and becomes insanely Jealous and in a fighting match, disfigures Angel Face’s once pretty face. Later, in a car, Jack is upset that Tyler didn’t tell him about Project Mayhem. Tyler lets go of the steering wheel allowing the car to crash.

Jack and Tyler’s relationship is homoerotic throughout the film but in this scene in particular. When Jack sees Tyler taunting him by embracing Angel Face who is younger and almost virginal by comparison to himself. Jack is inflamed with jealousy and in their subsequent fight match he gets back at Tyler by messing up Angel Face’s pretty face telling Tyler that he just wanted to “destroy something beautiful,” a statement with a double meaning. Not only did he want to destroy the face of the man for Tyler’s benefit but Jack also meant that he wanted to transform Fight Club as a way of personal self-improvement into a corporate terrorist group, in other words, he wanted to transform Fight Club into a franchise. This scene also represents a role-reversal for Jack who becomes the id by allowing his actions to be dictated by jealousy and expressing those actions in a primitive manner.

Clip 27: (1:37:48—1:41:26)

In the car scene, we again see a homoerotic verbal exchange between Jack and Tyler who, like a man and his wife in a dysfunctional relationship, argue in front of their children being the 2 Project Mayhem members in the back seat. In this scene, Jack’ psyche reverts to his childhood when he saw his own parents argue. The other symbols in this scene are the rain and darkness, representing the unknown; the center line in the road representing the norms of society and the steering wheel representing the tug-of-war between Jack’s ego and superego which wants to control everything and stay within those norms. He also wants to control Durden and Fight Club but Durden is the id and unrestricted and he lets go of the steering wheel representing the letting go of Fight Club and allowing it to deviate into anarchy, which is symbolized as both the car going off the road and crashing in a ditch and earlier when Jack himself “let go” and disfigured Angel Face’s face.

Clip 28: (1:41:26—1:45:06)

Tyler leaves Jack and Project Mayhem, the group they started together. Jack wakes up after a deep sleep and the house is crowded and swarming with members engaged in various activities. Marla drops by to see Tyler and Jack tells her that he’s abandoned both of them.

Jack and Tyler split apart from each other. Before, they found common ground with Fight Club but once the club escalates to corporate vandalism and terrorism, Jack’s superego takes over. The only difference between the beginning of the film and now is that in the beginning Jack wasn’t aware of Tyler’s existence. Now, Jack is just in denial. He knows that Tyler exists, he’s just in denial that he and Tyler are one and the same person.

Clip 30: (1:47:58—1:51:21)

In a drawer in Tyler’s room, Jack finds plane ticket receipts. He flies from city to city hunting for Tyler who is 1 step ahead of him setting up franchises in every city, building an army. Every guy he meets, guys working regular blue-collar jobs, already knows Jack and refers to him by “sir.” A bartender in a neck brace addresses Jack by the name of Tyler Durden. Jack returns to his hotel room and finds Tyler there, who breaks the news that they are one and the same.

This is Jack getting past denial and the ensuing violence between them is the superego punishing itself with guilt and self abasement symbolized by the beating he subjects himself to through his Tyler persona.

Clip 34 (2:05:55—2:09:37)

Jack wants to stop Project Mayhem but Tyler wants it to continue. He beats up Jack.

This is Jack getting past denial and the conflict between his superego and id without the agreement of his ego.