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.

Analysis of a scene from' 'Citizen Kane'

This is an analysis of the opening scenes of the film 'Citizen Kane'.

In this clip we see a small boarding home surrounded by snow and Kane out playing on his sled. Meanwhile, inside of the boarding home, Mrs. Kane and Mr. Kane, her husband, are arguing because Mrs. Kane has inherited a gold mine on the property and she is signing papers to turn their son over to Mr. Thatcher who's bank holds the trust that Charles will inherit on his 25th birthday. Mrs. Thatcher wants the bank to be their son’s guardian and believes that their son will be better educated in the bank’s care. As Mrs. Kane is at the table with Thatcher signing the paperwork, Mr. Thatcher’s angrily objects in the background as Kane is framed in a window outside playing happily on his sled; this image says that Kane, at this point, is the picture of happiness. Thatcher mentions the 50,000.00 dollar a year allowance Mr. and Mr. Kane will from the fund and Mr. Kane calms down immediately. After signing their son over to Mr. Thatcher and the Bank, Mrs. Kane calls her son in. Mr. Thatcher takes the boy and the abandoned sled is covered in snow.

This is where the sadness starts. Mrs. Kane decides to have her son raised in a materialistic environment that is insensitive to his emotional needs. Kane’s viewpoint of the world in relation to himself is “If I give you something, you must love me,” but throughout his public and private life he is incapable of giving love because he was raised by a banker who only provided for his material needs and this upbringing taught and his mother’s reason for giving him up in the 1st place conditioned him to think that he could be loved by returning something other than love. 

Fantastic scene. Right away, the film presents us with the paradox of Charles as a small boy who is happy and yet very poor. His parents, particularly his father, are not college educated but the boy seems happy and content. His happiness is interrupted and taken away from him by Thatcher, a banker, who, his mother believes, will provide the proper education for her son. Right away, there is a trade-off of his childhood and happiness for wealth that  he searches for throughout the film. This scene also sheds light on his motivations later as an adult as to why his newspaper stands up for people who are poor. His father in this scene has no say so over his son being turned over to the bank and Kane’s newspaper is the voice for those who remind him of his father. 

An analysis of scenes from 'All That Heaven Allows'

This is an analysis of 'All That Heaven Allows' I shared with a group of fellow film lovers at the public library. Let me know what you think of this great film.

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS By Douglas Sirk

Title 1 (00:00-11:50) (11:50) Stop at “What a horrid thing to say, Mona.”

Cary attends a dinner where she is subjected to criticism for wearing a red dress. 

My viewpoint

The 1st shot of the film shows a clock on a church tower beside an overhead view of a New England suburb. The leaves are turning indicating the season and the theme of the film which is not death but change going with the fact that Cary, whose mourning her husband, is going to fall in love with another man again. We are also introduced to other elements of the plot that foreshadow elements later in the story. At around the 2:47 point on the DVD, Cary invites Sara to have lunch but Sara is attending a dinner and doesn’t have the time. She arranges a date for Cary. This establishes the film’s theme of other people running Cary’s life. Ron is finishing up some yard work for Cary and when she invites him to coffee and lunch, he accepts—this contrast between Sara and Ron—she, being too busy and he, not being too busy—sums up the entire film. This also is an illustration of what Alida says later about her and Mick getting off life’s merry-go-round. The opening shot of the clock and the neighborhood is also a metaphor for people living their lives on the clock. 

In this scene, we meet Cary’s children who remind her of what’s acceptable and not acceptable for a woman her age, expressing their approval of whom she chooses to date and expressing disapproval of a low-cut dress she wears out on a date. Cary is bombarded in this scene by what others like and don’t like. The dinner party is full of gossipers. 

This film makes excellent use of technicolor. The colors or deep and saturated. Criterion did a great job on this movie as they always do. 

Title 2 (5) (16:32—20:49) (4:17) Stop at “It was probably thrown there because the pieces were missing. Better leave it.” 

Ron finishes up some final landscaping on Cary’s property and tells her that he plans on giving up the business to raise trees full-time. He invites her to his place to show her some trees and she accepts. 

My viewpoint:

Ron’s place is out in the woods with nature away from civilization and Cary’s world of materialism. Cary is taken by an old mill there, an old mill that hasn’t been used in a while. This mill, like Ron, is sturdy but empty because he doesn’t have a steady woman. The broken tea server is a metaphor for his heart which some woman has broken. Only love can fix it which is why he tells her to leave it. 

Title 3 (7) (26:20-33:39) (7:19) Stop after Ron opens bottle with his teeth

Ron introduces Cary to his friends, Mick and Alida who also have a nursery business. Mick and Alida live a simple life like Ron and Cary wants to know why. Alida, Mick’s wife, explains to Cary how Ron helped them to get out of the rat-race. 

My viewpoint:

It is no coincidence that both Ron and Mick are in the nursery business. This society is so materialistic that we tend to connect our happiness to how much stuff we own. The message in this scene is that the closer we get back to the basics and nature the happier we become. All of Mick’s friends in this scene have occupations that have something to do with nature: 

• There’s Manuel, the lobster catcher
• There’s Grandpa Adams, a beekeeper and artist
• Then there’s Mrs. Edna Pidway, head of the Audubon Society and bird-watcher

Also notice how easily Cary is accepted by Ron’s friends who aren’t judgmental and contrast this with how Ron is rejected by Cary’s society.  Ron’s friends are diverse while all of Cary’s friends are lily-White.

Title 4 (10) (47:49-57:34) (9:55) Stop as Ron and Cary leave party

Cary announces to her children that she is going to get married to Ron Kirby and they aren’t happy about it. What will everybody think of her marrying a gardener? Cary takes Ron to an evening dinner to meet her friends and things don’t go well there, either. 

My viewpoint: 

Cary’s society rejects Ron in direct contrast to how his society accepts her. First, her children are more concerned with what people think of Cary’s decision to marry Ron than they are with her happiness. At the party, Ron is treated as a novelty and a gold-digger. There is a lot of class discrimination here and it is easy to see from this scene and others how this film inspired Rainer Werner Fassbinder to make Ali: Fear Eats The Soul 19 years later.

Title 5 (12) (59:46—1:06:38) (6:52) Stop after Ron and Cary break up and he sits on stair

Ned tells Cary that he won’t accept Ron as his father or come to the wedding; Kay blames an argument with her boyfriend on her mother’s decision to marry Ron. Cary calls off the wedding.

My viewpoint:

Cary is confronted with making a choice between being what her society expects her to be and pursuing her own happiness. She chooses, what she feels at this time, the best route by living her life as others want her to.

Title 6 (17) (1:12:14—1:15:31) (3:17) Stop after “Drama, life, comedy, life’s parade at your fingertips.”

Ned and Kay come home for Christmas. Kay is engaged to get married and shows her engagement ring to Cary. Ned is going off to Paris to study for a year and off to Iran afterwards to work for a company. He plans to sell the house. He and Kay buy her a TV set for Christmas. 

My viewpoint:

Now, Cary sees that her children, who ran her life, are living their lives and are completely unconcerned about her. Cary realizes the mistake she made in living for others instead of seeking her own happiness. The TV set means that while she’s at home by herself she’ll be watching others live their lives, happy and not the least bit concerned about what she thinks. 

Title 7 (19) (1:19:57—1:21:35) (1:38) Stop after Rod falls in snowbank 

Cary realizes her mistake and goes by to see Ron but he’s not in the mill. He sees her and tries to get her attention. He loses his footing and fall off a ledge and lands face first in a snowbank. 

My viewpoint: 

Title 8 (20) (1:24:52—end) (3:55)

Rod is in the mill under doctor’s care, unconscious since falling off the ledge into the snowbank. He has a concussion. Cary understands now, how she’d let other people come between her and Ron. He comes to and the 1st thing he sees is her face over his.