In 1999, David Fincher presented a fundamentally sensational film: “Fight Club”. Not only does this adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel surprise and destabilize with its anti-conformist discourse, but above all it revolutionizes cinema techniques by mixing different visual techniques in an unprecedented way.
fight clubdelayed success
In 1998, David Fincher made a film that was to mark the history of cinema. It probably does not anticipate the magnitude of the phenomenon what this film will be, adapted from a novel published in 1996. Besides, not many people see it coming, this fight club, and its theatrical performance disappoints. The worldwide receipts amount to 100 million dollars for a budget bordering on the 65 million. Despite the quality of the filmmaker’s work, the formidable performances of Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter and Edward Norton, his speech then perfectly current, fight club attracted when it was released in 1999 especially mixed reviews and controversy.
But that was without taking into account its exploitation in video from November 2000 and DVD sales among the highest recorded by 20th Century Fox. From there, fight club becomes the film of a whole generation, quickly attains the status of Cult movie and settles very high in the filmography of those who have made it. Whether fight club ends up obtaining this success and worldwide fame, it is that beyond what he says, he is a unique cinema objectwhich hybridizes the traditional cinema of practical effects and the nascent one of digital effects.
Thus, David Fincher uses in fight club as well as his techniques of Seven that it anticipates those of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. That same year, Matrix by the Wachowski sisters completely revolutionizes the visual approach to filmmaking. 1999 is also the year of the first opus of the prelogy Star Wars by George Lucas. David Fincher is therefore not only a storyteller, he is also a great image maker at the crossroads of the ancient and modern worlds, which is seen in an exemplary way in making part of the final sequence.
A great new trick for a great result
fight club is a successful film from start to finish and offers one of the most memorable endings seen on the big screen. To solve the plot of this psychological thriller, at this point in the story, The Narrator (Edward Norton understands that Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) exists only in his head. And to complete this nihilistic race and in the same gesture to escape, The Narrator shoots himself in the head. He survives this act, not his double Tyler Durden, then witnesses the destruction of the skyline with Marla.
Hard to find in the cinema that preceded this film such a close, frontal and visually detailed shot of a bullet fired in the mouth. The physicale of the gesture is the subject of the shot, and to bring it to the screen David Fincher has therefore mobilized all the means at his disposal, as well as the good will of Edward Norton, as the video below details it :
To achieve this plan, David Fincher merges two different recordings. That of a mannequin to capture the light of the gunshot, the air and the smoke expelled, and that of Edward Norton in make-up, whose mouth and cheeks are deformed using a compressed air propellant . With the dots positioned on the mannequin’s and Edward Norton’s faces, he can then digitally blend the two effects into one in post-production. It is thus the perfect example of the use of both traditional techniques and new techniques, a use that makes fight club this “monstrous” filmin the sense of a unique creation located between two different standards and mixing two distinct worlds.
