BEHIND BLOWN EYES – on Fight Club
by John Shirley
Some of the following appeared in a newsletter—the response, from underground film maker Ethan Wilson (eg, the short film “Jerry Lewitsky Plays God”), and my response to him, hasn’t been published before. Ethan gave me permission to reprint his email—one of the more stunning emails I’ve received.
What’s subversive? If you write a manifesto and pass it around to anarchists, you’re preaching to the converted, you’re singing to the choir, you’re wasting your time. If you make a movie like Fight Club and distribute it through a major studio, and then in video at Blockbuster, and on HBO, oh yes even if it’s not a hit, it’s subversive. And it’s not alone. This is what I want to say here today: SOMETHING IS IN THE AIR.
Something is happening. Something more than a trend—more like a media expression of metaphysical angst. It was happening in 12 Monkeys; it was in The Matrix; it was in the movie PI; it was in American Beauty and, you probably missed this one but it was, a little while ago, in a really tight fearless British movie called How To Get Ahead In Advertising. Is it millenial nerves? I don’t think so. It’s being fed up, for real. When I was a kid there was a terrifying cartoon about a greedy little boy who goes to hell where he is fed endless ice creams and candies over and over until he nearly explodes and then they give him some more; then there’s Mr Creosote in that Monty Python movie—“It’s just a little mint, sir…” And he does explode. We’re that kid; we’re Mr Creosote; we’re Edward Norton in Fight Club…Now hear this: all the movies mentioned above are really about how we’re sick of our own mindless, stupidly overgrown, top-heavy, corporation-shackled, toxified, greedy, self centered, overpopulated, media saturated, disposable-culture, center-less compass-less civilization.
We’re in a state of sleep-deprived dreaminess (while ironically in a kind of sleep, a zombie trance, the whole time) like Edward Norton’s character – we’re not deprived of sleep, we’re deprived of rest. We’re deprived of stopping. Of something like the “stop exercise” a la Sufi mystical tradition…A movie about a guy (two guys?) who create a “fight Club” where guys beat the crap out of each other bareknuckled so they can feel real again. So they can find their center again. So they can wake up. And it spreads and it becomes a revolutionary movement—it has the flavor of the Discordians and the Burning Man people of San Francisco, with the hilarious acts of media sabotage they get up to. Hilarious? This brutal hyperintense movie funny? Sometimes painfully funny? Is the last act of the film believable? Shit, no. Does it matter? NO.
It’s fucking with you right from the start—it’s daring you to notice it’s a movie all along. It doesn’t care; it wants you to question the media continuum; question your cultural assumptions. Its structure and concerns and even some of its speeches are remarkably like AMERICAN BEAUTY: People suddenly wrenching free, insisting on speaking to be heard, not just talking till the other person’s turn. It’s about consumerism—about realizing we’re sheep, we’re trained for this life so we can sustain the power structure; that we’re living in a community that we have not built, as in former times, but that has, for a while now, been imposed on us. The metaphor is even more starkly played out in The Matrix where people literally find that in their sleep they’re power sources for a society run by robots. The same message: Wake up and shake off the shackles—and the wires. Only, we don’t know how we’re going to get free once we wake up. The movies can’t tell us that. They can only tell us to wake up. It’s in the air.
ETHAN’S EMAIL:
“So I saw FIGHT CLUB last night. I walked away very disturbed. "Good,"you're probably saying! Allow me to elaborate, FIGHT CLUB was my life 4 yearsago, a bit of an exaggeration...perhaps. I was working at a...let's just say avery cheap company that had rodent problems but will otherwise remain nameless.I was Lucille Ball, trying to wrap candies and chocolates in the factoryconveyor belt of life. I was climbing the long, meaningless, corporate ladderand not even making the money to buy my IKEA furniture. My God, I wasn't able todefine myself by my material possessions! But I had a title which allowed me the opportunity to coin myself "one of the privileged few." I was at the company, I was told, that had 10 people lined up behind me ready to take my job at a moments notice. I was Edward Norton, in need of my Brad Pitt. And then, I found him or it, in the form ofan ass kicking, Chinese street fighting martial art, brought all the way from China bythe great grand master, turned loan-shark, Jimmy H. Woo. I had found Kung Fu San Soo. I spent 7 years of my life getting the shit beat out of me by convicts,cops, feds, low-lifes, and mentally impaired individuals, many of whom I still call"friends." I too wanted to feel "real" again. I wanted to unite mental pain withtrue physical pain. I was enraged, angry, pissed off, and needed an outlet -- and sodid they. I remember saying that I just wanted to climb into adecompression chamber and scream at the top of my lungs and punch concrete walls. Ihad found my fight club and earned the title of black belt. But, I was stillangry, and found that unless I was given my Kung Fu fix, I would take my aggressionhome with me...literally. No need to worry John, I have calmed downsignificantly since then and have let go a lot of my anger. Fight Club is an honestmovie about real rage. I know because I walked out of that movie theater withall those old demons and the desire to bash someone's skull in. Yes, it litme up like a fire cracker and made me want to initiate my own anarchistdoctrine.
I then decided to see a nice, peaceful movie to calm myself down. Iwent to go see Scorsese's, Bringing Out The Dead. John, it is in the air! Thismovie was even more depressing WITH THE SAME THEME: Nicholas Cage's growing rage and hostility at the futility and worthlessness of saving peoples life's inNew York's desolate crack infested wasteland. The similarities arestaggering, including the amorphous hospital that Cage takes his dying patients tocompared with Fincher's TRW corporate headquarters that Edward Norton "downs" inthe final shot.
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH, I was so full of rage and hate -- it would havetaken a bazooka to knock me out. I was like "fuck this world, theseinstitutions, advertising, consumerism, future embetterment, peace, love, prosperityand joy -- fuck life!" I felt like an ant, a meaningless organism feeding offan even bigger molecule -- earth. One big...or little -- nothing. And then, myBrazilian girlfriend said something that suddenly shifted myperspective. She asked me why all these films (and why did I) decide to take suchnegative and sinister out-looks at life? A simple concept I scoffed, but you knowwhat? She was right. Yes, these films incite me to violence, to "rage againstthe machine," but without any constructive alternatives. Not anarchistdoctrine? Then what is it? I'll tell you what it is. Fight Club is a cop out.It's an incredible stylistic/schizophrenic nothing. It's a fart floating awayin the breeze. This is why people don't want to see it, not because of theviolence. As my dad says, "violence is fucking EASY!" Positive thinking combinedwith positive action leadership is truly BEAUTIFUL, and much, much TOUGHER."AND , beautiful doesn't have to be predictable. Contrary to your opinion myfriend, I believe movies can tell us whatever the movie maker wants to tell us.So Fincher and Scorsese have pointed out the wound -- I identified withthat wound. Now what? How about some sort of....message? Maybe somethingthat I might be able to borrow from and maybe, just maybe, alter my thinking insome sort of constructive manner?”
John Shirley response to Ethan:
It's possible your emotions are getting in the way of seeing the artistic significance of the film--and the philosophical significance. Pointing out that we're all asleep, that there istoo much overlooked suffering, that we're sunk much deeper in "The Matrix" of consumer culture than we realized is very important to do. It is a significant contribution in itself. And look what an effect the film had on you! Could that be bad film making? Maybe it's up to other film makers to make a statement about what can be done constructively. But you have to wake a person up before they can go about their business in the waking world.
Copyright © 1999 John Shirley All Rights Reserved
John Shirley is the award winning author of Black Butterflies, Wetbones, "Really Really Really Really Weird Stories", and Eclipse, among many others. Eclipse, the first book of his cyberpunk trilogy, has just been reissued, revised and updated, by Babbage Press, www.babbagepress.com
Check out the official authorized John Shirley Website at: www.darkecho.com/johnshirley