Brad Pitt, the star of the movie Fight Club, said a few years ago that people wouldn't understand the film until a hundred years later. The film's director, David Finch, also said that of all the films he's made, this is the one he's most proud of, "because it covers and expresses so many things." This film is full of obscure colors, dilapidated scenes, some of the plots in the film seem to be able to smell the smell of blood, the audience will be shocked by the various scenes of blood, violence, fighting, some friends left a message saying that this movie is absurd and difficult to understand, in fact, the absurdity is not the movie but our real real life. Before the last 20 minutes of the film, I really didn't understand what kind of theme the film was trying to convey. The film is self-deprecatingly narrated by saying, "Seeing this, the film will continue, but the audience is confused." The protagonist Jack said: "The audience has not yet figured it out, and the film continues." "I didn't know until I saw the end that the theme of this movie is about self-destruction and self-growth, and only I am a hero who saves myself, of course, this is only my personal understanding." Jack, the protagonist of the film, thinks that he is a 30-year-old child, looking for the purpose of his true self in this state of near-bottom pain and near-death. Director David Finch told us such a story in "Fight Club": The film begins with Taylor stabbing a gun in Jack's mouth, and then describing the whole story with Jack's recollection: Jack is the most ordinary white-collar worker in American society, a soft-footed shrimp in life, a loser, a coward, long-term depression, fear and insomnia make him have to run in a group of terminally ill people, pretending to be sick and listening to the suffering of people who are worse than him. Thus obtaining a perverted sense of satisfaction. In the process, Jack meets Mara, a woman with the same impure motives. After that, he "met" Taylor, another of his characters, on the plane, leading to a series of bizarre and eccentric events. At that time, I didn't understand it at all, and when I watched it again, I found that in fact, throughout the film, director David Finch had already hinted to the audience many times, such as Jack saying to himself, "I've never seen Taylor and Mara appear at the same time"; when Taylor and Jack talked, Mara asked "Who are you talking to"; Taylor and Jack could only see Jack himself under the camera when they fought in the underground parking lot... From the beginning, jack is fighting with himself, and at the end of the film, that is, taking on the opening scene, David Fincher finally speaks the truth through Jack's mouth: "I am you, you are me, we are the same person." It was in this conviction that Jack had the courage to shoot at himself, which was the way he admired Hemingway the most, and ultimately destroyed his other half of the character, Taylor.
For the sake of understanding, I will tell a meaning that director David Fincher wants to express from Jack's point of view: Jack's parents divorced from the age of six, and his father represented the God in real life, but God and his father abandoned him - → worked after graduation, in a large car company specializing in handling traffic accidents, flying around all day to the scene of the accident, seeing a lot of car crashes and deaths, but as long as it can be settled out of court, compensate the victim without recall, the company pays the victim, Continue to let the defective car continue to sell, continue to endanger people, the inside story makes him very painful, extremely stressful - → under pressure began to read pornographic magazines to relieve the pressure, long-term reading of pornographic magazines made him become mental impotence, and later met his favorite woman Mara did not dare to go to bed - → and then later transferred to consumption according to the mail order catalog, became a shopaholic, materially everything, all kinds of high-end furniture and high-end audio purchased from IKEA, satisfied vanity but the pressure is still the same, everything is very illusory, It was all the same copy, and he still couldn't sleep—→ finally, he found a way to vent: to join various terminally ill palliative groups. Some testicular cancer, stomach cancer, bowel cancer, tuberculosis, alcoholism groups, etc., a group of people with the same disease complained about their pain, crying, and getting relief. Jack pretends to be a different terminally ill patient, mingling in the weekly gatherings of various groups, shady gatherings, and seeing no hope. Whenever one person speaks of his or her pain, the others must be accompanied by sympathy and comfort. It profoundly confirms a sentence - you have something unhappy to say to make everyone happy. However, it was this kind of party that allowed Jack to find an outlet for inner pressure and catharsis, and he was able to sleep like a pig again—→ did not last long, until the appearance of a sickly woman, Mara. Marla, like him, is a healthy "liar" because it's cheaper than the movie theater and free coffee to drink, marla is like a mirror that mirrors Jack's lies. Jack saw his own meanness—he had lost the catharsis of his recent addiction, insomnia had returned, and he had been in a trance all day—→ severe insomnia had made Jack begin to become a dual personality, and Jack, who could not sleep, began to work part-time outside of eight hours. For example, the hotel waiter, who became a terrorist in the hotel service industry, was a film pick-up worker, cleverly cut pornographic pictures into the film, and used human fat to make handmade soap to sell to department stores. While making soap, Jack taught himself to start making explosives out of soap. He can't accept his cowardly self in reality and tries to escape. Bent on dying, he hoped that the plane would have an accident, and slowly another self-role began to form, and since everything could not be destroyed, he would come by himself, blowing up his apartment with homemade explosives, blowing up all the material accumulation he had painstakingly collected to represent his identity. In another dilapidated, dirty old house,——→ crazy Jack fights with himself at the bar door, the cowardly self is finally conquered by the brave other self, no longer mentally impotent and the madness of marla, whom he loves deep in his heart, has sex madly in bed, and has founded underground fight clubs and opened branches all over the United States. Jack's brave character's antisocial views were widely shared by members with the same repression and pressure, and in the admiration and trust of the crowd, Jack planned and implemented a plan of destruction, destroying ten credit card centers in New York and returning the unequal world to its so-called origins.
As a dual personality, director David Finch used two actors and two roles to express the thoughts of one character, one role is the cowardly and trapped Jack, the other role is the brave Taylor, Jack is a weak material admirer, then Taylor is a strong spiritual supremacist; Jack longs to have everything, Taylor is keen to abandon everything; Jack is cowardly and withdrawn, Taylor is brave and strong. They seem to be two sides of the same coin. The mentally impotent and cowardly Jack subconsciously falls in love with Marla, but the fear in his heart makes him dare not show his inner feelings, so his other character, the brave and wild Taylor and Mara, sleep; Jack's character is empty on the surface, but in fact it is a deep fear, the fear of losing what he has, the fear of women, the fear of sex, the fear of death, his body and mind are imprisoned, unable to sleep, no waking moments, helpless and desperate, but unable to break free, longing for physical and mental freedom and unable to achieve. Taylor's character has his own philosophy: to give up everything to be free. This is also the idea that runs through the entire film. Your work can't represent you, your bank account number can't represent you, the car you drive can't represent you, the things in your wallet can't represent you, the clothes can't represent you, you're just one of all sentient beings. In your world you are unconsciously confined, you are dressed by the outside world, forgetting your own talents in order to survive. From the perspective of gain and loss, the cowardly character Jack lost his suitcase, lost his apartment, lost all the high-end furniture and high-end audio he collected, and did not have everything, but in fact he got a lot, that is rebirth, that is redemption, that is freedom. Jack and Taylor Which character do you like? Now let's take a seat on the right number, look at the proportion of Jack's role and Taylor's role in our daily life, Jack's role has almost become a typical of urban modern life: work, make money, choose goods from the magazine network, through continuous money, constantly spend money to enrich their lives, according to the way advertising and media propaganda, become a typical material slave. But people like Jack, who are enslaved by material things, have problems that they can't get rid of — emptiness and fear, which Jack himself can't feel, and it's only reflected in unhealthy life conditions like anxiety, insomnia, etc., he has no friends or girlfriends in the company, and the fear of sex prevents him from having a normal relationship with women. Jack has a high salary and can buy what he likes, but his life is not happy, and he can't figure out what the real reason is.
In real life, as Taylor said: "Advertising tempts us to buy cars, clothes, so work hard to buy things we don't need", whenever we see what others have, whether we really need it or not, we try to make ourselves have it, and when we buy a laptop that we like, a latest mobile phone, a fashion clothing, a set of high-end furniture or a car, a mansion, we will be very happy and love this commodity. When we show these things we have to people who are not able to have them, in exchange for the envy of others and rejoice again, we get the satisfaction of vanity, which is the same as Jack's psychology of going to various cancer groups, and seeing the pain of others can feel our own happiness more. But this feeling does not last long, as this feeling of joy slowly fades, and we start chasing another new thing, and the cycle repeats, and finally we all feel empty, bored and helpless like Jack. Every day is "the day of life when you open your eyes, and the day you die when you close your eyes at night."
Now let's find the role of Taylor in our hearts. Have you ever wanted to lash out at your teacher or boss? Do you also want to completely abandon all the documents that are piled up at the moment to relax on a tourist holiday? Do you also want to be unrestrained and not trapped by money and not burdened by human feelings? Do you also want to swing your club in the silent night to vent? This is the Taylor we want in our hearts, rebellious, open-minded, free, unrestrained. Taylor lives in Jack's consciousness, in a world without matter, where he has no need for matter, and he mocks everything about matter. He has the courage to destroy the comfortable life and let everyone start from the origin again to pursue their dreams. "We are a generation forgotten by history, no purpose, no status, no world war, no economic panic, our big war is just a war of hearts, our panic is just our life." 」 This is the spiritual battle between two characters in the depths of one's heart,
People generally face pain in the following ways: 1, addicted to anesthesia, such as reading pornographic magazines, shopping or gambling, promiscuity, alcoholism, drug abuse to anesthetize themselves, with a variety of things to fill themselves, which is another way to replace pain, and finally evolved into more and greater pain. 2, withdrawal and escape, such as participating in various religious activities to worship God or running to participate in various seminars, watching various boring movies, watching a large number of inspirational books, watching boring TV until the screen becomes a white screen, this is all wonderful escape, participating in various clubs, are ineffective and may finally choose suicide to escape, Jack once found sleep and addiction in the terminally ill group, and later wanted to commit suicide but did not have the courage, only looking forward to the plane crash or explosion. 3, touching the bottom limit, not necessarily a split personality, just a role transformation can be achieved, but most people do not have the courage to do it, Jack did it, by touching the pain of experiencing the limit to be relieved. Human bondage comes from fear of suffering, and if you cross the threshold to experience suffering, then you have true freedom. In the film you have seen Jack's pain in order to get rid of his fear, emptiness, and insomnia, all three of which he tried one by one, and finally completely got rid of the pain in the dual personality dual role that he himself was unaware of, and he could always sleep deeply when he was with Taylor. Because when he goes to sleep, Taylor will wake up and do everything he really wants to do deep down in his heart. The grocery store owner in the film, Simon, never thought about the sudden day when he was told that death was next? Simon's life suddenly changes when Taylor's unloaded gun is pointed at his head, and in six weeks he will surely realize his dream and start trying to fight for the last time, why? Why do many people have to wait until they face death before they start to reflect on themselves. Year after year, you escape from your fears, settle for your inertia, spend your life, forget your dreams, and every day you are muddy, and no one will wake you up with a gun to your head and force you. But do you want to know if the convenience store owner has really become a veterinarian, the answer is yes, it will be, he will really experience that he has picked up a life and come back, how wonderful the rest of life is, the next day's breakfast will be sweeter than the previous one, and the veterinary career he has always wanted to do in his heart is just around the corner. Do what he really wants to do, have passion for, and without a doubt, his life will be happy and free.
Here are some of the ways taylor represents the character who watched the film save Jack's redemption: Taylor challenged Jack to the bottom of the limit: fighting pain, chemical burns, near-death experiences, and losing homework. Touching the bottom limit means experiencing the limit of pain, when the bottom limit is touched, it begins to rebound, a person begins to fully awaken, the only treatment for your pain is your pain, the rest is avoidance, as long as there is avoidance, there will be distance, there will always be fear, only zero distance can eliminate fear. Taylor first engaged in the challenge of fighting the pain of the bottom, feeling reborn in the fight: "In the screams, all you can hear is the monotonous, violent fighting sound, or the coughing sound of bodily fluids when someone is holding his breath or squirting blood, and the ass of the newcomers to the club is as soft and smooth as shortbread dough, but after a few weeks, it becomes as hard and rough as wood." After the fight, as if you were redeemed, you really live, more really than anywhere else. ”
In the fight, you can experience the most primitive and wild pain. At the end of a fight, whether the fight is won or lost, both sides feel the most real pain, and they find themselves in this pain close to death, thinking that they have been redeemed or that they have regained their true nature. Fight clubs are more like an underground hospital, where bleeding and injuries in fights, both for participants and bystanders, is actually a self-healing method. Physical pain releases mental torment and makes us aware of our own existence. Fighting is a prescription and a psychotherapy at this time, more effective than the method prescribed by the psychiatrist. Relieved with blood and scars. You vent freely, you feel that you are real, and at that moment only the body collides, even if it is a broken sound, it is so real. Don't go to the gym in vain to sweat, as Jack mocked the male fashion model on the bus: I think the men who go to the gym are really pathetic, the perfect chest muscles, the striped abs, the smooth and curvy biceps, are flashy gimmicks to please women, these men who experience the power in the fight disdain, are the stereotypes that must be destroyed in the process of growing and maturing. The eighth rule of the club is that if you come to a fight club for the first time, you must have a fight. You must not shrink back and watch, if you don't fight for the first time, you won't dare to fight again in the future, things are so simple. Every time your blood is boiling, your blood is boiling, and you deeply feel the pleasure of hitting and being beaten! Very original! Very violent! But do you have to experience this kind of venting and power in this kind of close-knit fighting? No, there are also many people in life who can also experience this catharsis through other forms. For example, those racing drivers, when the speed of the track reaches the extreme, experience a kind of relief, and very addictive, Bill Gates has publicly said that he is fascinated by the liberation of this speed to reach the limit; there are some people through rock climbing, fanatical dance and boxing, and even some people can achieve catharsis and relief through laughter or crying, and many things that are suppressed are cathartic, such as being relieved to be reborn and redeemed. Among them, racing and rock climbing require professional tools and professional training, which is not something that ordinary people can enjoy, but it is possible for everyone to get a release after exercising to the extreme. For example, in general, we often run or play ball, that is, exercise to the right end, excessive exercise hinders health, this is the normal state and common sense of exercise, but you can let yourself exercise to the extreme every two months or so, exercise to the state of falling out of bed, the next day the body is sore, there may also be a serious illness, but this is the way to let your body and spirit vent. Every two months, the one-eyed Yilong exercises to the extreme, full of energy, exhausted, and then within sixty days of normal exercise, it feels relaxed and comfortable, feeling energetic every day, feeling comfortable doing anything, and having fun. If it weren't for the effects of overexertion on my vision, I would even want to do the catharsis of extreme exercise every three weeks.
The second bottom-of-the-line challenge Taylor had to Jack was chemical burns: This is the conversation Taylor had when he poured the chemical on the back of Jack's hand: "It hurts more than any burn you've ever experienced, it hurts more than cancer, and it leaves scars." Feel the pain, don't struggle, the earliest soap was made of the ashes of the hero," "Without suffering and sacrifice, we will have nothing, don't move!" That's your pain. This is the hand you are burning. Don't avoid pain in the way of dying people! Feel your pain! This is the greatest moment of your life, dude, you want to escape to somewhere else", "Father is a model of God for us. If even they abandon us, what do you think of God? You have to take into account that God may not like you and that we don't need God at all. Fuck god damn, fuck redemption! We are all children abandoned by God," "First of all, you have to give up. First of all, you must know that one day you will die, do not fear death, only by losing everything can we be free and do whatever we want. "Congratulations, you've hit the bottom line one step closer, and you're getting closer and closer to the limit." From then on, Jack abandoned the practice of going into his cave to find spiritual animals, his consciousness escalated again, he was using pain to make himself happier, and he was using pain as a stepping stone to joy. The endurance of pain can raise people's consciousness to a new level, which I deeply understand, in Russia many injuries and in prison was beaten, very strange, at the beginning the pain is unbearable, the pain to a certain extent can feel as if the body is not their own, it is a feeling of liberation, and then there is a new definition of the concept of pain, it turns out that I have always been sensitive to pain, after several beatings and collapse, I have become insensitive to pain. Once a person has experienced severe pain, there will be different degrees of dullness in the pain, but the biggest gain is the feeling of relaxation after the severe pain, as if the feeling of redemption. If you haven't experienced it, there are two ways for you to experience this feeling, such as a wound on your hand that makes you feel unbearable pain, you can use external forces to aggravate this pain, and then return to the pain you had at the beginning after the pain is extreme, you will find that the pain is much relieved. Another method you may have experienced, you have a time when you are urinating or urinating very urgently, but there has been no place to be convenient, maybe you are in the taxi, you endured for a long time, extremely uncomfortable, after getting off the car you finally found a place to excrete freely, at that moment you will experience a feeling of relief and ease, that feeling is similar to the relaxed feeling after the pain reaches the limit.
Taylor's third bottom-up challenge to Jack is to lose the job: At The scene of Taylor's underground fight at the bar, he demonstrates the whole process of fighting and losing, and without a finger, he completely destroys the owner of the underground fight arena, Lu, although his bodyguard carries a gun, and finally flees in a panic. Taylor, who was beaten and covered in blood, left a homework for each club member: "You have to find a stranger to fight, you lead to a fight, but you have to lose." This is a very difficult job, because normal people try to avoid fights, Jack completely follows Taylor's routine in front of his boss to carry out a self-beating, frightening the boss stunned, as desired to become a non-staff member, enjoy the treatment that was impossible before, and can go to the fight club every day. This kind of challenge is, to put it bluntly, a kind of self-harm, which is a complete departure from the norm and unacceptable to ordinary people. In the northeast hometown I know that several underworld figures have this kind of self-harm courage, encountered difficult to accommodate the demolition of nail households, these people went to one do not fight two do not scold, directly cut off one of their fingers, the so-called nail households also immediately cooperate with the immediate relocation. It is just that this extreme self-harm method cannot be emulated, and this kind of self-harm is also a kind of anti-conventional thinking that loses. Ordinary people think that they will want to win, that is glorious, only have face, so you can try to provoke a dispute, not necessarily forced, as long as it causes a dispute, but at the peak of the dispute or just ended, immediately admit that the other party won, and immediately apologize, which requires a certain amount of courage, so the average person can't do it. I've tried many times, and each time I've made a friend, which is much stronger than the friendship relationship of gift-giving or dinner. The key to the application of this method is to admit your mistakes at the first time and immediately admit defeat. So, you can also experience the feeling of arguing to lose, arguing to let the other party win. You will feel that you are strong when you lose, and it is more wonderful than the feeling of winning.
Taylor's fourth bottom-of-the-line challenge near-death experience for Jack: One of them was holding a gun to the head of the grocery store owner Raymond, and at that moment everyone would think that death was coming, and after a near-death experience of escaping death, Simon's life would be a whole new version. Another time in a rainy car, Jack asks Taylor about the plan to destroy, he feels completely excluded, Taylor asks the people in the car, brothers, what do you want to do before you die? If you were about to die now, how would you feel about your life? Stop trying to control everything, let go of everything. Then the car was speeding on the road where the cars came and went on a rainy night, and in the high-speed Mercedes, Taylor deliberately rushed into the ditches on both sides of the highway, and several people escaped from the car accident, so that Jack, who had been dealing with traffic accident work before, had a new life experience, which was the last time Taylor helped Jack touch the bottom limit and help Jack grow. Many people also have this experience, such as someone who has been misdiagnosed by the hospital to think that he has a terminal illness, and after a period of pain, he found that it was a misdiagnosis, but after experiencing a psychological process of imminent death, the whole person is like a different person, and he has also begun to change a way of life, that is, he really wants to understand and begins to understand. In short, this is a man's movie, which is why the film appeared several times the male genitalia shot flashed by, because the current society, whether it is Europe, the United States or the Asia-Pacific, the global scope of men are somewhat degenerate, feminine tendencies, men began to more and more neutral dress up to go to the gym is also just to practice more like a sick man who is not useful, because then there will be more women like, men have hidden their male characteristics, Dress yourself up according to more popular image of cream children in society, and director David Finch is to awaken some degenerate men to return through some violent and primitive things, to find the lost passion in men, and to release the original male energy in the body. It's also a self-destructive, self-growing, self-saving movie.