Fight Club
Mischief. Mayhem. Soap.
Fight Club (1999)
Production
Budget
$63 000 000
Revenue
$100 853 753
Director
Scenario
Chuck Palahniuk
Author
Composer
John King
Producer
Actors
Edward Norton
Narrator
Brad Pitt
Tyler Durden
Helena Bonham Carter
Marla Singer
Meat Loaf
Robert Paulson
Jared Leto
Angel Face
Zach Grenier
Richard Chesler (Regional Manager)
Holt McCallany
The Mechanic
Eion Bailey
Ricky
Short description
Fight Club centres on an unnamed narrator, an office worker worn down by chronic insomnia and a life he finds hollow. At a support group he meets Marla Singer, a fellow outsider, and later crosses paths with Tyler Durden, a charismatic soap salesman with a philosophy built on rejecting self-improvement in favour of self-destruction. After the narrator's apartment is destroyed, the two move in together, and a casual scuffle outside a bar becomes a regular habit that draws other men. Their secret fight club spreads to cities across the country, but Tyler's ambitions reach well beyond bare-knuckle evenings, pulling the narrator into a plan aimed at upending the established order.
David Fincher directed, working from a screenplay by Jim Uhls and Andrew Kevin Walker, with Art Linson, Ross Grayson Bell and Ceán Chaffin producing. Released in 1999, it was Fincher's fourth feature as director, following The Game and preceding Panic Room. Edward Norton plays the narrator, Brad Pitt plays Tyler Durden and Helena Bonham Carter plays Marla Singer, with Meat Loaf, Jared Leto and Zach Grenier among the supporting cast. The production drew on a budget of 63 million US dollars and returned roughly 101 million worldwide.
On IMDb it holds 8.8/10 from about 2.6 million votes, and on TMDB 8.4/10 from around 33,000 votes. A critics' rating of 8.1/10 across 184 reviews places it close to the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on Chuck Palahniuk's novel 'Fight Club' (1996).
- Chuck Palahniuk came up with the idea for the book after being beaten up during a hiking trip. After asking nearby people to turn down their radio, Chuck received several powerful punches to the face.
- Chuck Palahniuk admitted that the film's ending was more successful than the ending of his book.
- Director David Fincher spent approximately one and a half thousand reels of film during the shooting process – three times the average amount.
- Brad Pitt's character presented to the public his recipe for making explosives at home. Fearing possible attempts to repeat these experiments, the filmmakers decided to use a deliberately false method of making the 'homemade bomb'.
- In 1998, Edward Norton flatly refused to smoke while playing the role in 'Rounders' (the script called for his character to be a chain smoker), but this time he nevertheless agreed to smoke on camera.
- In the scene where Brad Pitt and Edward Norton's characters get drunk and start hitting golf balls, the actors were actually intoxicated. Therefore, special devices were used to ensure the balls landed where they were intended.
- Among the film's characters, three detectives are featured: Detective Andrew, Detective Kevin, and Detective Walker. Andrew Kevin Walker previously wrote the screenplay for David Fincher's "Se7en".
- Courtney Love and Winona Ryder both auditioned for the role of Marla Singer at one time.
- At the moment when Norton's character tries to convince Helena Bonham Carter's character to leave town by bus, viewers can see a couple of movie theaters advertising the following films: "Seven Years in Tibet" (1997) (featuring Pitt), "The People vs. Larry Flynt" (1996) (featuring Norton), and "The Wings of the Dove" (1997) (featuring Carter).
- On the DVD release, after the traditional copyright infringement warning, there is a warning from Tyler Durden, though it only appears on screen for a second: “If you are reading this, this warning is for you. Every word you read is meaningless – you are simply wasting another fragment of your life. Don’t you have anything better to do? Is your life so empty and gray that you can't even find something to occupy yourself with in your free time? Have you read everything you wanted to read? Have you thought about everything you wanted to think about? Immediately go outside. Find a member of the opposite sex. Stop making stupid purchases and quit masturbating. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove that you are alive. If you don’t start acting, you will continue to live your worthless life. I warned you… Tyler.”
- During the scene where a member of Fight Club hoses a priest, the camera jerks at one point. This happened because the operator couldn't suppress his laughter.
- Edward Norton's character never reveals his real name (he is nominally considered the Narrator). On the DVD releases, he is credited as Jack. At the same time, when the film was shown on HBO, the credits listed the name Rupert.
- Helena Bonham Carter wore boots with huge platforms to conceal the significant height difference between her and the Pitt-Norton pairing.
- During filming, Pitt and Norton learned to make real soap.
- For filming, Edward Norton had to lose 9-10 kilograms. Before that, he had to intensely gain weight for the role of a Nazi in 'American History X' (1998).
- In the film, Tyler says he is capable of inserting a frame with a male genital organ into a children's film. And indeed, such a frame appears twice in "Fight Club".
- In the scene where Edward Norton's character is in an ice cave, the steam from his mouth belongs to Leonardo DiCaprio – it was inserted into "Fight Club" from "Titanic" (1997).
- In the scene with the fall down the stairs, David Fincher had a stuntman fall down the stairs twelve times, but left the first take in the film.
- Specifically for his role, Brad Pitt went to the dentist and chipped a tooth, as he decided it matched his character's personality.
- Helena Bonham Carter made her makeup artist apply her makeup with their left hand, as she believed her character wouldn't pay much attention to such things.
- The font used for the title and credits is called “Fight This.”
- When the narrator writes a haiku at work, a document with the names of the film's crew members is open on his computer.
- In the scene where the narrator first hits Tyler Durden, Edward Norton was supposed to deliver a fake punch to Brad Pitt, but at the last minute, director David Fincher ordered Norton to punch Pitt for real. Brad's grimace of pain is genuine, and you can see Norton laughing about it.
- To make Bob's body fat look realistic, his suit was filled with birdseed. It weighed about fifty kilograms.
- The frontman of Radiohead, Thom Yorke, was invited to compose the music, but he refused to work as he had no idea how music for film was made at the time.
- The bed scene between Carter and Pitt is 80% computer-generated.
- Several times during the film, Tyler appears for a split second (as a 25th frame).
- In the scene of the plane crash, as the camera moves through the cabin and shows the disintegrating aircraft, a man in glasses can be seen sitting on the right. This is Kevin Mac, the digital effects supervisor.
- Before the character of Brad Pitt appears on screen, aside from a few 25th frame inserts, he can be spotted in a restaurant advertisement on the television in the hotel room that the main character watches while talking about his insomnia.
- During the first fight scene between the main characters, a station wagon can be noticed, which also appeared in the film "The Game" (1997).
- When the Narrator approaches the phone to answer Marla's call, a white spot is on the left. In the next shot, it’s already on the right.
- The thermostat changes its position relative to the chair when the Narrator is talking to his boss at the 77th minute.
- Tyler's men couldn't take Bob's body with them, as they were already fleeing from an armed police officer, while Robert was being shot behind their backs.
- When the police officers attempt to castrate the Narrator, several microphones are visible in the frame: one can be seen from above, and another on the back of Edward Norton's character as he gets off the table with a gun in his hand.
- The Narrator didn't need to wait for Detective Stern to leave to call for help, and the detective wouldn't have knocked on the door, as he had left the room half a minute earlier to make a phone call.
- The bench the Narrator used to try and break the glass disappears when he enters the building on Franklin Street.
- When Tyler pushes the Narrator down the stairs, the security camera captures itself, and if you pause at the right moment, you can make out the face of the stuntman who fell in place of Norton.
- Tyler smashes the rearview mirror to pieces (130th minute), and a second later it changes its position, and Tyler looks at himself in it.
- During filming in a residential area, one resident was so angered by the noise accompanying the shoot that, in a rage, he threw a bottle of beer at the source of the disturbance. The bottle hit the head of cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, but he did not suffer any serious injuries. The bottle thrower was immediately arrested.
- The role of Marla Singer was offered to Reese Witherspoon and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Witherspoon declined, considering the role “too dark,” and Gellar’s contract with the series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1997-2003) did not allow her to participate in other projects.
- Marla Singer's phone number matches the number for Teddy from the film "Memento" (2000). The same number is used for a Hong Kong restaurant in "Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars" (2010), and for Eddie Alden in the film "Kiss the Beast" (2001), and for a psychiatric institute in an episode of "Millennium" (2010).
- When Tyler delivers his speech in Fight Club, he looks directly at Jared Leto's character while talking about rock stars. A year before the film's release, Leto formed his band "30 Seconds to Mars."
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
