Fight club. Favorite movie

A mysterious extremist who makes a living by selling soap made from human fat removed during liposuction creates a society called Fight Club. This is an organization for guys who are ready to fight each other at secret night gatherings in order to feel like real men. Before the start of the fights, the hero announces the rules: “The first rule of the club is not to mention the Fight Club. The second rule of the club is not to mention Fight Club! The third rule of the club is that if a fighter shouts “stop!”, is exhausted or passes out, the fight is over. The fourth rule is that only two people participate in a fight. The fifth rule is that battles take place one after another, and not simultaneously. The sixth rule is to take off your shoes and shirts. The seventh rule is that the battle lasts as long as necessary. The eighth and final rule is that whoever comes to the club for the first time must fight.”

80% of adult fiction in Western countries is bought and read by women. This colossal number is displayed in huge figures on the ceiling of any publishing house and any best-selling author. When editors and writers look to the heavens to decide what book to publish or write, they see the “80%” and act accordingly, often neglecting the interests of those 20% of men who do buy fiction books, and all those potential readers who I stopped going to bookstores because I didn’t see anything for myself there. However, in the mid-1990s, there was a man who ignored the 80 percent and wrote a novel intended exclusively for young men who did not read (or barely read). This is how a cult book appeared, which in 1999 turned into a cult film. Its author was Chuck Palahniuk, and it was called "Fight Club".

For Chuck Palahniuk (whose Ukrainian surname is more correctly written in Russian as “Palanyuk”), the story of “Fight Club” began with a desire, understandable to any author, to show the publishers the middle finger. A journalist by training and an auto mechanic by profession, Palahniuk attended a writing workshop in the 1990s and poured his heart out into books that publishers refused to publish. When his second novel, The Invisibles, written from the perspective of a disfigured former model, was rejected as “outrageous,” Palahniuk decided that, as a sign of contempt for his publishers, he would write an even more “outrageous” thing that would make The Invisibles seem white and fluffy.

What was the most shocking thing the author could come up with? The answer came from a television report, a visit to a bookstore, and his membership in the Cacophony Society (an anarchist prank club that staged public pranks like placing teddy bears filled with concrete in toy stores). The report said that young boys from single-parent families often join gangs because they are looking for the stern but fair fatherly care that they were deprived of at home. At the bookstore, Palahniuk noticed that the shelves were full of books about female friendship and women's organizations and clubs, but there was almost nothing about organizations for “real men”, without knitting and lisp.

The future work is also based on an incident from the writer’s life. Having gotten into a fight one day during a vacation trip into nature, he came to work with a huge black eye and discovered that none of his colleagues dared to ask what happened to him. People were simply afraid of a guy who, as it seemed to them, led an aggressive and dangerous life.

Putting it all together, Palahniuk invented "Fight Club" - a secret society for guys from the lower and lower middle classes (waiters, clerks, mechanics, security guards) who participate in underground fights. Not for the sake of money, not for the sake of fame, and not even for the sake of a surge of adrenaline, but in order to feel like real, tough men, and not castrated dogs, serving the rich on their hind legs. What could be more outrageous and shocking than an organization of angry and disillusioned tough guys ready to take and give blows? After all, this is even worse than a trade union! And they have been fighting trade unions in America for more than a hundred years. True, with varying degrees of success, but in recent decades it has been very effective.

The first version of Fight Club was a short story written as a literary experiment. Palahniuk built the narrative as a montage of vivid scenes, remarks and observations, united not by a gradual flow from episode to episode, but by a sequence of club rules. By themselves, these rules did not have much meaning, but they were the core on which Fight Club was strung. Palahniuk used this artistic move so that there was nothing boring and unimportant in his story - only “the very pulp.”

To his great surprise, Palahniuk managed to sell “The Club” for publication in a short-run anthology of short stories. After receiving $50, the author decided to expand The Club into a novel and, within three months, wrote a book inspired by The Great Gatsby. Like Francis Scott Fitzgerald, The Club had three central characters: the narrator, the mysterious and respectable protagonist, and his girlfriend, who meets the hero thanks to the narrator. But, unlike the classic, Palahniuk wrote not about luxurious parties, but about night fights, public sabotage and a terrorist plot brewing in the Fight Club (the only thing worse than an underground trade union is terrorism!).

Many of the incidents and "gags" described in the book - such as pasting porn footage into family films shown in cinemas or "tourist" visits to support groups for terminally ill people - were taken from the life of the author and his friends (Palahniuk was a volunteer at a hospice, and he accompanied patients on support group meetings). Only Fight Club and terrorist attacks were complete fiction. But the recipes for creating explosives at home contained in the book were very real, taken from anarchist manuals.

When Palahniuk brought the new “Club” to the publishing house, he was offered six thousand dollars. As he later learned, these were “offensive compensation” - a ridiculously small amount by the standards of the book industry, which is offered so that the author is offended and no longer bothers with his creation. However, compared to his previous fee, this was a lot of money, and Palahniuk took the publishers at their word.

At first, the book, published in 1996, sold poorly (80%!), and reviewers were not enthusiastic about it. But gradually “The Club” began to acquire fans - both among critics and among ordinary readers. The novel’s protest against the soulless materialism of America and against the social “castration” of young guys was skillfully packaged enough to delight both real radicals and those who just wanted to tickle their nerves with a narrative on the verge and beyond the foul.

As soon as sales of the novel began to grow, Hollywood became interested in the book. At first, however, they did not find “The Club” suitable for film adaptation, and among those who rejected the novel was the future leading producer of the film adaptation Art Linson, the master of arthouse and entertainment cinema of the 1980s and 1990s (“The Untouchables,” “Heat”). But then the book landed on the desk of Laura Ziskin, then the head of Fox 2000 (the mid-budget division of 20th Century Fox), and the woman who had once produced Pretty Woman decided that The Club should be given a chance. It should be noted, however, that Ziskin did not read the book at that time. She relied on role-playing readings of fragments of the novel, recorded and edited by producers Josh Donen and Ross Bell for those bosses who did not have time to read the work proposed for production. Ziskin and Fox 2000 paid $10,000 for the right to bring the novel to the screen.

Since Ziskin felt that “The Club” could become as important a picture for a new generation of viewers as “The Graduate” by Mike Nichols was for the sixties, she envisioned “The Graduate” co-author and Hollywood veteran Buck Henry as the screenwriter for the film adaptation. Bell, however, convinced Ziskin that the book should be filmed for a new generation by a new author, and the job was given to debut screenwriter Jim Uhls, who was specifically seeking the right to work on “The Club.”

Bell also had several potential directors in mind, but Peter Jackson, Bryan Singer and Danny Boyle preferred other projects. David Fincher, on the other hand, was ready to take on The Club, and he himself wanted to buy the film rights before Ziskin did. But he was not eager to collaborate with Fox, since the filming of his debut, Alien 3, was accompanied by constant conflicts with studio representatives, who often imposed their vision of the film on Fincher. The director understood perfectly well that filming in such an atmosphere of “Fight Club” would turn into real torture.

Ziskin nevertheless wanted the “prodigal son” and director of the detective hit “Seven” to return to the studio, which wrote his ticket to the big movie. Therefore, the head of the studio and the director agreed that Fincher, Uhls and his team would prepare a script for the film, write a director’s development, conduct preliminary negotiations with the stars and estimate the budget, and then present all this to the studio, and it would say either “yes, make a movie like this,” or “no, we don’t need such a film.” If the answer is yes, then Fincher will continue to work within budget and schedule without significant studio interference. And to “no” there is no trial. At the same time, the director was ready to make a film in an “underground” low-budget style, for two to three million dollars, but Ziskin asked him to develop a full-fledged medium-budget project.

While working on the script, Uhls and Fincher decided to preserve as much of Palahniuk's "extremism" and the Narrator's reasoning as possible (this nameless hero of the book was named Jack in the film). They knew that voiceover in Hollywood is considered a sign of weakness in the screenplay (“You need to show, not tell!”), but Jack’s thoughts were too important a part of the book to try to replace them with something else. Where possible and meaningful, the hero’s thoughts were illustrated with images. In particular, this concerned his bullying of the furniture company IKEA. Later, when the film was already completed, Fincher waited for protests from the Swedish company, but there were none. IKEA obviously considered that anti-advertising is also advertising. Moreover, it is free.

In those cases where Uhls and Fincher did change something radically in the script compared to the book, they tried to improve Palahniuk's storytelling. And the writer admits that they succeeded. Thus, the ending of the film turned out to be both more extreme and more romantic, and the role of the protagonist’s beloved was expanded just enough to turn her from a virtual secondary character into the main character, without losing the “courageous” plot priorities (“Friendship and Politics Above Love” ). In addition to the main screenwriter and director, the creator of “Jerry Maguire” Cameron Crowe, the screenwriter of “Seven” Andrew Kevin Walker and the leading stars of the film also had a hand in the text.

Ross Bell hoped that the main character, radical Tyler Durden, would be played by New Zealander Russell Crowe, already popular but not yet starring in Gladiator. Art Linson, however, when attached to the project, insisted on inviting Brad Pitt from Interview with the Vampire and Seven, and the studio agreed with the more experienced and respected producer. Fortunately, Pitt had already worked with Fincher, and he knew that the actor, despite his “golden boy” image, was much closer in his views and attitude to life to Durden than to the policeman from “Seven.” In turn, Pitt readily agreed to portray the anti-hero and continue to prove to viewers and critics that he is first and foremost an actor, and then a “face-selling” movie star. However, the fee offered to him was a star fee, not an acting fee - Pitt received $17.5 million (more than a quarter of the film's final budget of $63 million). To earn this money, the actor of his own free will went to the dentist and asked to have his front teeth chipped so as not to show off his “Hollywood smile.”

For the role of the Narrator, the studio intended Matt Damon from “Good Will Hunting” and “Saving Private Ryan”, but Fincher chose to hire Edward Norton, who he liked in the biopic “The People vs. Larry Flynt”. The actor at that time was literally inundated with interesting offers, some of which eventually turned into outstanding films (for example, Damon played instead of Norton in “The Talented Mr. Ripley”), but he could not miss a role that corresponded to his own anti-capitalist views. Let us remember that Norton grew up in a family of lawyers and financiers and became an actor, abandoning a career in his grandfather’s company. True, Norton was still not so radical as to play the Narrator for free, and not for a fee of 2.5 million dollars.

In the end, the toughest competition turned out to be for the role of Marla Singer, Durden’s bratty and depressive lover. Refusing the services of Winona Ryder, Courtney Love (Norton's lover at the time) and Reese Witherspoon, Fincher gave the role to British actress Helena Bonham Carter, who in the 1990s was considered a “corset diva” - that is, the star of historical dramas like “The Wings of the Dove” (this picture brought Bonham-Carter an Oscar nomination). There was little in common between her usual images and Marla Singer, but Fincher saw in the Englishwoman that dark eccentricity that became her calling card in the 2000s.

Surprisingly, the heroine's unusual name became a stumbling block for Fox's legal department. The studio discovered that there was only one Marla Singer in the entire United States! This meant that the woman could sue Fox if a film appeared at the box office where Marla Singer was portrayed, although not as a villain, but still more of an anti-heroine than a heroine. And even the mistress of a terrorist! Instead of giving the heroine a more common name, the studio paid the real Marla compensation in advance.

But the city of Wilmington, Delaware, did not receive a penny from Fox. According to the script, the film took place in the capital of the American credit world (Delaware is famous for its favorable laws for financial companies, and therefore the head offices of many famous banks are located in its largest city), but lawyers had to approve every mention or appearance of real city streets and landmarks in the frame. So Fincher, in order not to get involved in this long and expensive process, abandoned direct references to Wilmington and the filming expedition to Delaware.

Instead, the film was shot entirely in Los Angeles, in over two hundred locations throughout the city. Although Fox had 70 sets built for filming, Fincher tried to film in the “real” world whenever possible and later complained that he sometimes had to transport the crew from location to location just to film a few lines of dialogue. It's no wonder that his next film, Panic Room, was literally locked within the four studio walls! Also, the “guerrilla” mood of the project was emphasized by constant shooting at night or in darkened places, coupled with the use of real city lighting (street lights and so on).

As you already understand, the studio approved all of Fincher’s proposals, agreed on the budget (Fox financed the film in half with its partners from the New Regency studio) and practically did not interfere in the filming process. Despite the fact that one of the opponents of the film was the chairman of the board of News Corporation (the conglomerate that includes Fox), Rupert Murdoch, known for his conservatism. Fincher was overshadowed with his broad back by Fox chairman Bill Mechanic, who believed that a project with the participation of Fincher, Pitt and Norton was a good investment, regardless of its content. In addition, the studio earned so much from the Titanic that it could afford artistic experiments and a certain independence from corporate bosses.

While Mechanic and Laura Ziskin fought off behind-the-scenes attacks on the “Club,” Norton, Pitt and their colleagues fought on camera. To prepare for their roles, the stars trained in boxing, taekwondo and freestyle wrestling (as well as soap making). But if Pitt, as filming progressed, pumped up his muscles more and more so that by the end, as required by the plot, he seemed to be an ideal, divine embodiment of male power, then Norton, who had pumped up considerably for his previous film “American History X”, starved himself so that in the end the tapes look like “barely a soul in a body.”

Since the fights of the film were carefully prepared and rehearsed and the actors only rarely seriously applied themselves to each other, the make-up artists worked hard, drawing bruises on the star bodies and faces. By the way, the sweat that the actors doused during fights was also artificial - the stars were smeared with Vaseline and doused with mineral water (without Vaseline, drops of water would not roll down the way drops of sweat roll down the body). Bonham-Carter was not beaten during the action, but her makeup was also unusual. The actress asked the make-up artist to apply makeup with her left hand, since Marla, according to Bonham-Carter, was one of those women who wants to look impressive, but does not really know how to do makeup correctly.

There were no scenes in the main action of the film that would require complex computer graphics, but Fincher, who loves to play with video effects from his days working on advertising and music videos, still found a place for it in the film. With its help, the film's opening scene, in which a virtual camera flies along the synapses of Jack's brain, and the final fragment of total terrorist destruction were created. Both episodes required a lot of work, so Fincher wasn't sure they would be completed on time or on budget. In case of failure, he was ready to abandon them (especially the first one), but, fortunately, this was not necessary.

When the director completed the film and showed it to the top executives at Fox, News and New Regency, they were shocked. As already mentioned, they did not read the book in its entirety and therefore underestimated its radicalism. Plus, they obviously didn't have a powerful enough imagination to imagine what The Club would look like on screen. If they could only find fault with a scene or two, they might require reshoots or re-editing. But, to their taste, “The Club” needed to be completely remade. And this was no longer possible.

Moreover, the film was completed just as the terrible tragedy occurred at the Columbine school in Colorado. On April 20, 1999, two high school students killed 13 people, wounded 24 more, and then committed suicide. Of course, “The Club” had nothing to do with school affairs and did not advocate the murder of random people, but still certain parallels between its plot and the senseless and merciless school riot could be traced. Therefore, the premiere was moved from July, first to August, and then to October - in the hope that by then the passions around Columbine would be forgotten and subside.

This, however, did not solve the studio's main problem. How do you advertise a film that spends most of its action advocating rebellion against modern society and organized sabotage and resistance? Yes, in the finale one of the heroes realizes some of his mistakes. But that's in the finale! And this is a spoiler.

Fincher proposed his own, non-standard version of the advertising campaign - not to say anything really about the film, but to transparently hint that this is an unusual and extreme film with the participation of popular stars and pink soap. The studio considered the idea a "bad joke" but could only come up with a promotional plan that emphasized the Club's action scenes (not that many in reality). They say that viewers can expect action with bloody battles and a minimum of political overtones. To emphasize this, studio trailers were broadcast during wrestling shows, a purely patriotic and conservative entertainment in its ideology.

The director was unhappy with this, lead producer Linson also protested, but they could only make gloomy predictions. And these predictions came true. When the film appeared in theaters on October 15, 1999, it did not arouse much interest among viewers. With a budget of $63 million, the film grossed only $37 million in the US and Canada. Worldwide box office receipts, however, reached 100 million, but it was still a fiasco compared to the 327 million of “Seven,” also a dark, but not countercultural film.

This, however, was just the beginning. Discussion of the film in the press and the reaction of viewers who nevertheless decided to see it gradually allowed the public to realize what kind of film Fincher made. And people realized that this was a movie they had to see. By the time the film was released on DVD, interest was so high that The Club became one of the fastest-selling video releases in Fox history. Over the years, the studio earned more than $50 million from disc sales and video rentals, and the film finally turned a profit.

However, this did not help Bill Mechanic. In 2000, he was fired from Fox, in part because he championed a failed and “anti-social” project. A year earlier, Laura Ziskin left Fox 2000, but she did not go into emptiness, but to the Columbia/Sony studio, where she undertook to produce Spider-Man and thanks to him became one of the most successful female producers in Hollywood history. Fincher also moved there, having not worked with Fox until the thriller “Gone Girl” released this year.

As for the list of rules of Fight Club, they not only gave the world the most popular quote (“The first rule of Fight Club is not to mention Fight Club”), but also formed the basis for the rules of real clubs that have sprung up around the world thanks to the book and film. Moreover, Palahniuk assures that with questions like “Do you know where the nearest club is?” Not only men, but also women turn to him. So at one time he got excited when he decided that his book would only be of interest to the stronger sex, and did not disclose the topic of women's battles. But, as they say, he did well anyway! After all, few people can boast that they created one of the most discussed books of the decade and that Hollywood did not kill it with a film adaptation, but turned it into a worldwide cultural phenomenon - wild but cute.

The second rule of Fight Club: do not mention Fight Club anywhere. The third rule of Fight Club: a fighter shouts “stop”, is exhausted, passes out - the fight is over. Fourth: only two people participate in the battle. Fifth: the battles are happening one after another. Sixth: take off your shoes and shirts. Seventh: the battle continues as long as necessary. Eighth and last: the one who came to the club for the first time will take the fight.

Plagued by chronic insomnia and desperate to escape his painfully boring life, a clerk meets one Tyler Darden, a charismatic soap salesman with a twisted philosophy. Tyler is sure that self-improvement is for the weak, and self-destruction is the only thing worth living for.

A little time will pass, and now the main characters are beating their friend in vain in the parking lot in front of the bar, and the cleansing scuffle gives them supreme bliss. Introducing other men to the simple joys of physical cruelty, they found a secret Fight Club that becomes a huge success. But at the end of the film, a shocking discovery awaits everyone, which can lead to unpredictable events...

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE FILM The film is based on the novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club, 1996). In the film, Tyler says that he is able to insert a shot of a male genital organ into a children's film. And, in fact, such a shot appears twice in Fight Club. Brad Pitt's hero presented to the public his recipe for producing explosives at home. Fearing possible attempts to repeat these experiments, the filmmakers decided to use a deliberately false method of making a “home bomb”.

CHUCK PAHLAHNIK CAME TO THE IDEA FOR THE BOOK AFTER HE WAS BEATEN DURING A TOURIST TRIP. ASKING NEARBY PEOPLE TO TURN THE VOLUME OF THE RADIO DOWN, CHUCK RECEIVED SEVERAL SIGNIFICANT PUNCHES TO HIS FACE. CHUCK PALANNIK ADMITTED THAT THE FILM'S ENDING WAS MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN THE ENDING OF HIS BOOK. DIRECTOR DAVID FINCHER SPENT ABOUT 1,5 THOUSAND FILM REELS DURING THE FILM PROCESS - 3 TIMES MORE THAN THE AVERAGE QUANTITY.

After the narrator's first call to Tyler, the payphone rings again. When the camera zooms in, you can see the words “no incoming calls accepted” on it, which means that Tyler, in principle, would not be able to call back. The bench with which the Narrator tried to break the glass disappears when he enters the building on Franklin str. In the car accident scene, after the car overturns, Tyler Durden climbs out of the passenger side and pulls the Narrator out of the driver's side, although they were wearing a seat belt.

The movie itself turned out to be of high quality: here you have a dashingly twisted plot, inimitable acting, “abstruse” chatter of the characters, a little humor and, finally, an unexpected ending. This alone can give it the highest score. The rest of the halo of fame is formed by the spectators themselves. The film is filled with vague phrases and confusing reasoning, which sound interesting and relevant in the context of what is happening, but are meaningless in essence. You can interpret them in any way you like (in fact, just like any vague thoughts).

So, it all started quite banally. Friday night, beautiful weather in Central Russia (-12 Celsius), a cozy company of parents of future classmates who hate each other, who lined up in a disorderly line, in the hope that their child will get a place in the first grade of the coveted school No. 186. The school, frankly speaking, is really not bad: original and academic, and even with a FOK! All this provided strong motivation to take your child there. Actually, in our case, there were quite a few “motivated” people. A little more than 70 places were offered for a queue of hundreds of souls; it is clear that in such a situation, each parent clings to a place in the queue as if it were the last inch of their native land. And not only do they hold on, they are also ready to fight like the Spartans, fortunately, the fathers were on duty in the night line. In such a situation, the most adequate solution at all times was to give in to the heat, and to make the time go more fun, and to communicate with the men on a friendly note.

And then in the conversation it turned out that not everyone in the queue was local - one renegade got his child registered and is getting into the coveted 186th! Justice was restored on the spot, and the unconscious parent was brought to his senses. At the nearest entrance, they explained to the non-local dad with hands and, probably, feet that he had behaved somewhat inappropriately. It is unknown whether the non-local realized that he was indeed wrong, since he went straight from the entrance to the intensive care unit.

The usual story in line. "Are you extreme?" - “They asked me not to borrow!”

"The officer's widow flogged herself!"

In addition to being stunned by the fact itself, the story gave rise to many discussions - among them two themes run like a red thread: “Serves it right, it’s a shame to get into the wrong place” and “Why the hell stand in line in the cold when you have to admit them to school?”

The first one can be advised to send their children with registration to the local viper schools. For information: the closest to the 186th is the 29th school, which the locals don’t call anything other than “bomzhatnik”, but its doors are hospitably open for those in need of knowledge - there are always places (do you feel the demand?). Its graduates often live the short but interesting lives of accomplished drug addicts.

So the city education department, through the press service, issued a statement that they had nothing to do with it, and the schools had nothing to do with it, and the parents themselves were inventing everything.

“The initiative to create such queues belongs to the parents and has no legal force. For the convenience of parents, you can submit an application to enroll your child in first grade electronically on the website of the school belonging to their microsite, and later provide the original documents directly to the school. Every year, school leaders tell parents about this at meetings and ask them to refrain from creating live queues outside schools. However, from year to year there are parents who ignore requests and prefer to act in a “proven” way, which is shared with them by their friends, neighbors, participants in Internet forums and discussions on social networks.” (from a commentary by the press service of the city administration)

Well, now everything is clear: neither the school directors, nor even the depots are involved in this event, which once again made Nizhny famous. Parents just love to stand in lines. Well, how else to spend the night at a good temperature minus? Not at a dance, not 17 years old...

Let us delicately keep silent about the fact that there is a minor nuance, well, very minor: not all schools allow you to submit an application electronically. That is, on the websites of schools, addresses related to these educational institutions are indicated, and on some websites they even report how many places are left, but often on the school website it is written: “come on such and such days and at such and such a time.” And in some cases they also indicate which streets residents should come to in which months. This is in no way the arbitrariness of schools, the uncontrolled arbitrariness of directors, the managerial impotence of the department, the connivance and carelessness of the city administration, right? And it doesn’t matter at all that you will find on school websites different and completely different algorithms proposed by the department, guidelines for applying for admission to first grade.

In general, our dear authorities have nothing to do with it. It is we ourselves who organize fight clubs, directly contrary to their good will and all-round support. They are great guys, we are the ones who were born like that. And something tells us that in this way more than once the Nizhny Novgorod region will thunder throughout Mother Russia.

* The first rule of fight club: don't tell anyone about fight club.
* Second rule of fight club: don't tell anyone about fight club.
* The third rule of fight club: if the opponent loses consciousness or pretends to lose consciousness, or says “Enough”, the fight is over.
* The fourth rule of fight club: only two people participate in a fight.
* The fifth rule of fight club: no more than one fight at a time.
* The sixth rule of fight club: fighters fight without shoes and naked to the waist.
* The seventh rule of fight club: the fight continues as long as necessary.
* The eighth and final rule of fight club: the newcomer must take the fight.

* This is David Fincher's fourth film, after which he finally established himself as a cult director.
* During filming, about 1,500 reels of working material were shot - about three times more than usual.
* The recipes for explosives that Brad Pitt's character sets out are fictitious. The filmmakers decided to sacrifice authenticity in favor of public safety.
* There are scenes of Norton's character smoking in Fight Club, even though he refused to smoke in the 1998 film Rounders.
*The police detectives in the film are named Andrew, Kevin and Walker. Andrew Kevin Walker is a screenwriter for David Fincher's film "Seven", who also took part in the work on the script for "Fight Club", although he was not mentioned in the credits.
* To film the film, Edward Norton had to lose 9-10 kilograms. Before that, he had to intensively gain weight for the role of a Nazi in American History X.
* In an interview with the British magazine Empire, David Fincher said that a signature cup of Starbucks coffee is visible in every episode of the film.
* Several times Tyler appears briefly in the frame (“frame 25”). At the end of the film, when the explosions occur, a penis flashes into the frame.
*Tyler can also be recognized as one of the actors that the Narrator sees on TV at the hotel.
* In the scene when one of the members of "Fight Club" hoses down the priest, the picture at some point jerks. This happened because the cameraman couldn't stop laughing.
* Almost the entire sex scene between Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter was computer simulated.
* During the filming of the film, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton learned how to make real soap.
* At the end of the film, the Pixies song “Where Is My Mind?” is played.
* The Swedish electronic band Slagsmålsklubben took its name from the film.
* On the phone that Tyler calls the main character, it says “No Incoming Calls Allowed” (from English “Incoming calls are not allowed”).
* In the scene when Lou beats Tyler in the basement of the tavern, Tyler's blood disappears from his broken lips, and appears after another blow.
* It is believed that viewers of the film should not know the name of the narrator (Edward Norton), but in the official translation, in one of the episodes (at 95 minutes), the phrase slips through: “Okay, Jack” (this name was subtracted by the narrator from the book telling the life of internal organs: “I am Jack’s bile duct, etc.”).

(c) Wikipedia

Ten years ago, at the glorious age of sixteen, I began my acquaintance with counter-culture with the “sweet couple” of geniuses of this genre: I read “Fight Club” by Palahniuk and “Trainspotting” by Irvine Welsh. I am a freshman freshman who spent my entire previous life studying only and never uttered the word “sex” out loud (don’t even bother about less normative vocabulary, I didn’t use it). Iha, and my life took a sharp turn. Well, of course, I didn’t take drugs, swear, and didn’t even drop out of university, but my book tastes have expanded significantly, as has my vocabulary))) After Welsh, it was like I was dunked in sticky mud, and I still don’t like him and don’t read him , but a lot of Palahniuk’s books have passed through my hands. From the first reading it was fu-fu-fu, but it was extremely difficult to put it down, so I continued.

To be honest, ten years later, I still have extremely poor memories of the plot of Fight Club, although I even watched the film a few years after reading the book. Therefore, when I saw a pocket edition of “The Club” on my work bookshelf, I immediately snatched it up in order to re-read it. I was somewhat surprised by the review of some gentleman on the cover, whose name means nothing to me, because it went against my memories of my impressions of the book.

Funny? FUNNY?! Where to laugh, after the word "Blow"? But the readers of the publishing house “Counterculture” are peculiar guys, so I wasn’t particularly surprised and just started reading.

First of all, I noted the syllable - amazing. Absolutely completely authentic, special, different from what is typical both for “classical” literature and for counterculture. The language is beautiful and definitely catchy in its own way. Secondly, the plot itself, which has long been known to everyone, but never ceases to be very thoughtful and fresh. Yes, it’s dirt, but they haven’t written about it like that before.

What is this book about?

The main character is a successful young man, fed up with life, tormented by insomnia, the only effective cure for which is the grief of others, which he feeds on at meetings of clubs for cancer patients. There he meets the beautiful Marla, whom he hates from the very first meeting, because with her appearance the “medicine” stops working. For work, he needs to fly somewhere, and on the trip he meets Tyler Durden, who finds a way to help restore the taste for life and sleep by opening... an underground fight club.

Peculiarities:

• Swearing, dirt, physiology, schizophrenia...all this is unwrapped, served on a platter, greased, and thrown in the face. Oh yes, this is Palahniuk - the book says 18+ and if you have heard anything about the author, then you are in the know.
• The book is saturated with madness a little more than completely. And that’s the beauty of it!
• A very unique presentation, especially considering that it came out more than 20 years ago.

So what's the result?

This is a cult novel from the mid-nineties. This is one of the best-selling contourculture books. This is an extremely controversial and complex novel, which on our Livelib was rated 4.2 out of five. And I can’t help but recommend reading it. If you have long wanted to meet Palahniuk, but didn’t dare, start with “Fight Club”!