Word: fincher
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...company rules--the recurring character of the Hire (played with rugged poignancy by British actor Clive Owen of Croupier) and, well, a BMW here and there--each auteur can put his stamp on his project. "It's a chance to make a student film again," says director David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club), the project's executive producer, "but also to have the resources, to have the cranes and the beautiful cars to destroy. Things like that...
...each film is the chase--the simplest story line requiring the most sophisticated art craft. But instead of asking Jerry Bruckheimer for some car-crash outtakes, Fincher lured a U.N. of directorial talent: Hollywood's John Frankenheimer (Reindeer Games), Taiwan's Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Hong Kong's Wong Kar-wai (In the Mood for Love), Britain's Guy Ritchie (Snatch) and Mexico's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores Perros). Frankenheimer's short, Ambush, premiered last week on bmwfilms.com The next two, Lee's and Wong's, will appear...
...Fight Club is supposed to be "A David Fincher film". In an interview last week, he decried all the supposed motives and themes and controversy plaguing Fight Club and blurted out, "I just wanted to make a good, funny movie." The reporter flinched and Fincher noticed. "What? You didn't think it was funny...
...problem, unfortunately, is that Fincher completely underestimates Edward Norton as an actor. If Fight Club is to be a successful satire, the audience can't fall in love with Norton's narrator. We shouldn't see him as the righteous crusader, the man who can do no wrong. Because when we take every punch Norton takes, we lose our sense of detachment. We lose that ironic distance--the distance that makes a movie like American Beauty such a compelling psychological portrait. There's no seeing the forest from the trees here because of Norton's intensity and ability to elicit...
...Perhaps if Pitt and Norton had switched parts, it might have worked. After all, we don't feel anything for Tyler Durden and we care far too much about Norton's narrator. But here's the only recourse. I hope David Fincher sits in a crowded movie theater a few times over the next couple weeks to watch audience reaction to his film. Maybe he'll realize that Fight Club isn't as "funny" as he thinks it is. Maybe he'll realize that biting satire often blurs into the irresponsible. Maybe he'll realize he took the "traumatized male...