Word: norton
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Edward Norton is also the reason Fight Club fails so catastrophically...
...That doesn't make sense, does it? If Norton gives such a virtuoso performance and creates such profound sympathy for his character, Fight Club should be a masterpiece, right? Oh, so so wrong...
...Fight Club starts out funny. The first 30 minutes are overwhelmingly perfect. Like the beginning of American Beauty, the opening sequence whirls you through time, taking you in and out of the narrator's (Norton's) yuppie disillusionment. Poor Edward Norton--his character isn't even given a name. Food good reason, since his identity consists of what furniture to buy, what shoes match his suit, and which dinette set best fits his non-existent personality. In this yuppie's life, IKEA is synonymous with orgasm. Enter Tyler Durden. Brad Pitt takes on the challenging role of this American psycho...
...opening of Fight Club makes it clear that the movie's a satire. It's supposed to be a biting mockery of yuppie angst. When Norton starts attending testicular cancer and TB support groups to release his anger and built-up anxiety, we laugh (albeit uncomfortably, but we laugh). When he meets Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), a fellow support group squatter, and they divide group therapy sessions between them, we laugh. But when blood starts flying, Norton starts crying, and buildings start frying, we stop laughing. (It almost reminded me of Showgirls, the way the movie just loses...
...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...