Scheme of work

Fc lesson scheme

Correction: Due to over running of lesson Masculinity will now cover lesson 3 and 4

Fight Club the Film

1999 American film based on the 1996 book

Director: David Fincher 

Writers: Chuck Palahniuk

(novel), Jim Uhis (screenplay)

Stars:

Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter 

A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion

Lesson 1 and 2: Fight Club scene by scene

Fight club scene by scene

Activity

Class to be split into three groups (each group to nominate a leader who will write suggestions and feed back to the class)

Group 1: Discuss ALL themes Fight Club has to offer
Group 2: Create 3 mini biographies on the 3 main characters
Group 3: Discuss the editing styles and how this film follows conventions of a thriller

You will then feed back to the group

Every person must leave having a list of the themes, a clear understanding of the three main characters and an idea of the editing style of Fight Club

Homework

1. Write a 300 word synopsis for fight club
2. Create a production log: Actors names, characters names, date of production, production company and gross sales figures in opening weekend and DVD release

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Lesson 3 and 4: Masculinity in FC / Marla

Masculinity in fIght Club  

Song lyrics to 'I'm Still a guy' by Brad Paisley 

Masculinity from being in a Fight Club:
In Fight Club the "group hug" mentality of the early 1990's men's movement is replaced by raw and uncensored violence. The male in Fight Club turns to violence in an attempt to reawaken the senses that have been dulled by quotidian existence. Fight club is a place where men can experience a true sense of "being." "You weren't alive anywhere like you were alive here," the narrator tells us because, "who you were in fight club is not who you were in the rest of the world." The basement arena of the fight club provides a space in which the men in the film can transcend the reality of their lifestyle, their jobs, and their bodies. The narrator demonstrates his understanding of rebirth through violence by describing how after a fight "we all felt saved.

Fight club exam question and answer on masculinity and femininity

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A Generation of Men Raised by Women: Gender Constructs in 'Fight Club' essay - To view click here

Homework: What different attributes and characteristics are associated with masculinity and femininity in Fight Club?

Toxic men in fight club

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Marla (Femininity v Mascuinity)

Marla

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Narrator and marla’s transformation

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I am jack’s vagina

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Homework Essay Question: Marla is at the root of it' says jack in fight club. Discuss what this statement reveals about teh film as a whole‘

Lesson 5: Critical Reception of FC

One of the most influential critics in the us at the time fight club was released was roger ebert

Background information on critical responses

Fight club was originally a book written by Chuck Palahniuk in 1996. The author released the book because

…Bookstores were full of books like The Joy Luck Club and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and How to Make an American Quilt. These were all novels that presented a social model for women to be together. But there was no novel that presented a new social model for men to share their lives.

In 1999 the book was released as a film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt and Ed Norton.

On screening senior executives did not receive the film positively and were concerned that there would not be an audience for the film. Executive producer Art Linson, who supported the film, recalled the response: 

"So many incidences of Fight Club were alarming, no group of executives could narrow them down."

Nevertheless, Fight Club was originally slated to be released in July 1999, later changed to August 6, 1999. The studio further delayed the film's release, this time to autumn, citing a crowded summer schedule and a hurried post-production process. Outsiders attributed the delays to the Columbine High School massacre earlier in the year.

Marketing executives at 20th Century Fox faced difficulties in marketing Fight Club and at one point considered marketing it as an art film. They considered that the film was primarily geared toward male audiences because of its violence and believed that not even Brad Pitt would attract female filmgoers. Fincher refused to let the posters and trailers focus on Pitt and encouraged the studio to hire the advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy to devise a marketing plan. The firm proposed a bar of pink soap with the title "Fight Club" embossed on it as the film's main marketing image; the proposal was considered "a bad joke" by Fox executives. Fincher also released two early trailers in the form of fake public service announcements presented by Pitt and Norton; the studio did not think the trailers marketed the film appropriately. Instead, the studio financed a $20 million large-scale campaign to provide a press junket, posters, billboards, and trailers for TV that highlighted the film's fight scenes. The studio advertised Fight Club on cable during World Wrestling Federation broadcasts, which Fincher protested, believing that the placement created the wrong context for the film. Linson believed that the "ill-conceived one-dimensional" marketing by marketing executive Robert Harper largely contributed to Fight Club's lukewarm box office performance in the United States.

Critical approach

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Questions to concider:

• Why would the Columbine High School Massacre have an effect on the release date of Fight club?
• Why would Fincher oppose the advertisement during WWF broadcasts?

Essay Question over Half Term

Explore some of the ways in which you have gained fresh insight into your chosen film as a result of applying one or more specific critical approaches.

Look at the stars, the violence and the undertone message of fight club

Lesson 6: The idea of the double / Schizophrenia

Who is Tyler Durden?

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Edgar Allan Poe's 'William Wilson'
What say of it? what say (of) CONSCIENCE grim, That spectre in my path?
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/POE/w_wilson.html

A story of a man who must violently battle his alter ego in order to reclaim his identity, a scenario strikingly similar to Fight Club. Poe's tale is strikingly similar to Fight Club in the sense that the story's protagonist must violently battle with his alter ego in order to reclaim his own identity.

Lesson 7: Violence and the glamorisation of violence in films in the 90’s

Lesson 8: The Stars

Lesson 9: Marketing and distribution of Fight Club

Lesson 10: Micro Elements of Film Context

Scene analysis