Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Fight Club (1999)


A lost young man (Edward Norton) meets a lovable rogue (Brad Pitt) and together they embark on fantastical adventures involving bare-knuckled brawls, plastic explosives and liposuctioned human fat.

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In terms of art, fashion, music, design, etc. each decade has an arc. In the beginning it feels very much like the one before. Change is gradual since nobody is going to throw out their entire wardrobe and redecorate overnight. But slowly after a few years, the zeitgeist starts to find its own voice. New and exciting works emerge which spark innovation in others and we are riding high. Then comes the imitation. What was once new and interesting eventually becomes a "house style". Once something  has reached the point of self-parody, it is necessary to burn everything to the ground and start again. Thanks to the late-90s reign of increasingly safe, epic-romance films like The English Patient, Titanic and Shakespeare In Love, absolute demolition became necessary so that the cycle could start anew. Kind of like those controlled burns they do in forests. Thankfully David Fincher and Chuck Palahniuk were more than happy to strike the match. It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

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