"Fight Club" : A perfect illustration of the mixture Sartre/Nietzsche
Last
Sunday, I saw THE film. It was not an ordinary film that made no sense. Actually,
it was the best story I have seen since August. At the end, I felt lost,
because I was divided between the strength of
the message sent by the movie and the questions which it raises. That is why “Fight
Club” has a philosophical approach. Between Jean-Paul SARTRE and Friedrich
NIETZCHE, Fight Club is an exceptional film which is link with Existentialism.
To summarize the story, Jack (principal character) has monotonous,
aimless existence neither objective. His despair is so strong that is becomes
sleepless. That’s why he decides to frequent diverse and varied groups of work,
going from cancer patient to terminal phase or people traumatized by an
ablation of testicles. The only reason was to sleep. And it works.
Nevertheless, little by little, the schizophrenia wins him, and Tyler, its
freed double, is going to create at first a club of fight, “Fight Club”, and
then a terrorist group which his name is “Projet Chaos”.
Besides, Marla, his feminine alter ego, is going to frequent these same
groups and is going to facilitate understanding of Jack concerning what it is
making. His relation with his double which is conflicting is a first element of
what we worked (Nietzche & Separation of the spirit) hothead who denounces
the consumer society, is conflicting. And at the end, Jack becomes the
President of United Sates of America… To avoid wasting the pleasure of some,
maybe you, I’m not going to ‘’spoil’’ the end, because it’s one of really
better moments of the movie.
Anyway, first of all, we
retrieve the dialectic of Nietzsche in Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, according to whom the Separation of
Spirit is dividing into three parts between the camel, the lion and the child.
At the beginning, Jack isn’t living by himself and he needs others. Then, he
destroys his life, and what he was, his personality is changing to another way.
Finally, there is logic and a summary of his life. He liberates himself of his
double (Tyler).
Secondly, Sartre
explains in Being and Nothingness,
that a person could be a ‘’being-to-others” when he recognizes himself by the
subjectivity of others. Thus, like Sartre when he speaks about serious spirit,
the life of Jack is reducing to Ikea and logics of consumer society. This is
why, he re-invented himself passing by destruction and liberation. Indeed, Jack
finds his flat on fire, thus which he destroyed himself and finally has to have
the will to reconstruct his life. Still, he becomes aware of himself and
decides to release itself.
If some of you saw this David Fincher’s incredible movie, which is your
opinion on this movie? If you didn’t, (I hope to have convinced you to see it)
is the dialectic of Nietzche questionable?
Hi Maxime !
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, i'd like to say thanks you ! Fight Club is by far my favorite movie ever, and I was glad to read your comment about it.
It is obvious that this film is disturbing and remains stuck in the mind long after watching. So much that I had to watch it several times to encompass the meaning.
The dialectic with Nietzsche is very relevant. In fact, we can clearly say that the thought of Nietzsche is present throughout the film.
The most explicit character about this is Tyler. He clearly said that « we are God’s unwanted children. So be it. » which is just another version of the famous « God is dead » by Nietzsche. It seems that they both agree about the rejection of all moral and religious principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless. If they both agree on the issue of nihilism, they are also about how to fix it.
Nietzsche uses the terme « Übermensch » i.e. overman. He argues that the only way this can be achieved is by accepting responsibility for one’s actions and values, and always trying to surpass one’s old self by continually taking risks. Tyler expresses by his vision of Fight Club. He wants the members of the Fight Club to be their own master and clearly see in them « the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived » mainly because these men who were afraid to take risks and were stick to their boring routine finally have chosen to surpass their fear of suffering.
This is one of the links between Tyler and Nietzsche that I’ve chosen to highlight but I’m sure there are many other illustrations of this relationship. The one concerning the Separation of Spirit for example didn’t come to mind.
Further evidence that fight club is not a film that only looks once! ;)
Fight Club is also one of my favorite films! I remember seeing it while in High School and really feeling a connection to its anti-authoritarian political themes. However, this connection to existentialist philosophy is A+! I definitely agree with the previous comment and your post on the link between this film and Nietzschean/Sartrean philosophy. Particularly Neil's parallel note of Tyler and Nietzsche's "God is Dead." The separation of spirit is definitely overt in the personification of Jack's paranoid schizophrenia in Tyler Durden. The manifestation of the Fight Club as an outlet for hypermasculinity can also be critiqued. The destruction of self, of the Ego, to take a Freudian direction, culminates in not necessarily a resolution for Jack, just like the work of Nietzsche is that of a cultural critic/doctor, not necessarily made to find cures but to diagnose.
ReplyDeleteThis film and its correlation novel, are timeless classics that must be interrogated with in the way you've done and also further in order to see what the 21st century person deals with in day to day life. What severance and dissonance ails us as a society? What are the Tyler Durden's that we must face?