Lingvistov Film Discussion: Fight Club (1999)

Fight Club (1999)

David Fincher

 

"Mischief. Mayhem. Soap."

 

ex. 1 Listen to the audio file "My Daily Routine". What is your daily routine like? Have you ever felt the need for change? What is your dream? How do you want to spend your life if you could do anything in the world?

 

ex. 2 Express your opinion on the following quotes:

• To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man. (Alan Paton)
• To live fully, we must learn to use things and love people, and not love things and use people. (John Powell)
• May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. (Chuck Palahniuk)
• What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment, which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish. (W.H. Auden)

 

Vocabulary Exercises

 

ex. 1 Complete the sentences with these words and expressions

to assume

content

to bail

compliance

to end up doing something

to initiate

euphoric

excessive

to evolve

to feel like doing something

distraction

white collars

self-improvement

to hit bottom

credence

 

1. If you’re not careful driving your motorbike, you can _____ at hospital.
2. _____ workers work in offices rather than doing physical work.
3. Since Plan A didn’t work, it’s time to _____ Plan B.
4. After great success of our campaign I felt _____.
5. We couldn’t give much _____ to his story. We simply didn’t believe him.
6. I found the amount of clothes she had _____.
7. He didn’t think he would ever be _____ with his own writing. There was always room for _____.
8. Don’t _____ on our relationship! You can’t just go away. We can still mend it.
9. Society expects our full _____ with law and rules.
10. People must _____ through books and education.
11. I am sorry, I don’t _____ going to the cinema tonight.
12. In the evening they offered us _____ in the form of card games and watching old films.
13. I am running out of money. Soon I’ll _____.
14. When he saw me, he _____ I was married and opted for not flirting with me.

 

ex. 2 Explain these words and use them in your sentences

alter-ego

excessive

to feel like doing something

to bail

to hit the bottom

euphoric

white collar

 

ex. 3 Make derivatives

credence

to evolve

compliance

to assume

content

excessive

 

ex. 4 Find synonyms and opposites for these words

content

self-improvement

to assume

to initiate

to evolve

compliance

 

ex. 5 Finish the sentences

If you don’t work, you will end up…

If people start rioting, the government will initiate…

Today I don’t feel like…

I think hitting bottom…

It is easy to assume…

You can find distraction…

Self-improvement…

 

Comprehension Exercises

 

ex. 1 Give the information about the following heroes of the film

The Narrator

Tyler Durden

Marla Singer

Robert Paulson

 

ex. 2 Correct the following statements

1. The narrator went to numerous support groups because he suffered from testicular cancer.
2. The narrator calls Marla “the big tourist” because she travels around the world and doesn’t have a home.
3. He works for an insurance company that evaluates the damage after car accidents.
4. The narrator befriended Tyler Durden after they had an argument in the bar and got into a fight.
5. He invites Tyler to his apartment.
6. Marla saves Tyler’s life and they become sexually involved.
7. Marla could always distinguish between the narrator and Tyler.
8. Tyler created organization called “Project Mayhem” to legalize fight clubs.
9. Police wanted to stop them but they couldn’t because Tyler controlled politicians.
10. The narrator killed Tyler and died in an explosion.

 

ex. 3 Answer the questions

1. How did support groups help the narrator get rid of insomnia? Why did Marla go there too?
2. What attracted the narrator in Tyler?
3. Who was Tyler Durden and how did he appear in his life?
4. What were Tyler’s ideas concerning consumerism? Do you share them?
5. What do you know about the narrator’s job? What did he do? How and when did quit it?
6. How did Tyler sabotage the cinema and restaurants? Why?
7. Why did fight clubs become so popular?
8. How did they make soap? What did they use to make it?
9. What was the main purpose of “Project Mayhem”? Was it right or wrong in your opinion?
10. How could you get to “Project Mayhem”?
11. What were the assignments or homework that members of “Project Mayhem” had to do?
12. Why was it impossible for the narrator to stop “Project Mayhem”?

 

ex. 4 Dwell on the following quotations from the film

Narrator: What do you do?

Tyler Durden: What do you mean?

Narrator: What do you do for a living?

Tyler Durden: Why? So you can pretend like you're interested?

 

Tyler Durden: The things you own end up owning you.

 

Tyler Durden: Do you know what a duvet is?

Narrator: It's a comforter...

Tyler Durden: It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?

Narrator: ...Consumers?

Tyler Durden: Right. We are consumers. We're the bi-products of a lifestyle obsession.

 

Tyler Durden: It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

 

Tyler Durden: Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may.

 

Tyler Durden: We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.

 

Tyler Durden: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

 

Tyler Durden: Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned- Tyler.

 

Tyler Durden: You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

 

Tyler Durden: [pointing at an emergency instruction manual on a plane] You know why they put oxygen masks on planes?

Narrator: So you can breathe.

Tyler Durden: Oxygen gets you high. In a catastrophic emergency, you're taking giant panicked breaths. Suddenly you become euphoric, docile. You accept your fate. It's all right here. Emergency water landing - 600 miles an hour. Blank faces, calm as Hindu cows.

Narrator: That's, um... That's an interesting theory.

 

Narrator: If you wake up at a different time in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?

 

Narrator: Bob is dead, they shot him in the head!

Tyler Durden: You wanna make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs.