I first watched "Fight Club" when I was in high school. I was young and energetic that day, and I just found it enjoyable to watch the whole film. He has little knowledge of the plot, and even more ignorance of the philosophical propositions implied in the film. After entering university, I was deeply attracted after watching the film again, and began to think about the various things behind the film. The author's conclusion after thinking may not necessarily be what the director DAVID FINCHER wanted to express. However, according to the viewpoint of Roland "Barthes" that the author is dead, we might as well interpret the film independently to reach our own conclusions. This article attempts to compare the film with Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud and postmodern thought especially Deleuze’s thoughts have found some connections and even connections. This kind of inquiry may seem far-fetched, but what’s the harm? There are a thousand different Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people. This time I will venture They all talk about this "Hamlet" in their eyes.
I. Schopenhauer
Schopenhauer is the founder of voluntarism. He abandoned the dialectical tradition of German classical philosophy. In his opinion, Hegel, Fichte and others They are all "quackers". In the preface of his doctoral thesis "The Quadruple Root of the Rate of Sufficient Reason", he still can't help but criticize Hegel: "The minds of today's scholars are all overwhelmed by Hegel's nonsense. Disturbed: they are unreflective, vulgar and confused, and fall prey to a kind of shallow materialism hatched from the basilisk's egg. In addition to personal jealousy, Schopenhauer's hatred of Hegel lies in his dissatisfaction with the so-called "materialism" and rational tradition. He tried to seek a new way out from an irrational point of view, Immediately, he proposed the theory of will to exist. In his view, life is a kind of pain, and the pain a person feels is proportional to the depth of his will to survive. The stronger the will to survive, the more suffering people will suffer. There is only one way to get rid of pain. , is to abandon desire and deny the will to live. He believes that a person can temporarily release suffering through artistic creation and appreciation, but the most fundamental way to release is to enter the nirvana state of emptiness and nothingness in Hinduism or Buddhism.
Schopenhauer's thoughts are vividly reflected in the protagonist JACK in the film. A typical example is JACK's inner monologue when he participated in the testicular cancer patient support group: "I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom." This kind of discourse is obviously full of pessimism and despair, seeing life as never ending. Endless pain and disaster. In the film, JACK is in a trance every day, free from the electrified, mechanized, and modernized metropolis, and gradually feels that he has lost his inner self and is bound by the manipulation of the entire huge social system. The same thing is repeated every day, the light of the copier in the office is flashing back and forth, and the scene in front of me is both illusory and real: "Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy..." All kinds of meaningless substances around are consumed by consumer goods. Surrounding, the movie camera drifts among the waste, and the furniture appears like a shadow: "Like so many others, I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct." , never achieved the real purpose of communication, which can be seen from a dialogue between JACK and the heroine MARLA: "I don't know. When people think you are dying, they really listen, instead--instead of just waiting for their turn to speak." Unable to find a way out from the depression, JACK accidentally participated in a testicular cancer patient mutual aid group activity. Unexpectedly, he became addicted and indulged in imaginary psychotherapy all day long. Masturbation to escape the burden and depression of reality. Does this coincide with Schopenhauer's "to escape the suffering of the world by seeking the state of Nirvana"?
Schopenhauer believed that all life is suffering in nature, because human beings are inherently volitional, and the will has desires, so it always struggles forward, because struggle is its only essence. All pursuits and struggles arise from defects, from dissatisfaction with one's own condition; so a day of unsatisfaction is misery. Moreover, no satisfaction is lasting, and every satisfaction is just the starting point of a new pursuit. Here it is pointed out that desire is painful because it cannot be truly satisfied. Because "pain does not come in from the outside, but is an inexhaustible source of pain in each of us." This makes life a pain in the world, and to cancel the pain, only to give up the will and suppress the original instinct of the self. Desires are indifferent to social money, fame, status, and other fame and fortune. In the film, JACK gradually turned to believe in this idea. From the perspective of opposing rationality and materialism, Schopenhauer is the forerunner of postmodernism in the second half of the 20th century. Anti-materialism and the tendency to oppose consumption in capitalist society are based on Schopenhauer's thought as a theoretical tool and basis.
For the structuralists, Schopenhauer's purely thesis of the will as the essence of the world is difficult to accept. What's more, most of the examples given by Schopenhauer are just personal imagination and lack convincing. JACK followed the way of life he advocated, but in the end he was controlled by his own libido, and it became difficult to communicate with the outside world, so he simply completely isolated himself from the outside world, and then treated it with a lofty attitude People, rely on the support group activities of dying patients. This kind of appearance seems to be comforted, but in fact, the subconscious deep in the heart is already ready to move, waiting for an opportunity to erupt, and the more desperately suppressing it, the more intense the outbreak may be, and this film ends in this extreme way. The director's arrangement may be out of a critical position on Schopenhauer's philosophy. However, for post-modernism or post-structuralism, Schopenhauer might not be their confidant.
II. Nietzsche
Like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche is definitely an alternative figure in the German philosophical circle. He was deeply influenced by Schopenhauer's voluntarism philosophy, and admitted that he was deeply influenced by "The World of Will and Representation". However, both are fellow travelers in the philosophy of will, but their attitudes towards life are quite distinct. Schopenhauer's attitude towards life appears too negative and pessimistic, while Nietzsche appears more positive and optimistic. His critique of traditional ideas is based on the analysis of reason, consciousness and belief.
Nietzsche believes that reason and consciousness are only one aspect of the complex spiritual activities of human beings, and they are not lasting, eternal and ultimate things, nor can they be the essence of life activities. However, he was not as extreme as Schopenhauer, casually throwing reason aside. He refuted Schopenhauer's hypothesis that "everything that exists is something that has a will", and proposed that the irrational person has no joy or pain at all, and reason is the basic condition for human beings. As for Christianity, Nietzsche mainly treated it as an old moral system. Christianity despised human instinct and strangled the will to kill. So this is a fundamental denial of life, and the so-called principles of forgiveness, humility and self-sacrifice are nothing but a moral disguise of decadence and morbidity. Nietzsche hated the enslavement and bondage of God's hypocritical dogma to human beings, and then put forward that "all true noble morality comes from proud self-affirmation". Therefore, the will of life is fundamentally not a cowardly compromise or survival, but an expression of power and power. The significance of life depends on the strength of power and the struggle and tempering of pain, and it depends on the individual's self-esteem. consciousness. So far, Nietzsche has completely formed his own philosophical system about the will to right, thus overturning Schopenhauer's pessimistic stance of killing the will, and from the perspective of public relations, it is also more provocative. Both Nietzsche and Schopenhauer started from will and irrationalism, but they went in different directions.
Speaking of which, it is not difficult for anyone who has seen this film to think that Nietzsche's ideas are reflected in the role of TYLER. This character symbolizes the superhuman figure of "building a transcendental personality" proposed in his theory. Superman is a person who can exert the will to power to the extreme. On the one hand, he is a genius artist and conqueror that surpasses human beings and mediocrity, and on the other hand, he is lower than human beings, and all actions are based on animal-like instincts. This argument almost equates primitive desire with the genius of the artist, and expects a state of extreme freedom. In the film, TYLER is a personality split from JACK, a fictional character that does not exist, but is vividly displayed in the film with specific images. In the author's previous words, the Nietzsche spirit that has been suppressed for too long is split from the Schopenhauer spirit and gradually developed to extremes. TYLER's performance in the film is a superhuman image. Nietzsche pointed out that superman must have the following five qualities:
1. Superman can surpass himself, fully express himself, and dominate the weak.
2. Superman is the creator of the moral standard of truth.
3. Superman is selfish, free, and self-sufficient.
4. Superman dares to face the greatest pain and greatest hope of mankind.
5. Superman grew up under unfavorable circumstances and was tempered by pain, so his will is stronger.
Interestingly, TYLER in the film has correspondingly expressed these kinds of qualities that Superman needs. If we carefully analyze what he has done, it is not difficult to find the following bridges:
1. Resist materialism. Abandon the superior living conditions that have been painstakingly managed. He blew up his apartment with a homemade bomb, and lived in a dilapidated and dilapidated building, living in conditions with water leaks in rainy days, electrical short-circuits and extremely poor facilities.
2. Advocating extreme individual liberalism, thereby engaging in sabotage activities at will, and exuding a rebellious spirit of contempt for everything.
3. Continually subject yourself to painful ordeals, such as self-destruction and venting by starting a fight, or pouring corrosive chemical strong acid into your hands.
4. Despise all hypocritical moral illusions in society and hate the idea of Christian belief in God. This is most evident in a dialogue when JACK's back of his hand was poured with strong acid by Tyler.
5. Dominate the weak. TYLER does not hesitate to build his own underground army to resist the current capitalist society and promote negative doomsday thoughts.
Regarding the attitude towards Nietzsche's philosophy, the director adopted the same attitude towards Schopenhauer, pushing it to the extreme before criticizing it. In Nietzsche and Philosophy, the postmodern master Deleuze portrays Nietzsche as a radical critic with nihilism in his head, waving a counter-flag against Platonism, rationalism and dialectics. The director FINCHER should say that he completely accepted this, and TAYLE was shaped into the appearance of the movie according to this. It is also well known that Nietzsche's philosophy is inextricably linked to fascism. Of course, this responsibility does not lie with Nietzsche, but with his misfortune to be "sighted". In the film, TYLER does have an almost Nazi-style crazy performance. For example: using stolen body fat to make soap to make money; planning a rebellion against the modern social order, etc. The underground army under his command is nothing more than a machine that obeys his orders. When someone asks about his anti-social plan or the content of the fight club, this group of people from the underground army will only say: "The first rule of the fight club is that you don't mention the fight club to anyone" and so on. Even if someone is shot in a fight club, it's just the death of a meaningless puppet or symbol. Of course, this film is by no means promoting fascism. In fact, director FINCHER is also hoping to raise a negative situation that deserves vigilance and reflection.
III. Freud
As long as you have seen the film, you will naturally understand what I want to talk about here. Freud's theory has had a profound impact in the field of psychology, philosophy, literature or film. It can be said that part of the inspiration for the surrealist and stream-of-consciousness styles that once flourished came directly or indirectly from his teachings. However, for the film Fight Club, I don't want to talk about his psychoanalytic therapy. His shadow flashed from beginning to end. Of course, the connection between the two should be obvious. TYLER represents JACK's long-suppressed libido, and the role of the subconscious is overly displayed, and even rises to become another spiritual force that cannot be controlled by consciousness.
However, I think what's more noteworthy in the film is whether the character MARLA is given a special meaning. Because even if she is removed, there is not necessarily any problem with the narrative of the whole film, and it will not affect the development of the plot, but the reason for the outbreak of JACK's schizophrenia will seem a bit far-fetched, or lack of a hidden instinct "detonator" or "fuse". I am afraid it is precisely for this reason that the director deliberately found an excellent excuse, that is, the sexual instinct, one of the survival instincts mentioned by Freud. You should know that Freud placed so much importance on the role of sexuality in the activities of the human subconscious that some critics even described him as an "obscene" thinker.
In his third introductory introduction to psychoanalysis in Introduction to Psychoanalysis, he explained almost all cases as sexual cravings in patients, even in young children who were not fully developed. It may sound far-fetched, and it makes sense to call his theory obscene, but Freud seems confident in his explanation and declares that his observational work was "particularly difficult, arduous, and dedicated." , is not a false fantasy, and the psychoanalytic method is indeed well proved by some "ambiguous" examples. In the movie, this explanation is also perfectly logical: JACK's instincts are blown up by MARLA's insinuation in some way, and he has been in a purely physical relationship with TYLER ever since. At the beginning, the scene where JACK had sex with MARLA in a dream was a hint of a dream, and the relationship between the two was always ambiguous. In the end, it was MARLA who revealed the secret between TYLER and JACK. , so I get a nearly complete plot structure at the end of the film. But according to Deleuze's critical point of view in "Anti-Oedipus", Freud's thought seems radical but still conservatively regards sexuality as an object that needs to be suppressed and controlled. A manifestation of rationalism. This is the same as Nietzsche's "Anti-Christian" accusation of spiritual Christianization as spiritual depravity. In "Fight Club", MARLA, as the incarnation of Freud's position, played a role in bringing the plot back to the rational track.
The second point is about Freud's "death instinct" theory, which involves his "three-part personality structure" point of view. The so-called "three-part personality" refers to a person's personality consisting of id, ego and superego. The id refers to the survival instinct and the death instinct, that is, the most primitive human desires such as hunger, destruction, aggression, and sex. The ego refers to the instincts realized in daily life; the superego refers to the external social moral and legal system: on the one hand the so-called conscience, on the other hand, an "ego ideal". The superego plays a role of limitation and restraint on the id, and the two are mutually opposed and coordinated, and finally manifested in the form of the ego. Therefore, Freud further extended to the three parts of personality full of struggle, emphasizing the irreconcilable contradiction between social civilization and personal interests, and the cause of mental illness is due to the long-term repression of the id by the superego , a subconscious substitute for human desires.
In the film, JACK said presumptuously to his boss in the office: "I used to be a good gentleman, but now don't pick up any waste paper and come to me", indicating that his self has been suppressed for a long time, every day Repeating the same work, obeying the specious orders of the boss, eventually created schizophrenia. In order not to make the appearance of TYLER too abrupt, the director FINCHER laid a foreshadowing in the beginning of the film with the method of "stealing the screen". There are a total of the following points:
1. When JACK stared at the light of the copier in the office, there was a wearer. The figure of the red leather jacket flashed by, that is TYLER.
2. When JACK walked out of the lobby of the mutual aid group at night, he looked on the road to the left, and TYLER appeared again, and the time was still very short.
3. When he asked the doctor for medicine in the hospital, the doctor turned his head to talk to him and saw TYLER.
4. The first time I saw BOB's support group leader speak, TYLER's figure was on his shoulders.
TYLER, the anthropomorphic personality separated from JACK, has sneaked into the audience's consciousness. In fact, there are many clues in this kind of film. Here are three examples:
1. JACK introduced that TYLER is When a movie projectionist mentioned "cigarette marks", the latter pointed to a yellow circle in the upper right corner, and a circle actually appeared in the upper right corner, which is a wonderful metaphor.
2. At the end of the film, TYLER uses a pistol to hold JACK's mouth in the building, which is exactly the same as the scene at the beginning of the film, and then TYLER starts to ask: "WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAY A FEW WORDS TO MARK THE OCCASION?" JACK's answer was inconsistent with the beginning The scene is different: "I STILL CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING." The point is to add a STILL. Director DAVID FINCHER also specially asked TYLER to say such a "flashback humor" to remind the audience.
3. When introducing TYLER as a film projectionist, JACK said that he likes to add bad scenes in home movies to observe the audience's reaction. As a result, at the end of the film, the building collapsed. Before the end credits appeared, we also saw a film. The bad scene flashed by, and this special hint at that time made it difficult for the author, as an audience, to calm down for a long time.
This kind of similar scene is naturally reminiscent of Bertolt "Brecht's "distancing effect" theory. Director FINCHER's treatment not only adds a lot to the plot, but also leads the audience out of the shackles of the plot. To better integrate into a field of ignorance. These avant-garde techniques make Fight Club look more like an experimental art film, like some of Eisenstein's short films about montage.
IV. Postmodern rebellion The Return to Modernity
Although the conception, shooting and plot setting of the whole film are so avant-garde and unique, the author does not think this film is a film that promotes the philosophy of will or the attitude of postmodern life. The reason is very simple, at the end of the film At that time, JACK was still aiming to return to a normal and rational life. For this reason, he began to struggle with another personality embodiment of himself, TYLER, until he finally chose suicide to resolve the irreconcilable differences between his personalities and TYLER
. It is hereby pointed out that the self-formation of human beings lies in the process of self-oppression of desire. At the beginning of the film, JACK tries to cut a bloody path in a society full of modernity, defeat the oppression and exploitation of desire, and return to the true state of human beings. In the middle, he went further and further on this road, so that he finally realized the destructiveness of the liberation of desire itself, and finally gradually returned to the living state he once hated and despised in order to seek peace. It is similar in this point. Based on Hobbes's conclusion in Leviathan: the initial natural state of human beings is an irreconcilable and dangerous state, and for each other's safety, individual freedom is surrendered to form the safety of the so-called state-acquisition group. This interpretation of the state or social composition is the foundation of the entire theory of modernity. In this regard alone, Fight Club is still not able to stand on a complete opposite side. At least JACK finally chose to compromise instead of being like TAYLER. Generally rise up against all modern institutions.
Also worth pondering is the description of JACK's schizophrenia in the film. According to Deleuze, the so-called schizophrenia is the most free mental state, not a disease or a physical defect. This is the so-called "decoding state" of the self at its most thorough. The decoding process is to have the courage to face all kinds of desires, rather than to control and suppress. There is a very vivid description in this film: JACK and TYLER are driving on a congested highway, TYLER let go of the steering wheel and let the car drive automatically until it hits the guardrail and rolls over, during which he yells at the scared JACK Said: "Let it go!" The speeding car is undoubtedly a metaphor for desire, and loosening the steering wheel is undoubtedly the release of the rational shackles tied to desire. Schizophrenia is a kind of resistance and reaction to modern society, which is why the so-called civilized society regards it as an outlier.
TYLER and JACK symbolize the antinomy of two homologous but different spirits. If you shoot in a traditional way, it is nothing more than making the character more contradictory, such as "Doctor Edward", and most of the screenwriter's time will be spent on the processing of lines. However, director DAVID FINCHER uses a refreshing, absurd, and more subversive way to express the materialization and personification of ideas that will not exist. Not only that, the materialized spirit has to fight against the original spirit, for example, to be able to pour strong acid on its own hands; to be able to secretly plan a shocking conspiracy without being discovered by oneself. It sounds like a big deal, but if you can accept or understand Jean Baudrillard's point of view, there is no fuss. Just as a sleepwalker does not know his own behavior, each of us You can't be sure if you are really lying in bed when you are sleeping. In other words, the brain interacts with the outside world through nerves and sense organs, but once the sense organs deceive you one day, you will never realize that you are being deceived. In fact, this point of view is also hinted in the film. JACK once turned out a bunch of strange novels, the novel is based on the organ of so-and-so as the protagonist, in the text, for example, I am the lung of so-and-so, I have it Lung cancer killed so-and-so, etc. For this film, the pursuit of theoretical perfection and scientific feasibility is not something we should do, because it also contains a kind of mockery of science, which is exactly what The attitude of postmodernists. Although this relationship is not so obvious.
As a film with a strong postmodern flavor, the purpose of Fight Club is not to reproduce a certain historical or realistic situation. It's about showing a cultural experience. It describes a whole long process of freedom and rights struggle. But as I mentioned earlier, although the filming of the whole film is so subversive. But at the end of the film, the director FINCHER still chose to return to the conservative line, of course, this can also be understood as FINCHER chose Deleuze and Guattari's interpretation of the so-called desire: desire is not necessarily destruction and anarchy, it can be combined with other social constructions Coexistence. I don't see this as a positive interpretation of desire, but a return to modernity. It's something that FINCHER has taken for granted, too.
V. Epilogue
The rebellious and obscure film language of "Fight Club" has so far been obscured by people's attention, overshadowed by bloody and impactful images. Of course, from a post-modern point of view, maybe it should be the same. We can’t expect the public to accept and understand like a blockbuster star, and we can’t force them to watch it from beginning to end and then explore with the director what the depths are level problem. Still, Fight Club is a classic postmodern film, whether you write a review with the same seriousness as I do. But there is no doubt that there is a unique power in the film to make the audience fall into a cult, which is impossible for the so-called blockbuster anyway. This alone is worthy of our tribute to director FINCHER, and it is also worth our efforts to consider all kinds of thinking sparks and designs inside and outside the film. A careful audience will most likely find that the director FINCHER has inserted a so-called warning from "TYLER" in the copyright warning message before the release of the DVD version of "Fighting Club" as follows: The
Chinese translation is: "If you are reading this article, then this This warning is just for you. Every word you read in this article is another wasted second of your life. Don't you have anything else to do? As for how you can't think of another way to pass the time? Or are you so susceptible to authority that you give it all the respect and trust it demands? Have you read everything you're supposed to read? You Think everything you're supposed to think? Buy everything you're told you should want? Get out of your room and meet someone of the opposite sex. Stop excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start A fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't assert your humanity, you'll be nothing but a statistic. You've been warned...Taylor"
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