Most modern American movies appeal to audiences by comedy, violence, or drama. Most of these movie appeals require no thinking. The film Fight Club shows a psychological side of movies. Fight Club captures the attention of the audience while demonstrating the effects of mental disorders. The film demonstrates the effects of multiple psychological problems on one person. The protagonist experiences insomnia, which acts as a catalyst for his schizophrenia; these disorders lead him into depression, addiction, and an identity crisis.
The movie Fight Club stars Brad Pitt and Edward Norton as two unlikely partners who begin a confidential underground brawl. Narrated by Norton, the film questions the sanity of the main character Jack, as he falls into a toxic relationship with a man (Pitt) he first met on an airplane. Jack’s insomnia leads him to pretend he is terminally ill. Through this pretension, he weeps and cries, tempting himself into sleep. For a while, this method works. Jack meets Marla Singer who copies his ways of dealing with insanity. Jack states, “Marla -- the big tourist. Her lie reflected my lie” (Fight Club). This quotation demonstrates the similarities between Marla and Jack. The two collide with each other, always battling for territory.
When orderly Jack meets suave Tyler Durden (Pitt), Jack’s life turns upside down. After Tyler lures Jack into a fight, the two inflict pain on each other as a form of therapy. Jack becomes addicted to this form of therapy as the fight club grows in membership. After living together for a short time, Jack and Tyler create an underground organization called Project Mayhem. The Project get out of hand when Tyler attempts to overthrow all major credit card companies. At this point, Jack realizes that he and Tyler coexist together. In order to stop his schizophrenia, Jack shoots himself in the mouth, thus killing Tyler and stopping Project Mayhem (Fight Club).
The film opens with Jack experiencing insomnia. Insomnia is the complexity in maintaining or instigating sleep. Jack believes that his long-term insomnia is terminal. “For six months. I could not sleep. With insomnia, nothing is real. Everything is far away. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy” (Fight Club). This quotation shows that Jack feels in between real and delusional. Meredith Cricco believes older adults experience insomnia more than younger adults. The sleep lost can lead to chronic fatigue, depression, and daytime sleepiness (Cricco 1).
In the film, Jack portrays a man in his mid-thirties suffering from insomnia. The sleep he loses carries over to the next day. He constantly falls asleep at work. He falls asleep on airplanes when traveling for his company. Jack also constantly feels depressed. For example, when flying, he imagines the plane exploding and life insurance tripling because he dies on a business trip. Falling asleep at work, falling asleep on planes, and battling depression prove that Jack struggles with insomnia throughout the film (Fight Club).
His interactions with society occur when he joins multiple support groups. Although he does not suffer any chronic illnesses, he engages in groups for different types of cancer. Through these support groups, he finds a temporary cure for his insomnia. Jack states, “Every evening I died and every evening I was born again. Resurrected” (Fight Club). This quotation demonstrates that Jack does experience depression and his support groups relieve his depression and insomnia temporarily.
During fight club, Jack experiences a similar feeling as he does with his support groups. “You weren't alive anywhere like you were there. But fight club only exists in the hours between when fight club starts and when fight club ends” (Fight Club). This feeling also exemplifies Jack’s depression. He feels dead until the nights of fight club arrive.
As a symptom of insomnia, Jack experiences depression. Jack’s depression ranges from moderate to severe. James Morrison states, “If you go to work, you don’t get much done; maybe you fight with fellow workers, or avoid them” (193). When Jack goes to work, he sits at his desk and daydreams. Jack often quarrels with his boss and zones out when talked to (Fight Club). Some severe symptoms include hallucinations, insomnia, and delusions (Morrison 266). These symptoms lead to Jack’s schizophrenic behavior.
Frank J. Bruno defines schizophrenia as “a mental disorder characterized by a gross impairment in the ability to think in logical and rational terms” (264). He goes on to explain the meaning of delusions. Those who experience delusions have a desire for power (47). After initiating fight club, Jack feels that his boss has less power over him. Jack demonstrates his desire for power by starting fight club and Project Mayhem. Project Mayhem’s goal revolves around overthrowing the credit card companies (Fight Club). If accomplished, this action would give Jack credit for organizing such an act and therefore he would gain power.
The film shows Jack’s schizophrenia many times. At work, Jack meets with his boss in his boss’s office. Jack asks his boss to start a fight with him. His boss refuses and does not understand why Jack asks him to fight. As a result to his boss’s response, Jack punches himself in the face. He continues to beat himself up, until his boss intervenes and asks him to leave (Fight Club). This scene illustrates Jack’s schizophrenic behavior.
Toward the end of the film, Jack turns himself in to the police. Some of the policemen he recognizes as members of Project Mayhem. They seize him and attempt to cut off his testicles. Jack struggles, demanding that they release him. However, they reply by saying that they knew everything he would say, because he already told them. Jack realizes that Tyler told them this and breaks free. This scene proves that Jack experiences severe schizophrenia. He cannot remember telling them to kill him and he faces an identity crisis (Fight Club).
As seen in the film, Jack’s family and friends seem non-existent. His interactions include his support group, fight club, Marla, and people at work (Fight Club).
Through the duration of the film, Jack faces personality complications caused by his schizophrenia. He goes through an identity crisis throughout the film. When he and Tyler live together, he refers to himself as “Jack’s Medulla Oblongata” and “Jack’s Bile Duct” (Fight Club). Except for Jack, the only other name he is referred by others is Tyler or Mr. Durden. Even when a police officer calls for Jack, the officer speaks once the phone is picked up; he never asks if the person on the other end is Jack. When he sends Marla on a bus, she calls him by Tyler. She states, “You are the worst thing that ever happened to me, Tyler” (Fight Club). These complications show that Jack experiences an identity crisis. As a result, Jack wants to become Tyler Durden.
Jack experiences addiction and obsession as a result of his depression. His addictions come and go rapidly. He begins to obsess over his addictions. All of his addictions are excessive; he purchases all IKEA furniture, attends fight club almost every night, and finds a support group to attend each night of the week. His first addiction starts with the furniture in his apartment. He buys IKEA furniture and arranges his apartment just like the pictures in the magazine. Then Jack finds a different support group to belong to for each night of the week. After meeting Tyler, Jack becomes obsessed with fight club and Project Mayhem (Fight Club).
Jack experiences a milder addiction throughout the movie, becoming obsessed with Marla. Although his true feelings for her do not show until the end of the film, she waltzes in and out tempting him. When Tyler and Jack live together, Marla finds out where they live after confronting Jack about missing group therapy. Marla stays with the two for a short time. During this time, she has sex with Tyler multiple times. At first, Jack cannot figure out why Tyler would want to have sex with her. Toward the end of the movie, Jack realizes that he is Tyler and that he had sex with Marla. He realizes that he truly cares for her so he sends her away on a bus to protect her from Project Mayhem. Marla represents another of Jack’s addictions. He has sex with her multiple times in one day. Overall, Marla symbolizes Jack’s ideal companion (Fight Club).
In conclusion, Jack experiences mental disorders mainly caused by his insomnia and schizophrenia. These disorders complicate his life by resulting in addiction, depression, and personality disorders. These illnesses lead him to comprise Project Mayhem. In the end he overcomes his schizophrenia by shooting himself in the mouth, killing Tyler and concluding Project Mayhem (Fight Club).
By focusing on the mental health of a person, the film gives the audience a situation to ponder. How far and disturbing can psychosis lead one individual? What are grounds for insanity? How do addiction and depression come into play when someone is diagnosed with schizophrenia? All of these questions show that Fight Club requires some intellect in order to view and understand the movie properly. Overall, the movie challenges the audience to consider the effects of psychosis and insomnia.
Works Cited
Bruno, Frank J. Psychological Symptoms. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1993.Cricco, Meredith, Daniel Foley, and Eleanor Simonsick. “The Impact of Insomnia On Cognitive Functioning in Older Adults.” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 49 (2001): 1185-90.
Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. Twentieth
Century Fox, 1999.
Morrison, James. Straight Talk About Your Mental Health. New York: Guilford
Press, 2002.
2 comments:
i was preparing for my tutorial presentation and also thought of using fight club amongst other films that portray mental illnesses. I also think that fight club is an example of male struggling in the city. as opposed to women who are oppressed, male in the city faces different struggles and pressures despite them enjoying 'superiority'. it is this very 'superiority' that makes them struggle to preserve and maintain their ideal 'male image' of being successful in career, financially competant and to be emotionally strong. such are pressure that the male faces, and in some cases becomes the cause of madness.
WOWO，i am so grateful you are the first student to COMMENT, and congratulations!
great Melanie,I shall use this clips and introduce this film at the end of the tutorial while I suppose you could be the respondent.
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