I've no patience for credit ratings
I get no joy from the stock exchange
That's why I say, fellow slaves
Let's burn it all down again.
~~ Snog, Old Atlantis.

David Fincher's Fight Club (1999) is a fable about postmodern consumer society and the potential for an American fascism. Fincher, trained in post-classical cinema aesthetics as a music clip producer, consistently undermines melodrama motifs and structures, thwarting audience expectations about narrative and plot direction. Fincher's stylishly noir aesthetics also differs from the typical set design of 1950s family melodramas, but Fight Club is, at least on the surface, an action film which fits within the melodrama films identified by film scholar Steve Neale.

Fight Club belongs to a social protest movement that has emerged since the Cold War's endgame, typified by fears about trans-national corporations, media-savvy activists, and the demise of the traditional bi-polar political framework. [1] Fincher is aware of this: throughout hyperkinetic visual sequences, the Narrator (Edward Norton) name-drops references to Ikea, Nike, Starbucks, Free Agent Nation, corporate synergy mania, and superstores. Real-life Tyler Durdens (Brad Pitt) founded Web sites [2] such as Fucked Company, Netslaves and Dotcom Scoop, which encourage employees to whistleblow on the latest corporate malfeasance, and culture jammers such as Joey Skaggs, and ®™ark, a consultancy firm that uses limited liability provisions to fund exposure campaigns.

Global data-streams, not nitro-glycerine, are their weapon. It is within the interpretative context of this movement that Fight Club must be considered.

Fincher creates an ambivalent relationship between the protagonists, suggesting by the film's end that Durden is a rampantly out-of-control social 'alter' of the Narrator. This ambivalence undercuts melodrama's reliance upon Manichean morality, and resolving conflict through acting out psychological complexes. Instead of polarisation, the protagonists' identity become blurred, and eventually merged.

Because the Narrator's psychic conflict does not become clear, it is also difficult to locate the 'primal scene' within a Freudian psychoanalytic framework. The turning point is when the Narrator learns that his apartment has been burnt down, a sequence that Fincher creates with an evocative simulation. Only when the Narrator confronts Durden and shoots himself does he learn that his memories are a Baudrillardian simulacra. Fincher contends that identities are fluid and dynamically interact with their environment, therefore the cause of psychic conflict (which the 'primal scene' usually signifies) may be nonlinear and multiplistic. The film's energetic-but-fragmented ambient soundtrack, recorded by the Dust Brothers, underscores this interpretation. [3]

Nor is the Narrator 'mute' about Durden's plans: he actively collaborates in the Fight Clubs' creation, and only learns near the film's end about Project Total Mayhem, a militia-like plot to blow up creditor records. Although he doesn't overtly reference the Oklahoma City (April 19, 1995) and World Trade Center (February 26, 1996) bombings, Fincher would have been aware of the interpretative context by which the audience analyzed Fight Club. The Narrator remains deeply confused about his relationship with Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), only decoding, near the film's end, the cryptic 'meaning' of a quick sex dream sequence.

The finale isn't emotionally cathartic, like melodrama contends to be, but is more burdensome, veering toward the 'excluded middle' between Robert Heilman's monopathic and polypathic modes. The Narrator's final comment ("Sorry, you met me at a strange period in my life") to Marla Singer as the skyscrapers detonate, seals the postmodern irony.

Fight Club refuses both exhilarating melodrama and contradictory tragedy, zeroing in on a critical blindspot missed by Cinema Studies scholars who erroneously equate melodrama with a particular time-period and values system. [4]

The Narrator's virtue is not simply eclipsed by unfolding events or the other characters (although it surfaces during a speech about death, individuality, and groupthink), but constantly re-written and re-framed. Hence, the film's 'moral voice' shifts between the Narrator, Marla Singer's unmasking of motivations at the twelve-step help groups, and Tyler Durden's speeches about the Fight Clubs and re-scripting self-esteem through physical confrontations (the antidote to disconnected consumerism). Two scenes are particularly notable: when the Narrator undergoes a painful initiation ritual and philosophical lecture fashioned by Durden, and when the Narrator one-ups his boss by smashing up his workplace office and threatening a damages lawsuit.

Although Fincher mines the gnostic depths of the 'moral occult', the Narrator spends most of the film double-guessing Durden, unable to decipher the ethical forces lurking in the image-drenched mediascape. [5] This questioning reaches its crescendo in a pursuit sequence across America that suddenly veers into strange territory when the Narrator uncovers his 'true' identity. Cyberculture author John Shirley counters, in an argument reminiscent of Peter Brook, that Fight Club is really a parable about personal awakening from 'consensus trance'. [6]