Flashback: Fight Club
Talking about one of the most divisive films of the 1990s, as director David Fincher teamed with first-time feature cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, ASC to craft a tale of modern disillusionment.
Director David Fincher teams with first-time feature cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth to craft a tale of modern disillusionment in Fight Club.
Christopher Probst [ASC]
Unit photography by Merrick Morton [SMPSP]
November 1999
American Cinematographer
In his 1996 novel Fight Club, writer Chuck Palahniuk posed this question: What do you do when you realize the world is not destined to be your oyster, when you recognize the innocuous banalities of everyday life as nothing more than a severely loosened lid on a seething underworld cauldron of unchecked impulses and social atrocities?
Director David Fincher is no stranger to this theme. All of his previous films, Alien3 (see AC July ‘92), Seven (AC Oct. ‘95) and The Game (AC Sept. ‘97), have explored the dark side of the human psyche. With Fight Club, Fincher once again demonstrates his affinity for this bleak and foreboding realm, displaying a deft cinematic sensibility and a gift for taut visual execution.
Fight Club opens as its disenfranchised — and nameless — narrator (Edward Norton) feigns illness and begins attending cancer-patient support group meetings in a vain attempt to find purpose within his lonely, mundane existence. Through a chance encounter on an airplane, he meets the enigmatic Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), the organizer of Fight Club, an underground group of young men who take part in bare-knuckle brawls concocted to vent their pre-apocalyptic angst.
Fincher has worked with a score of prominent cinematographers on commercials, music videos and feature films. Interestingly, he began shooting Alien3 with the late Jordan Cronenweth, ASC — who left the production due to his battle with Parkinson’s disease, and was replaced by Alex Thomson, BSC. For Fight Club, Fincher enlisted Jordan’s son, Jeff Cronenweth [ASC], to realize his uniquely dystopian vision.
Cronenweth (wearing cap, just behind the camera on left) and his crew set up double coverage for a conversation scene between Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and the film’s nameless narrator (Edward Norton).
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The Fincher Analyst 
Cool post. And very cool top Tyler banner; í don’t recall that T-shirt from the film.
And a welcome update to the (still live) ASC online article of old ~ https://theasc.com/magazine/nov99/anarchy/index.htm
í actually kind of like that clunky vintage design, just because í have so many fine memories of clicking on it so many times over the years. (Keep it quiet then, cos í think the ASC have forgotten all those back issues are still ‘out there’!)
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“í don’t recall that T-shirt from the film”
That’s because it only appears in a couple of frames, in the 4th “subliminal” appearance of Tyler Durden. 😉
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We are not worthy, sir 😉
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