When Fight Club was released in October 1999 no one had any real expectations for what kind of impact the movie would have. It was the fourth movie from former music video director David Fincher, whose only film to gain acclaim at that time was his stylish thriller Seven.
While the casting of Brad Pitt was an inspired move from a commercial point of view, Edward Norton’s only notable role had been in the neo Nazi flick American History X, while British actress Helena Bonham Carter was more known for costume dramas. And with a supporting cast that included former teen heartthrob Jared Leto (My So-Called Life) and rock star Meatloaf, critics were hardly anticpating a movie that seemed to be based around such a masculine act as fighting. Yet the script from first-time writer Jim Uhls, adapted from the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, proved to be more intelligent than audiences expected, attacking commercialism and the portrayal of males in the 1990s.
Whereas the soundtrack to Seven had featured Nine Inch Nails and Stabbing Westward, the score for Fight Club was composed by dance duo Dust Brothers, while the end credits included the 1988 Pixies classic Where Is My Mind? But in a recent post on Twitter, Palahniuk has revealed that The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nails‘ 1994 morose classic that charted the mental decline of frontman Trent Reznor was a source of inspiration. “Fight Club was mostly written with that album playing on repeat in the background,” he admits.
|
||||||||
0
comments