Film: Fight Club (1999) - Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year
Director: David Fincher
Screenwriters: Jim Uhls, with Chuck Palahniuk (author of the novel Fight Club)
Starring: Helena Bonham Carter (Marla Singer); Brad Pitt (Tyler Durden); Edward Norton (Narrator of various names and consciences)
Let’s get one thing straight.
Film Club is not Fight Club.
Do you hear me?
Fight Club is dead. Fight Club died 20 years ago. Fight Club is an outdated notion of the American man, and we are in the new evolution of consciousness of the 21st century.
Tell that to your mother.
_____________________
I have some things to tell you.
Some things, you’re not going to like. Yet some of it is going to sit with you, it’s going to work its way into your mind and your soul. It’s going to be, let’s say, a dawning.
It’s the dawning of what’s new. What’s fresh, even.
And you are going to find that this way is worth your time.
You are going to find that this way hearkens of the past in a way that will feel like a balm to your soul. It will heal in all the ways you have wanted to be healed. It will speak in all the ways you have wanted to be spoken to. It will illuminate and set a direction for you in the ways you have always wanted to be directed.
Now, it’s not going to be easy, and there are going to be some rules.
First rule of film club: Talk about film club.
Second rule of film club—Talk about film club.
Third rule of film club—Listen without agenda, malice, or assumption.
Fourth rule of film club—Expect something great.
Fifth rule of film club—Treat the person across from you as your guru, your teacher, your enlightened neighbor.
Sixth rule of film club…
Do I need a sixth?
Alright, I’m being generous today. I am going to give you a 6th rule for film club.
Sixth rule of film club—Eat while you’re talking. Even if it’s just a snack.
Are we clear? Sit back, take a moment, I want to see some heads nodding. I want to see acknowledgement in your eyes.
So you know what, let me add a seventh rule of film club, because I am just so full of such abundance.
Seventh rule of film club: Look in people’s eyes when you’re talking to them, as often as you can. Eyes are the windows to the soul. Many of life’s problems could be curtailed if we just looked into the eyes of the person across from us, and truly saw the human being.
Now, take a deep breath. Take this task seriously. And by seriously, I am including fun. I am including joy. It’s time for joy, brothers and sisters of the film industry. We can have joy. We can reverberate with that divine light of healing and evolution. We are capable. All you need to do is believe.
Do you believe?
Eight rule of film club: Believe.
Today I will be showing you a model of a film club between just two people. You will listen to the ways in which we can hear, and see, and uncover. Rose and McGraw are taking the lead, but this is intended for all of you—not just these two leaders. You are all capable of conscious conversation related to film, and evolution, and being, and elements of story, and what stories tell us about ourselves and each other. You are also all capable of creating something great, such as an original script where a man is a woman, or not, or vice versa, and so on. You have this in you, too. Remember that. Believe.
With that, I bring to you, The Ms. Wonderful Film Club podcast with Rose and McGraw.
Conscious conversation about film, and why it matters.
Or, as McGraw says, “Keepin’ it real from the Mid-Atlantic.”
Take it away, people.
—Tyler Durden, reimagined in a dream, June 2024, in the City of Brotherly Love
Podcast for Ms. Wonderful Film Club: Please listen, subscribe, tell your friends.