Critical Approaches to 'Fight Club'

Auteur
Relatively useful because it illustrates Fincher's style between films, as well as his determination to make the film his own, and in his own style. Only useful if you have seen other Fincher films to use as comparison.

Gender
Useful - men losing their masculinity, represented in the film by the testicular cancer support group. Objectification of women is basically absent, but the both dependent and independent Marla represents a reasonably typical movie trope.

Institution
Very useful - studio pressure to change aspects of the films design, casting and production vs. David Fincher's stubborn refusal to compromise his vision.

Social, Cultural and Political
Useful because the media response to the film definitely informs your knowledge on the films message and purpose. Backlash, accusations of inciting violence/copycat behaviour, etc.

Star/Performer
Not very useful because knowledge of the star himself does not inform our knowledge of the film.

Technology
Not at all useful - very little technology was used in making this film.

Genre
Not useful because it is very difficult to pin down this film to a specific genre.

Ethnicity
Not useful, because it has no racial or ethnic or religious conflict to speak of.

Comments on "Restrepo"

- For the most part, a well presented and balanced documentary. The director does not provide a political or emotional input to push the viewer towards one thing or another - he uses the raw footage of the soldiers to say "this is how it was" without any additional input. Someone watching it may well feel horrified and go on an anti-war drive - but this is clearly not the directors intention.

- The use of muted and non-digetic sound was well placed - speeding up the pace of the quieter scenes by placing guitar or mission briefings over the top of the video to hold the viewer's interest.

- Made use of photographs and frequent mentions of family (through phone calls, etc.) to help the viewer connect emotionally with the soldiers - in the same vein, the soldiers were interviewed afterwards in civilian clothing, which helped them to ground them in reality - just another man you might pass on the street.

- Other pacing decisions were well thought out - scenes where dialogue was passed through a translator were evidently cut down and subtitled where necessary so as not to let the viewer lose interest.

- Repeated mentions of the time passed/time remaining on the mission helped to build the tension, with the ever present danger of one of the men dying.

- Due to years of media representation, war films and video games, the audience may well have a very warped perception of the reality of war. Because of this the documentary's very real approach may well fail to hold the audiences attention, as it in no way reflects their predetermined opinions of what war is like (or even should be!)