Miscellaneous Quotations Regarding Fight Club

Great for critical debates angle for Fight Club - from an interview with Gavin Smith

I read the book and thought, How do you make a movie out of this?  It seemed kind of like The Graduate, a seminal coming of age for people who are coming of age in their 30s instead of their late teens or early 20s.  In our society, kids are much more sophisticated at an earlier age and much less emotionally capable at a later age.  Those two things are sort of moving against each other.  ~David Fincher, director of Fight Club, interview with Gavin Smith, "Inside Out," Film Comment, Sep/Oct 1999


[The movie The Graduate] was talking about that moment in time when you have this world of possibilities, all these expectations, and you don't know who it is you're supposed to be.  And you choose this one path, Mrs. Robinson, and it turns out to be bleak, but it's part of your initiation, your trial by fire.  And then, by choosing the wrong path, you find your way onto the right path, but you've created this mess.  Fight Club is the Nineties inverse of that:  a guy who does not have a world of possibilities in front of him, he has no possibilities, he literally cannot imagine a way to change his life.  ~David Fincher, director of Fight Club, interview with Gavin Smith, "Inside Out," Film Comment, Sep/Oct 1999


We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping.  There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore.  In that societal emasculation this everyman is created.  ~David Fincher, director of Fight Club, interview with Gavin Smith, "Inside Out," Film Comment, Sep/Oct 1999

Essay for Homework

Popular film and emtional response question. Hand in on Monday please!

‘One of the great pleasures of popular cinema is surrendering to the film experience and allowing ourselves to be emotionally manipulated.’ Discuss this statement with reference to the films you have studied for this topic.

Tasks for homework and Easter!

1. Read over and organise your notes for La Haine, Amores Perros and Once Were Warriors
2. Plan and write an essay that answers this past paper question: "How far do the films you have studied for this topic offer an analysis of the social issues they present?"
3. Read ALL the Fight Club readings and take notes
4. Read ALL material handed out for Popular Film and Emotional Response unit and take notes
5. Organise all your notes into a logical order and condense if necessary - look for gaps in your knowledge and work to plug these. I want to see organised files, and evidence of not-taking during the first week back!
6. We will return to Popular Film and Emotional Response topic after Easter.
7. Go to the cinema and have a Happy Easter!

Wall-E

Personally I found Wall-E to be a very endearing character because of number of traits and qualities created by the film makers such as his inquistitive nature, for example when he goes out to work every day and finds the most random objects that a normal human being would have no care for, but to Wall-E the objects either baffle or amuse him. Such as an object as simple as a ring box. This leads me on to another point, the irony when he finds the ring box and throws the (what we assume to be very valuable (to us)) ring away and keeps this box, this emphasises his naivety which when mixed with his other childish and anthropomorphic traits, such as carrying a lunch box with him out every morning on his back like a primary school child makes him even more endearing.
Normally, a film with little or no dialogue in would put me off but I think that the characterisation of Wall-E and the setting and tone of the film, along with a nice uplifting happy ending made me made it a very enjoyable film to watch. It also made a nice change for a post-apocalyptic film, rather than the usual '2012' or '28 Day's later' style mass death productions.

Oldboy

My opinion of this film is somewhat of a mixed one... I thought that the film was pretty gritty from start to finish and some parts were grimly funny (similarly to the style of Fightclub) such as the part close to the start where 'oldboy' gets arrested. The plot of the film is in many ways deeply disturbing and in terms of Mr Wook's aims of a film (to focus on fear and pain), he has definitely produced something that taps into these feelings, both for the characters and the audience. Overall I believe it to be a good film, not necessarily one of the most enjoyable to watch, (which sounds kind of contradictory but it's hard to explain) but the construction and style of the film was very appealing, it's just parts such as the teeth smashing and tongue cutting that I found hard to watch, but hey... it's quite a shocking film so you'd expect events like that.

Fight Club - tasks for Tuesday

Hi all
Below is a past paper question from Section C: Single Film: Close Critical Study....

"Consider debates that have arisen in the critical reception of your chosen film, either at the time of its initial release or now or both."

Clearly to answer a question such as this you need a good understanding of the critical reception the film recieved, both at the time it was released and subsequently.
To that end, you should spend the bulk of this lesson READING reviews and essays on Fight Club. While you are doing so - TAKE NOTES headed up with the reviwers name and date it was written - then add bullet points on the things they are critical of or positive about. What key debates did the film stir up? ARe there common themes/criticisms here? If so what? What is your view on it?

Remember to bring these notes on Wednesday, along with the other reading I gave you to do on FC.

Here are a few to get you started....but cast the net wider and read some more.

Roger Ebert review is here
Another review here, this one from culutre vulture.net.
And another here
Another here, a positive one, discussing some of the bad reviews it got (ironically hosted on the Roger Ebert site, written by Jim Emerson, who made this....


Condensed Fight Club from Jim Emerson on Vimeo.

ps - don't forget to comment on Wall-e and Oldboy posts - and complete your blockbusters games!!
 

BLOCKBUSTERS

Created on DLD2! With the power of 2! :)
David, Jake and Jake - you need to do one too!
Jake W - I suggest you do one on Team America.
David, you have Wall-E.
Jake T - La Haine. (you have notes from French)

Go here to create one - don't forget to name it specifically for the film and use FM4 in the description.

Here is my one on Once Were Warriors:

Here is Marianne's one on Amores Perros:

Here is Jake's one on Team America:

Here is Davide's one on Wall - EEEEEE!

We'll be testing them out in class soon!

Oldboy (2003) Park Chan-wook

So, what did you all think?
Hard not to have a fairly strong emotional response to this film...
Either to one of the themes, the content or style of the film.

Tasks to complete:
1. Research the film and take notes. How successful was it? Look at box office, awards and critical acclaim. Also look for articles that take issue with some of the more violent and disturbing content. Why do you think this is? See if you can find evidence of critics citing 'copycat' theory - a brand of effects theory.
2. Research the director and take notes. Find out more about Chan-wook Park. What other films has he done? What are they about? What do people say about his style? Why is his subject matter often so dark? Why do you think he is well respected as a filmmaker?
3. Write a comment to this post by the end of the lesson outlining your initial emotional responses to the film.

"In my films, I focus on pain and fear. The fear just before an act of violence and the pain after. This applies to the perpetrators as well as the victims." - Park Chan-wook

Sample exam questions for Popular film and emotional response

 Here are two example questions from the Popular Film and Emotional Response unit. Follwed by two more sample questions


1. ‘One of the great pleasures of popular cinema is surrendering to the film experience and allowing ourselves to be emotionally manipulated.’ Discuss this statement with reference to the films you have studied for this topic.
From the examiners report...
The best responses did the following:

• A detailed and sophisticated knowledge and understanding of the films studied, particularly their affective characterisitcs
• A sound appreciation of the variety of ways in which emotional response in the spectator is generated – with the ability to offer detailed analysis of different ways in which the popular film examples chosen manipulate response
• An ability to develop an argument that focuses very directly on the pleasure of surrendering to manipulation. A variety of examples will be very effective in demonstrating this. The detail of the argument may be on whether we “allow ourselves” to be manipulated or controlled by the mechanisims at work within the film.
• The argument may be extended, burrowing deeper into questions of complicity and questioning wheter in fact, we have the capacity as spectators to simultaneously stand inside and outside the experience.

2.’Emotional response to a popular film is dependent on the ways in which we are made to identify with particular characters.’ How far has this been your experience?
Again, from the examiner...

• A detailed and sophisticated knowledge and understanding of the films studied, particularly their affective characterisitcs
• A sound appreciation of the variety of ways in which emotional response in the spectator is generated – with the ability to offer a detailed account of character construction and the wyas in which systems of identification are set up.
• An  ability to develop an argument demonstrating the extent to which identification with character is a key component of the pleasure the spectator takes from the film viewing experience.
• This argument may be extened by means of comparison with other factors that determine the spectator’s emotional response, including detailed reference to macro or micro features of film form.

More sample exam questions
1. Explore possible reasons to explain why a second or third viewing of a film can actually increase the emotional response rather than lessen it.
2. How far is the emotional response to mainstream films triggered by specific techniques used by the filmmakers?

Wall-E

Look at the little star-gazer....you can just feel him saying 'there must be more to life than compacting garbage' *sigh*

Make sure you read all of this - test to follow next week on characters, references, box office, critical success and emotional response.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E

Read this interview with Andrew Stanton - it's in a number of parts so follow the links
http://www.suite101.com/content/andrew-stanton-on-walle-a56451

Good review here, some succinctly made points and deals, to some extent, with audience response:
http://www.moviezeal.com/wall-e/ - make sure you read it...

Once you've read all of the above, write a comment to this post outlining your own PERSONAL RESPONSE to the film. Give a couple of specific examples of the scenes you responded to most and WHY. Make reference to the FILM TECHNIQUES that are being employed to make you feel that way. Include any quotes form your reading or notes, where relevant.

Audience response - some reading

Read this article from Jump Cut.
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC04folder/AudienceResponse.html
Some fairly high level stuff here. Concentrate on the 'Catergories of Audience Response' section. Don't worry too much about the sections on Othon as an example of a self-reflective film.
We will look to apply some of this to the films we study in this unit.

Exam basics - FM4

Just a clarification of your final exam for Year 13 Film Studies...

It is called: FM4 - Varieties of Film Experience - Issues and Debates

It is two and three quarter hours long. 

You answer three questions, one from each section. 

The sections are:

Section A: World Cinema (Secialist Study 1: Urban Stories - Power, Poverty and Conflict) 35 marks

Section B: Spectatorship Topics (Popular Film and Emotional Response) 35 Marks

Section C: Single Film - Close Critical Study (Fight Club) 30 Marks

So, 165 mins to get 100 marks total.

Rougly divided you should spend 55 mins each on sections A and B and spend 50 mins on section C. This leaves 5 minutes for reading and proofing. Clearly you need to plan your essays in light of the question you will tackle and then write the essay so this needs to be taken into account. However, don't spend more than 10 minutes planning! Try to aim for 5. 

Remember that you will have a choice of two questions for each of sections A and B. For section C there are two 'General questions' but also one 'specific question' - you choose one.

Spectatorship topics: Popular film and emotional response

Team America World Police - "Putting the F back in Freedom"

Post viewing tasks:
Investigate a range of responses to the film. Read reviews, interviews and analysis of the film from both sides of the argument.
Use the readings given in class and the links below as a starting point. Find your own resources and prepare a case from your side of the argument.

http://www.movieweb.com/news/trey-parker-and-matt-stone-talk-team-america-world-police

http://www.flakmag.com/film/teamamerica.html