William Battle Fight Club Movie Analysis

Fight is directed by David Fincher who also worked on other masterful movies such as Se7en and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Fight Club was released in 1999 just before the dawn of the 21 century, and it’s a drama that makes you question how you live your life and changes your perception. 

The shot sequence I chose in this movie was one of the most important parts in the movie: The start of Fight Club. It begins with a medium dolly shot of Tyler’s back walking into the bar, the lighting is dark attracting your eyes to the location itself, there are no cuts within the scene, it’s still focusing on Tyler’s back until the next scene as he enters the bar and then the camera moves to a medium shot of the bartender Irvin and then the camera moves back into a medium shot of Tyler and Tyler (Ed Norton). This scene is very gritty and gives you the view of a dark and grim movie. Then we return back to a medium dolly shot of Irvin but even though Irvin is in the front of the shot, your eyes are still focus on Tyler due to his appearance and presence. The shot then turns into an establishing shot of all the men walking towards the basement. The first cut comes in the next shot when they’re walking down the basement stairs which turns into a wide angle dark shot of the whole basement to give you a full look of one of the most important locations in the whole movie, then that quickly cuts to the men walking in and getting ready for what’s about the happen, then a close up shot of Tyler (Ed Norton) looking at Tyler but the focus remains on Ed Norton, keeping Tyler at a blur. The next shot continues with the men getting ready but then beautifully movies into a medium dolly shot of Tyler giving the welcome to the members of Fight Club, as soon as his says this, the lights turn on giving the movie clearly making even more of a presence. The dolly shot continues until they cut to a close up of Tyler’s face reinforcing the rules. The shots from there shows the men in Fight Club getting ready for the fights in various details (such as a man taking off his shoes and a close up shot of the back of a men’s pants as he is taking off his belt) as the camera cuts back to Tyler continuing to give out the rules.