“Tyler Durden is a negative influence”. David Fincher is surprised that his cult “Fight Club” can be perceived differently and that it finds a positive response among certain extremist groups.
“I’m not responsible for how people interpret things… Language evolves. The symbols evolve”.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, David Fincher was asked about how his 1999 classic, Fight Club, became a favorite among Incels and far-right groups for depicting disenfranchised white men fighting against each other. rallying against capitalist society.
“We didn’t do it for them, but people will see what they see in a Norman Rockwell painting or in Guernica [de Picasso]”, he explained, reiterating that he is not responsible for how people interpret his work. “It’s impossible for me to imagine that people don’t understand that Tyler Durden is a negative influence”.
People who don’t understand that, I don’t know how to react and I don’t know how to help them.
Fight Club stars Edward Norton as an insomniac office worker who befriends a soap salesman, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Together, they create Fight Club, an underground fighting venue. Tyler Durden then plans an attack on the Consumer Corporations as the club transforms into a makeshift terrorist group.
The ending of the film changed in China?
Warning, spoilers. The rest of this article reveals the ending of “Fight Club”.
Although the film was a failure at the box office, it has since become cult and was particularly talked about last year after being put online on Tencent Video, China’s largest video streaming service, with its ending re-edited – before finally returning to its famous final scene later.
In the original ending of the film, the character ofEdward Norton kills his alter ego Tyler Durden before seeing the city go up in flames, seemingly confirming that his plan to destroy civilization has worked. The ending censored in China cut the film before the destruction of the city: it is then indicated on screen that the authorities have stopped his anarchic plan.
David Fincher reacted to this censorship in an interview with Empire, expressing confusion and amusement as to why a streaming platform would be interested in his Fight Club but with an altered ending.
“If you don’t like this story, why would you license this movie?” asked Fincher. “It makes no sense to me when people say, ‘I think it would be good for our department if we had your movie…we just want it to be a different movie.’ This fucking movie is 20 years old. It’s not like he has a reputation for being super cuddly.”
Fight Club is currently available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+.