Fightin’ Words: Brad Pitt and Edward Norton mix it up over the hard-hitting ‘Fight Club’

Dave Neil

Tuesday, Oct. 19, 1999 | 10:05 a.m.

"First rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club. Second rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club."

Well, stars Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, two of Hollywood's most sought-after talent, broke the rules and did just that -- "talked about" their already heatedly controversial film, "Fight Club." Both actors were recognized by the Academy early in their careers, earning three nominations between them, and each has even taken home a Golden Globe Award for their performances (Pitt for "12 Monkeys" and Norton for his debut in "Primal Fear").

They took the time to discuss their latest thought-provoking feature, based on the highly-acclaimed debut novel by Chuck Palahniuk. Plus, they elaborate on the film's visionary director, David Fincher (whose last film had Michael Douglas running for his life while playing "The Game") and joke about their future projects.

Question: What is the difference in the specific kind of male rage that is in "Fight Club" as opposed to, say, Edward's other film, "American History X"?

Norton: I wouldn't want to draw too many associative links. I do think that both films are provocative in the sense that they're holding a mirror up to dysfunctional dynamics. One is much more naturalistic, sort of a grounded film about the particular American tragedy of people who direct their inner rage outward in the form of violence and race hatred against other people.

The appeal to "Fight Club," perhaps even more than "American History X," is that I felt like it was a zeitgeist film, a film about an entire generation's sense of dislocation in the value system that has sprung up around them, much broader in its critique by encompassing men and women in their whole generation.

Pitt: Meaning we bought into the advertising sale a form of lifestyle, we bought into image and all the focus has been on that image. As Edward poignantly said in ("Fight Club"), "we would receive some kind of spiritual happiness through home furnishings."

Norton: One thing that interested me about "Fight Club" is that it connected a conversation I had with friends, which is, sometimes I wonder if we even bought into commercialism or truly have been the victims of it, in the sense that as a generation, we are qualitatively different from previous generations in the consumer culture. We've been raised from the cradle on television and we are the first generation to have that as a component in our lives as a teacher of the value system.

To me what the book (of "Fight Club") really started to crystalize and articulate in ways I hadn't heard was this idea of the process of waking up to adulthood and realizing that the promise of image that TV instilled in us could not be fulfilled. All the things we had been promised in essence by that advertising culture as a means to happiness will not provide that happiness, and this whole generation (is) having its mid-life crisis in their 20s.

Q: So the barbaric nature of fighting is simply a metaphor?

Norton: Yes, exactly! It is absolutely metaphoric. The actual fight club in the film is about an inwardly directed violence and radicalism and it is the metaphor for punching through the insulation you put up around yourself and experiencing pain and life as a purgative. This underground club that secretly convenes says you are not to be defined by the things around you and that you are capable of experiencing pain and living through it and the empowerment of that.

So, to me, this movie is a surreal, metaphoric manifestation of its desire to strip away, and applies this sort of radical self-transformation. Strip away all perceived notions of who you are and rediscover yourself. Then, of course, it turns out in the story to be the first step in an evolving process of this growing philosophy that Brad's character, Tyler Durden, is exploring. You know: What are the limits of practical application of this kind of violent approach?

Q: Do you think that message will take a back seat to the film's graphic violence?

Pitt: I'm sure some will get it and some won't. It's expected.

Norton: If you attempted to make every film as easily understood as the next, you'd make the kind of films that every one critiques as formulaic. If you pull back from making any kind of expression that inspires complicated discussions of cultural dynamics and psychological dynamics because you're afraid they may be misinterpreted, then we wouldn't have any of those things we look back on now as real windows on the Zeitgeist of that time. You know, (Vladimir) Nabokov wouldn't write "Lolita" because an old man might say this is a call to sexually molest young girls.

Pitt: (Sarcastically) Therefore, we should burn "The White Album," since Charlie Manson perverted it.

Q: With all the fight sequences, there had to be a few accidents. Was there anything really serious?

Pitt: No, not really. We dislocated a couple fingers and had a few bruises.

Norton: I jammed my thumb pretty bad, but nothing really major every happened.

Q: For you, Brad, did working with director David Fincher on "Seven" play a part in you taking this project?

Pitt: Well, I certainly didn't question it. For me, he's one of the few guys propelling the medium into a totally new direction. I'm ... in awe of him. I love the guy and I think this movie is so extraordinary in how it shows what Fincher is about. As Edward and I were talking earlier, he is a complete filmmaker and storyteller. Edward was saying how he knows the camera as well as the (cinematographer), he knows the lighting as well as the gaffer, he knows what the computer effects will bring to the picture, and he knows his story.

Norton: He really is the comprehensive modern filmmaker. He has this command. The great stylists like the Hitchcocks and the Scorseses and the Spike Lees, he takes all of those elements and puts them toward the service of narrative structure, as opposed to those people who come in and make something less.

Q: That was sort of our next question to you, Edward: What was your first impression of Fincher?

Norton: Well my first impression was that I'd seen all of his films. The first time I saw "Seven" I literally walked out, got a Coke, walked back in and watched it again because I thought it was a masterful piece of filmmaking. It was really brilliantly constructed and beautifully done. And I kept responding to his films, the visual formalism and the precision of his craftsmanship. So I was excited before ever talking to him. Then he sent me the book.

Pitt: And it was all over from there (laughing).

Norton: (Smiling) Well, yeah, and he said, "listen, I'm really interested in doing this film but only if I can get the people I really think I want to work on it and so what do you think?" I read it that day and I howled with laughter while reading it because it put a name on so many things that I felt were the undercurrents of things that people weren't naming.

So I called him back and told him I was amazed by the book, but wanted to make sure he thought this was funny too. So we started laughing and that was my first experience with Fincher, and my first experience with Brad, too. We just shot things back-and-forth about the book and really, really laughing about it and that is when I began to think that this will be a great collaboration.

Pitt: There was this philosopher who was saying that great men talk about ideas, good men talk about events, and mediocre men talk about people. And relating that to Finch is that he is an idea man. Not just with the technology, but he is constantly asking, "how can I take this further than what it was intended for?"

Norton: As a filmmaker he's not afraid to lay ideas out and then not resolve them, which I think is part of the trend in filmmaking. What I mean to say is that people lay things out and they feel the need to make them easy so you walk out of the theater feeling like the experience was complete and you can stop thinking about it since it was resolved for you. And I love that Fincher does the exact opposite.

"Seven" was this way, and I feel this film is very much this way in the vein of "The Graduate" or "Dr. Strangelove." It lays this enormous amount of thought in your lap. It retains this kind of moral, fanatic ambiguity, and he's not afraid to let a dialect run in the film, like between Brad and Morgan Freeman, or between our characters in this movie, then leave it wide open in the end for you to walk out with and try to resolve over dinner, which I think is really bold.

Pitt: I remember at the end of the screening for the premiere of "Seven" in New York, and when it was finished it was dead quiet. I got up, looked at Fincher and said, "What did we do wrong?" (laughing). It was really interesting. Then later I realized that it was more of a shell shock feeling in the theater and it was that processing of what they were just left with that had filled the air.

Norton: Fincher gets very disturbed. In Venice, imagine being Italian and watching "Fight Club" with sub-titles (smiling at the irony). You're going to miss a lot of the intended humor since you're reading it and so there was less laughter in comparison to the other screenings. Anyway, (recently) Fincher kept repeating "very nervous, very nervous," and I asked why because people were really responding to the movie after the screening. He said, "No, no! No one feels negative, they're all being very positive about it. I've done something wrong" (laughing).

Q: So, what is the story behind Brad's film "Seven Years in Tibet" and Edward's film "The People vs. Larry Flynt" on a theater marquee in some of the scenes in "Fight Club"?

Pitt: (Laughing) That was just a little bit of irony on Fincher's part.

Q: Both of you have always taken really bold, diverse roles in movies that are not necessarily mainstream or groomed to be box office hits. What are you looking at when deciding each project?

Pitt: I've learned early in my career that any decision out of fear is going to get you nowhere. As soon as it is made out of fear it's not going to be pure and you're not going to be interested in it. You give up so much of your time, your life, your blood, your sleep, and you've got to have a point of view. When I meet with a director the most important thing to me is that I hear his point of view because then I know he's going to tell a decisive story.

Another thing that I found is that I'm (expletive) if I don't care about the film. I'm just (expletive) in it. So there is really no calculation on that level. It's more about finding a direction, like when Chuck Palahniuk's book came for "Fight Club," as Edward was saying before, this clarifies things for me. This I want to chase, I want to get into this and study this! But I have fallen into that rut in the middle of a production once, which I would never name, and lost all care for it. It became a fear. It was definitely tough. You never ran into that problem, did you Ed?

Norton: No, I haven't, luckily. Not yet, anyway.

Q: So once you work on such an abstract film like "Fight Club" and with a revolutionary director like David Fincher, how does that affect your choices for future projects?

Pitt: I haven't worked since (laughing). Edward went off and directed his own movie while all I really did was sit on my ass.

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