While David Fincher’s work spans many genres and touches on many themes, his darkest films prove to be the most interesting. Central to all of these films is religion, whether it be actual organized religion or a symbolic form of religion. Yet, Fincher does not deal with religion in a very typical way. Instead, he chooses to deal with religion through various treatments and depictions of violence, using many techniques, such as shots, camera angles, and cuts, to highlight the violence in the films and draw attention to its cause and effect relationship with religion. In Se7en (1995) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Fincher investigates religion as the cause of violence, while in Fight Club (1999) he investigates religion forming
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The characters in fight club exist in a world in which, according to Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt), they are “the middle children of history...[with] no purpose or place.” (Fincher, 1999). It is in fight club and its violence that the men find their purpose. In this way, the club functions as a type of religion, with its own philosophy in which “acts of (re)embodiment and critical consciousness form an entity that is indissoluble” (Gronstad, 13). Through the creation of this religion, Fincher questions the meaning of traditional faith. Fincher places emphasis on this question with his brutal portrayal of the violence that takes part at fight club. In the scene when The Narrator (played by Edward Norton) fights Angel Face (played by Jared Letto), there is a whip pan in the direction Angel Face’s head twists when he is punched and then the camera cants as he begins to fall to the ground. Then there is a cut to a close up shot on his face as he hits the ground, followed by a series of cuts between The Narrator throwing punches, sometimes directly at the camera, and close ups on Angel Face’s face just as the punch is landing. Through these techniques, Fincher not only shows the devastating effects of the violence on its recipient, he also places the viewer in the position of Angel Face, directing the violence at them. This draws more attention to the violence, and in the grand scheme of things, asks what the forming of a religion around such brutal violence means for the nature of
The characters in fight club exist in a world in which, according to Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt), they are “the middle children of history...[with] no purpose or place.” (Fincher, 1999). It is in fight club and its violence that the men find their purpose. In this way, the club functions as a type of religion, with its own philosophy in which “acts of (re)embodiment and critical consciousness form an entity that is indissoluble” (Gronstad, 13). Through the creation of this religion, Fincher questions the meaning of traditional faith. Fincher places emphasis on this question with his brutal portrayal of the violence that takes part at fight club. In the scene when The Narrator (played by Edward Norton) fights Angel Face (played by Jared Letto), there is a whip pan in the direction Angel Face’s head twists when he is punched and then the camera cants as he begins to fall to the ground. Then there is a cut to a close up shot on his face as he hits the ground, followed by a series of cuts between The Narrator throwing punches, sometimes directly at the camera, and close ups on Angel Face’s face just as the punch is landing. Through these techniques, Fincher not only shows the devastating effects of the violence on its recipient, he also places the viewer in the position of Angel Face, directing the violence at them. This draws more attention to the violence, and in the grand scheme of things, asks what the forming of a religion around such brutal violence means for the nature of