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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume 4
Fall 2005
By Frankie Dintino
In other words, the fight can be conceived as a theatre of cruelty: the exchange of blows constitutes a joint effort to recommence history on the surface of the body. It is this theatre of cruelty which reinstates the ground and leads Jack to claim "you weren't alive anywhere like you were [at fight club]" (Fincher). An even better example of cruelty is found in the moment of the film where Tyler gives Jack the "kiss" scar. In this scene, Tyler kisses the back of Jack's hand, and then proceeds to pour lye on it. The oils from Tyler 's lips and the lye react, burning an imprint of Tyler 's lips onto Jack's hand. While the film portrays this act as an attempt to reach enlightenment, much as the Ascetics did, it is clear that the kiss scar illustrates quite literally the principle of cruelty. Similarly, the various acts of vandalism which Project Mayhem commits may be interpreted as cruelty or inscriptions on the urban body, thus constituting a marginal history.
In the last scene in the film, which is also the first scene earlier recounted, Jack and Tyler are on the top floor of a high-rise surrounded by the headquarters of major credit buildings. The plan, the audience is lead to understand, is to destroy each of these buildings, and with them, the debt record. "Out these windows," Tyler remarks, "we will view the collapse of financial history" (Fincher). That debt is the object of Project Mayhem's plan of destruction is logical, because cruelty is not without a rival. What was the cruelty of the societies of sovereignty became the enclosure of the societies of discipline, and lastly the debt of control societies. In a control society, Deleuze writes, "[a] man is no longer a man confined but man in debt" ( Negotiations 181). It thus makes sense that the largest plan in Project Mayhem involves destroying all the major credit buildings. As Jack explains, "if you erase the debt record, we all go back to zero; it'll create total chaos" (Fincher). Debt, of course, is one of the foremost institutions of power in capitalist society. Whether by a mortgage or credit bills, people often become enslaved by debt. To a certain extent, this is not entirely unique to control societies. Nietzsche famously demonstrated in The Genealogy of Morals the importance of the link between changes in the administration of debt and changes in society (§19-20). What is unique in control society is that the debt is not debt to the deity or to the ancestor but is debt to the capitalist system. If Nietzsche's thesis about the relationship between society and debt holds, then it is clear that the destruction of the debt record would have far-reaching consequences.
In the last moments of the film, a sweating disheveled Jack combats his other in Tyler . In the end, the line of flight is only ended by the final suicidal act: Jack shoots himself in the face. Tyler drops dead, while Jack is injured but relatively composed given the circumstances. Marla is ushered up by the members of Project Mayhem, and Jack dismisses the space monkeys. The last scene of Fight Club is, in a way, reminiscent of The Graduate, only perhaps for a postmodern generation: guy gets girl, the same uncertainty, The Pixies, though, instead of Simon and Garfunkel. The two bodies hold hands in a silhouette against a backdrop of collapsing buildings, juxtaposing love and destruction. This makes for a powerful scene, and though the conclusion is left open, it is suggested that - with Tyler gone and the Blackshirts out of the picture - love will win out over death, and something new will be built in the wake of the film's destruction.
What, then, are the implications of this film as far as the social bond is concerned? In an interview with Antonio Negri, Deleuze said that "we think any society is defined not so much by its contradictions as by its lines of flight" ( Negotiations 171). If this is indeed the case, and further, if Fight Club is an illustration of one possible line of flight, then this aids in understanding the nature of late capitalism. First, it highlights the dominance of debt as cruelty in contemporary society, which extends Nietzsche's critique in The Genealogy of Morals into the twenty-first century. Secondly, it shows the general malaise that has resulted from what Deleuze and Guattari term the "schizophrenic" aspects of late capitalism, especially regarding representation and simulacra. This is most evident in Jack's insomnia, his dependence on support-groups for the terminally ill, and lastly in the attempt to ground reality in the corporeality of the fight. Lastly, it shows that fascism is a possible line of flight with regard to capitalism. However, as the ending of the film suggests, fascism can be overcome internally. It is in the last moment of clarity, with the destructive line of flight turned against itself, that it can again become productive. Thus the film ends on an optimistic note as far as revolutionary movements are concerned, suggesting that one can come out on the other side of a suicidal line of flight alive and somewhat intact.