Fight Club, a film for the far-right? David Fincher defends himself
“I’m not responsible for how people interpret things.”
As he leaves The Killerin a week on Netflix, David Fincher looks back at one of his most popular films: Fight Club. Since its release in 1999, its social and violent thriller carried by Edward Norton has become a cult film, and sometimes even a standard for various beliefs, notably leaning towards the extreme right.
In an interview with The Guardian, the director defends himself and assures that he did not at all think of the film in the way it is sometimes perceived today: “I’m not responsible for how people interpret things… Language evolves. Symbols evolve.”
That being said, David Fincher admits that his Fight Club actually became “one of the many markers in the lexicon of the far right today.“But he assures:”We didn’t do it for them. But people always see what they want to see, whether in Fight Club or in a Norman Rockwell painting or in Picasso’s Guernica!”
Going further, he admits not understanding how some can idolize the character of Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt : “It’s impossible for me to imagine that people don’t understand that Tyler Durden is a negative influence. People who don’t understand this, I don’t know how to help them and I admit that I don’t know how to react to them…”
Recently, David Fincher said not to have seen again Fight Club “for 20 years. And I don’t want to.“He explains that, for him, reviewing his work”is like looking at old school photos.”
