Interview by Gilles Verdani
Premiere France, Novembre 1999

How did Chuck Palahnuik's book became a movie ?

One evening, my agent called to tell me that the next day 20th century Fox would buy the rights to this book and that I must buy them before they did. To do so, I had to read the book in one night, which I did. I loved the story and the next day I bought the rights, then I went to Fox and told them that I'd love to make this movie for them on one condition : they don't pay me for the moment, I work with a screenwriter and when we made a script out of it, it will be THE script, I won't shoot any other, and there will be no further negotiation. And that's what happened.

How did you work on the adaptation ?

As, of course, we couldn't keep everything, Jim Ulhs (the screenwriter) and I started with spotting the passages we liked, and wondered why we liked them and in what other scenes we found that same interest, and we started splitting them up trying to tie them together. In the end, the script was only 50 pages long.

What attracted you to the story ?

When I read the book, I said to myself : "I know that guy". I loved this story because it is both funny and a bit scary which is about things my friends and I discuss : materialism, consumption, secret militias…

Seeing Fight Club, you often think : "Well, these young people are founding a gay sect".

Yes, it is about a strictly male relationship between two men, but I can't figure out how could people think we are alluding to it. If you have to look for a metaphor, I think the movie is more about toxicomania.

Nevertheless, there are numorous allusions to homosexuality between them and other members of Fight Club.

It is true that in a scene, they are arguing like a couple, but these things happen with your best friend. It is a special relationship, but I don't think that an emotional bond has to to be of a sexual nature. I don't think there is a sexual meaning in the film. If it could seem gay, it is just an emotional point of view.

What in Fight Club is a metaphor to toxicomania ?

Drugs are the most direct way to reach that state of crisis. Like Fight Club, drugs are the only things that change your life, that burn your life for which you pay a high physical price and of which you don't talk about and which you practice secretly and with people who also are involved in it. In the end, you have to part from them to find health again.That is why I think that the hero's relationship with Tyler Durden has more to do with drugs than sex.

Does the damage caused by the members of Fight Club bother you ?

What bothers me is the psychological ramifications of violence. (silence) But destroying buildings, honestly, …it would really affect me if that that happened in Venice, but in Los Angeles, I don't think I would care.

Do you take the risk that the viewer thinks : "If I want to get rid of that concept of society, I have to let my bad side express itself" ?

Everyone does it in one way or another, without needing any indications. It is a part of the maturation process between 20 and 30 years old. You do things your parents strictly forbade you to do, you take risks. I would be shocked if someone understood it as a recipe or a call to arms. But I am quite confident in people's capacity to understand irony.

In your film, you use subliminal images, the very last one being the most visible.

Yes, this one lasts for four frames. There are some much shorter, Brad Pitt's image lasts for one frame, about two reels before the character makes his official appearance in the film.

Are you trying to get precise emotions from the viewer with these images ?

No, it has a more narrative effect. These furtive images help to describe the psychological conditions of Edward Norton's character who hasn't been sleeping for 6 months. They also prepare for whats coming after.

Is a one-frame shot perceptible ?

Yes, everyone can see it, thanks MTV. The first time I saw Stars Wars I went : "Whoa! It goes so fast!". And now, it looks like a wood engraving demonstration, it's crazy. So, yes, you can see a one-frame shot. Not all the viewers realize it because they are not used to it, but they detect something. Except if they blink at that moment.

Did you realize that the function of Fight Club is the same as the Se7en or The Game's : a man manipulating another man.

(silence)No I didn't realize it.

Are you, yourself, a gamer ? Do you play chess or poker ?

No.

But one of your films is entitled the Game…

The Game is more a film about cinema than a film about games. The issue of that film is not to anticipate the oponent's stroke, it is to convey credibility, a reality which is completely made up in someone else's eyes. It's excactly the same dillema of a director's shooting a film.

Would the Game be your 8 ½?

No ! (laughs). Certainly not ! (he keeps on laughing)

The Game didn't go well. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, are you you completely satisfied with it ?

No, because I think there are many defects, many things I should have changed. But, you know, it's so hard to know where to stop. I would have loved to have more experience to know where you can go to arouse emotions. There probably should have been more humour at the end. I don't know, I really don't know. But, after all, I'm pretty satisfied with that film.

From se7en, to Fight Club, you build a very coherent work, with a stylistic and thematic continuity, which is unusual for a director who doesn't write. Have you tried to write ?

No. My father is a writer, and I know that writing is something horrible. Never, for all the world, would I inflict that on myself ! But I can't direct a script that doesn't speak to me. I can't shoot a joke that doesn't make me laugh. So, I have to understand things, but I don't need to write. That doesn't mean that I go to see screenwriters so they translate, on paper, what's on my mind. I'm also here to learn. I would rather work with them, like in theatre. I don't tell them :"Here's what you have to do to make a David Fincher film". It bothers me when people say, just like you are saying, :"Do you realize that there is a certain continuity between your films?". I don't really know what to say about that, I made 3 completely different movies. I don't see many similarities between Se7en and Fight Club.

Is it really important for you to learn about yourself through your movies ?

Of course! There are things which are in your mind when you read a script, and make you feel concerned. The character in Fight Club looks like who I was ten years ago.

How old are you now ?

37.