Opening of "Fight Club" Analysis - Marlon

Fig. 1 A still from Fight Club's
CGI credits sequence.

Fig. 2 Edward Norton's greasy mug.

Fight Club, directed by David Fincher, begins (as with several of David Fincher's films, i.e. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) with an abstract CGI opening credits sequence. (Fig. 1) This depicts the camera travelling rapidly through human skin on a microscopic level, which is gradually revealed as the camera tracks out showing, beads of sweat and tiny follicles, and eventually leaving the skin and settling on an extreme close up of the aimer of a gun in shallow focus. This focus pulls back to show the top half of Edward Norton's character's face, dripping with sweat and covered with bruises. (Fig. 2) This opening sequence, using nauseatingly swift camera movements and grimy aquamarine colours to show a human body part on a larger scale than ever typically seen, unnerves the spectator, while preparing them for the visceral, biological tone of the rest of the film. The non-diegetic soundtrack over this credit sequence (embedded below), a loud, discordant techno-style track with a thumping drum beat and whining synthesised notes, enhances this unpleasant experience for the viewer.

Once the camera is focused on the protagonist's face, the soundtrack stops and is replaced by both non-diegetic and off-screen diegetic speech, in the form of a voice-over from the protagonist, and dialogue from the antagonist, Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt). The voice-over is in present tense, which implies that the later body of the film will be in flashback form.

The majority of shots continue to be close-ups of Edward Norton's character, in shallow focus, and Tyler Durden is visible out-of-focus behind him. Fewer cuts are used than may be at first obvious, due to the incredibly fast sweeping camera movements. The scene uses very low-key lighting, painting everything in the same bluish-green tone as before. The costumes of both characters are ragged and dirty, and the main prop is  a gun, the dirtiness of which is commented on in the voice-over. All of this combines to create the sensation of an awareness of filth in the spectator's mind, which is very unsettling.

After our introduction to these two characters, more incredibly fast computer-generated camera movements show the setting of a semi-abandoned skyscraper packed with home-made explosives, leading to enigmas being planted in the spectator. Who are these people, why are they in a building about to explode, how did this situation come to be? As the camera tracks in on Edward Norton's face, the diegetic sound effect of Tyler's watch ticking gets louder and louder, filling the scene with tension.