It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

For about seven years now, my all time favorite movie has been Fight Club by the amazing director, David Fincher. From the perfected cinematography to the phenomenal acting, there are too many good things to say about it. Here is a list of why Fight Club is one of the best movies of all time:

1.     Perfected cinematography

Fight Club is probably one of the cleanest films I know. Every shot and every cut is completely intentional and flawless. Shots are well composed following the rule of thirds with a variety of angles and perspectives.

2.     Phenomenal acting

We all know that Brad Pitt is one of the most well known actors out there but his relationship to Edward Norton in this film is one-of-a-kind. Seeing the narrator’s bland personality next to Tyler Durden’s rebellious charisma is a groundbreaking performance. Not to mention the animated presentation we get from Helena Bonham Carter as Marla Singer, the two main characters’ love interest.  

3.     Insightful and thought-provoking quotes

The quotes from this movie are ones that really tend to stick with you. Tyler Durden doesn’t want to waste a second of his life away, so the words that come from his mouth are quite powerful. Here is one of my favorite examples: “You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.”

4.      Subliminal messaging

There are a lot of interesting facts about this movie that many people are unaware of. For example, throughout the entire film, there is a flash frame of Tyler Durden on the screen four times before we actually meet his character.

5.     Ominous coloring and lighting

Last but not least, one of my favorite things about this film is the coloring and lighting. It is tinted blue throughout giving it an ominous effect and the lighting within every shot amplifies what’s happening.

Overall this is an amazing film. I highly recommend seeing it multiple times. Every time you watch, I guarantee you will notice something new that you never did before. It’s a movie full of surprises.

David Fincher: The Don'ts to Filmmaking

“Everything seems really simple on paper until you take a camera out of the box.”

                                                                                                                       -David Fincher

   Every filmmaker has their list of dos and don’ts and David Fincher is no exception. Producer and director of countless films such as Seven, Fight Club, and this year’s highly anticipated Gone Girl, he has honed a skill that has arguable been very influential.

   And if you want to understand his craft, you need to ask yourself this: what does David Fincher not do? To put it simply, there are three things he does not do: handheld shots, close-ups, and camera movement. But it’s not a matter of casting these aside, but using them when the times calls for it.

   In terms of handheld operation, Fincher is notorious for having as little to one shot not placed on a tripod or Steadicam. The reason for this is the way he wants the camera to act in any given scene. Camera shake (the most well-known trait of handheld) puts the audience in the scene with the character but a smoothly gliding shot drags us out of the scene. Normally, most filmmakers want to avoid this as they don’t want their audience to become separated from the story they’re trying to tell. But to David Fincher, this is exactly what he wants. He wants the camera to be this omniscient character. It forces you to really look at everything that’s happening on screen. Without the camera shake, you’re eye has nowhere to look but at the action. It’s subtle but a very powerful technique when executed properly.

   Close-ups are similarly a need-by basic sort of deal. Excessive close-ups will distract an audience and can potentially exclude too much for to hold their attention. Yet, having only a few close-ups in any given film is a crafty way to tell the audience that they need to look at something. It’s similar to grabbing a person by the face and physically shoving their attention at an object. It’s the equivalent of shouting, “you need to see this!” It’s a subtle way to tell an audience that what’s happening on screen is about to impact the movie in huge way.

    And the last don’t on this list, may seem like the strangest. It’s all about camera movement, or the lack thereof. David Fincher, if he can help it, likes to keep his camera in one place. This allows the scene to play out as it might be viewed realistically from a person on the outside (as he sets the camera up to be in the first rule).  This adds to the idea that what we’re seeing on screen is important and all of our attention needs to be focused on that specific thing. The lack of movement forces our eye, much like the lack of camera shake, to really look at what’s happening.

   All three of these techniques end up creating  the same thing: a movie we can’t force ourselves to look away from. They’re subtle, their powerful, and they’re not something to be overlooked. As Fincher said, “people will say ‘there are a million ways to shoot a scene,’ but I don’t think so. I think there’s two, maybe. And the other one is wrong.”