Fight Club and Marxist Film Theory
The capitalist mode of production can be defined, in the most reductive way possible, as one that is driven by the pursuit of profit. This is achieved through massive amounts of surplus wealth extraction. It is designed to exploit the labour value of the many and concentrate the wealth generated by that labour into the hands of the few. I sense I may have lost a few of the more moderate lefties or even centrists currently reading. I get it - many people argue with this framing - when words like exploitation and extraction pop up, the legacy of incredibly effective propaganda campaigns like the red scares, mccarthyism, and cold war narratives have a tendency to panic even the most conscientious minds. But let me take a second to lay out some facts. Currently, 1% of the global population holds more wealth than the bottom 85%…put together. We produce enough food to feed 10 billion people year-round, but nine million people starve to death each year. In the United States, the global superpower with a $2 trillion dollar military budget in 2023 alone, 45,000 people die per year because they cannot afford healthcare. Quick side note, this is the model the conservative party wants to sell to you as the best solution to their chronic underfunding and deliberate destruction of our socialist national health service model. This is a destructive system predicated on the exploitation of human lives and appropriation of the natural world. But what on earth does my brief card-carrying commie rant have to do with film theory?
Firstly, Marxist theory can provide a really useful lens through which to watch films. If I told you Shrek (2001) is Marxist, you’d probably laugh, not least because it’s hard to believe Dreamworks would willingly produce anti-capitalist propaganda for children. But through a Marxist lens, the film becomes something totally different. This is because we can take on Marxist ideas when we are asking ourselves questions related to why screenwriters choose certain themes, why directors choose certain shots, or why producers bankroll one project over another. Viewing films like this may lead us to questions like: does this film challenge the structures and institutions of capitalism? Does it criticise the apparatus of our exploitative economy? Does it present a wider message of revolution, overthrow, or collective power? We can certainly see these messages in both classic and contemporary films, from Metropolis (1927) to I, Daniel Blake (2016), Sorry to Bother You (2018) or How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022). Any media that makes a comment on the negative outcomes of our existing mode of economy can certainly be seen as having Marxist characteristics.
However, on the other hand, it is important to consider how far this criticism can truly go.
A popular tradition on film theory and analysis places individual geniuses and auteurs at the helm of filmmaking. For example, Christopher Nolan being the genius behind and representative of Oppenheimer (2023), Katherine Bigelow being the same for The Hurt Locker (2008). This tragically erases the fact that filmmaking is an inherently collective experience. Oppenheimer would not be what it is without the runners and grips and sparkies who work behind the scenes to make the production run. Katherine Bigelow can direct her camera operator, but he can’t execute the shots she wants without the grips and the gaffer. Additionally, as philosophy is always born out of its own social situation, it certainly can be said that filmmakers can provide a critique of the structure of the world we live in. But seeing as film theory also looks to the production and distribution models of filmmaking, we must remember that most mainstream films are produced by major film companies for profit. Even when they’re produced by individual filmmakers or are distributed by indie distribution companies, they are often done so for profit. So, when looking out for the Marxist elements of Fight Club (1999) and the commentary it contains regarding social institutions and capitalist oppression, let us also ask ourselves: can film production both extend and challenge the capitalist mode of production? Would the ruling class truly betray their class interests by expressing a need for revolution to the very audience with the capacity and means to take them down? Or: is it enough for them to give us a fictional character who lives in a fictional world with a worse social structure than our own, show us a story of hope and revolution in which this character wins and dismantles the oppressive institutions of their world, all in the hopes that we in the real world don’t feel the need to do the same? So that we’ll return to our 9 - 5s and forget that our choices are incredibly limited to work, or starve?
This confusing impossibility between anti- and pro-capitalist sentiment, whilst also being shared amongst almost all films placed under the analytical lens of Marxist Film Theory, is an inherent attribute of Marxist philosophy in general, a persistence of contradiction in all engagements and investigations of the current capitalist mode of production. This underlying framework that underscores a great deal of Marx’s theorising is referred to as “dialectics”, which is defined by G. W. F. Hegel (1991, p. 56), himself a key influence on Marx’s writing, as a method of ‘the grasping of opposites in their unity or of the positive in the negative’. Put simply, this concept is described by Kornbluh (2019, p. 4) as a ‘method of avowing and theorising contradiction’, and ‘acknowledging opposing tendencies in a concrete situation, allowing contrasting possibilities’ to appear in hypotheses - here, the emphasis is placed not on an objects ‘decisive difference from everything else’, but instead towards the ‘relations and connections that provide context for the identity of the thing’. In specific reference to Marxist Film Theory, we are discussing the contradiction between the films anti-capitalist intentions and the pro-capitalist production and distribution.
As identified, this concept of dialectics is present throughout many varying philosophies, but for our focus on Marxism, we can look simply to the contradictory promises of capitalism itself, the confusion found between its ‘abstract message and its concrete realities’. As Kornbluh (2019, p. 34) outlines them:
“Capitalism promises freedom: peasants liberated from the land, lords liberated from obligations to their vassals and serfs, workers liberated by machines, social relations liberated from fixed hierarchies of blood and tradition, opened to the floods of profit and professionals.”
Though these capitalist-contributing contradictions can manifest themselves in a variety of social elements throughout the makeup of life, cinema itself, as a subject we will interrogate, is a brilliantly rich medium to explore these contradictions, itself able to be read as ‘the paradigmatic artform of global capitalism’, and one ‘that simultaneously points towards capitalism’s unfulfilled promises of freedom and elective collectivity’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 10) at the same time. It is a creative art form, those of which Marx champions as ‘an essential component of human labour [which] points to the capacity of creative works to reveal truths about work in general’ one that, in result of the crippling, demoralising impact of the current capitalist system, is subsequently ‘betrayed’ or ‘alienated’ by ‘modes of production that make physical survival dependent on waged compensation for work’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 23), denigrating individualistic imaginative passions in pursuit of personality-lacking profit only. Moreover, as an imaginative endeavour, cinema specifically and its own modes of production are, in almost every example, and especially in its beginnings as a visually-narrative, language-ignorant medium, ‘not just theoretically international and integrative, but also functionally communal and collaborative’, interested in championing and collecting the efforts of the whole, and not the individual.
Sergei Eisenstein highlights as much in his seminal essay, ‘The Montage of Attractions’ (1922), where he explains the montage, itself an ‘assembly of different parts, sutured together into a whole, with seams still apparent’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 70) and its importance in the creation of cinema as an art form that has the power to convey ideas through interrelated imagery that is at once, of a whole, and contradictory singular - a clear example of the dialectical idea and method of construction. Of course, a striking example of this can be seen in Eisenstein’s own film, Battleship Potemkin, which famously uses montage to narratively connect the oppressive working conditions endured by sailors to their eventual revolt, as well as a visual connection and bond between both these revolting naval sailors and the people of Odessa, optimistically hoping to use montage to inspire a similar enthusiasm for revolt among the spectators and audience who see the montage at work.
Now, despite these origins of most film theory, grounded in both Marxist text and Marxist philosophical thinking, a modern shift has moved to focus primarily on New Historicism, leaving Marxist explorations to the annals of history. This can be seen in the dearth of books exploring this topic alone. New Historicism, and other subsidiary forms of this theoretical trend, such as Auteur Theory, and Apparatus Theory, tend to ‘homogenise film as cultural practice into film as the expression of a genius, and film as the workings of a machine’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 86) respectively, and whilst opening the way for film as a scholarly item to be taken seriously, relocates the root of its social power from the medium to a single individual, negating the communal and collaborative uniqueness it once held.
Of course, Marxist Philosophy can explore a variety of films with a variety of methods, but for the purposes of this discussion, we are going to explore both the narrative content, production context and film form of Fight Club. Kornbluh chooses to highlight three specific components that we will further explore through this film - the mode of production, ideology and mediation.
For a brief exploration, the mode of production, of course, can refer to the context of the film and its creation, including the production details (funding, the distribution and audience response), but mostly refers to how the film itself, either in a literal sense, within its own production, or a self-reflexive one, within the narrative, engages with representations of the capitalist mode of production. This crosses over with the essence of a Marxist film’s ideology, a term which has been colloquially defined as ‘a scheme for politics, a set of committed beliefs about what should be done in society’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p.39), however, for our exploration, we will utilise the definition popularised by Althusser in his essay ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’ (1970), where he determines that the ideology refers, not to the ‘beliefs that attaches individuals to a particular mode of production, but the everyday habits, rituals, behaviours and processes that keep the system going’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 46). It is no longer about consciousness and active political decision-making, the ‘material practice’ of our everyday lives secures our capitalist reality, by virtue of complacency. But how do these concepts find their representations in our society? Through mediation. Described as the ‘bidirectional capacity of ideas, representations, and forms’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 57), but put more simply, in Marxist Theory this refers to the various forms and mediums that these representations can take root in, whether that be films, books, or static art. Applying these three theoretical concepts and their veiled blossoming in Fight Club, we can see a clear engagement with this Marxist ideal, through a dialectical analysis of the film’s narrative, form and context.
Fight Club and its Application
First, why this film? Fight Club is a useful text for exploring these outlined Marxist concepts (the mode of production, ideology and mediation) because it so ‘vividly and pedagogically engages with economic relations, ideological distortion, and opportunities for transformation’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 112) within its construction and content. Paradoxically, at the same time, it is also a very typical film in terms of the conditions of its production, its marketing, and its popularity, and thus strongly exemplifies that dialectical contradiction that can be found in all Marxist thought. This applies to the multi-faceted and self-opposing narrative, which ‘can be analysed as a symptomatic reproduction of its stage of global capitalism, as a diagnosis of that stage, and as a critical imaginative projection of stages to come’, but also, as we will see, to the form and context in the film’s production that exhibit the traits of these three concepts of Marxist thought.
We must apply these theoretical tenets of Marxism to explore how it mediates both the capitalist mode of production and ideology in its own unique and analytical way. Historically, formalism (the attention to the form of a film as determining its meaning) is often contrasted with contextualism (the attention to the conditions of production or conditions of consumption as determining its meaning) - instead, Marxist film interpretation must do both of these things, ‘to avoid being reductive, to work dialectically, and to fulfil Marx’s commitment to both social context and form’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 100), when looking to the construction of a film’s physical traits.
So, first, what is the context behind the film’s production? Unsurprisingly, Fight Club, by virtue of its existence, is not an anti-capitalist film. Like all Hollywood productions, and almost all independent adventures too, its necessity for profit and creation in the larger Hollywood modern studio system outlines the contradictory nature of its intended messaging. Is the film hailing a niche market to sell resistance - thereby reabsorbing those who identify as oppositional back into the position of passive consumer supporting dominant relations - or is it genuinely attempting to provide inspiring and informative representation that can foment alternative social practices and subsequently fuel struggles, as its explicit messaging may have you believe? Let’s investigate.
Following a $63 million production cost, the film went on to make a worldwide gross of around $101 million, which is surprisingly small for a Hollywood release of this scale. Even though the film was a relative financial failure upon release, in the proceeding years, the film has widely gone on to achieve ‘cult status’, resulting in a great deal of home release purchases, and subsequent dissemination of messaging by ‘becoming a tactic of popular meaning-making, a map of social struggle, a prop for new affiliations’ and reaching the wide home-market behind the guise of iconicity and simple popularity. This, of course, is only a relatively new phenomenon. Crucially then, in the immediate sense of capital and profit generated, the film is staunchly pro-capitalist, and only continues further down this path as various home-media releases and digital sales add to the overall profit.
But, of course, we are exploring the dialectical contradiction inherent in Marxist film theory, and whilst the film may exhibit the profit-generation and high production costs of a pro-capitalist piece of media, the film's explicit intended messaging may betray an entirely contradictory intent. Kornbluh, applying the foundations of Marxist Film Theory, helps us to interrogate the film’s form (in tandem with the context we have determined) and analyse the way the film explores the mode of production, embattles ideology and embodies mediation.
Primarily, Fight Club tackles the mode of production throughout its narrative, tinged as it is, with anti-capitalist sentiment and critiques of consumerism and deranged depictions of the class struggle. These themes of ‘consumerism, alienation, corporate malfeasance, and work struggles’, though explored throughout the film, ‘are not specific to the 1990s, but a recur across the centuries-long history of the capitalist mode of production’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 94), but Fight Club in particular, is incredibly critical of the ‘emptiness of the consumerist lifestyle peddled by corporate brands like IKEA and Starbucks’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 109). However, contradictingly, this outward critique is contrasted with the encouragement of these brands, who have paid to appear in the film, and economically benefit simply as a result of their visual, explicit inclusion.
Likewise, the different classes are depicted in varying, contradictory ways, outlined by Kornbluh (2019, pp. 117 - 119): whilst the ‘white-collar corporate sector is presented as deeply corrupt and hollow, nakedly calculating the limits to the value of human life’, it is still populated with workers ready to fight and rise against this sector. This pool of human resource is complemented by the representations of the service industry, populated with ‘intelligent, diligent, struggling people with great commonalities’. Interestingly, the dominating force of modern society - the ‘blue-collar professionals in government, policing, and security’ are portrayed as adhering to Marxist principles - ‘ambivalently, encompassing both enemies of Project Mayhem … and allies’, highlighting the contradiction that blue-collar workers are enforcers of the system they themselves fall under, which therefore makes them class traitors.
It is worth noting, that the film isn’t entirely Marxist, or even anti-capitalist in the messaging it is attempting to impart. Tyler’s ideology, itself the main voice of the film, and critique of consumerist society, is more connected to a ‘romanticism of pre-capitalist modes of production’ - in Marxism, there is ‘no freedom in a return to tribal or feudal modes of production; [instead] freedom consists in a mode of production yet to come’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 125).
Similarly, the narrative itself also deals explicitly with ideology, interested in the formal workings of the concept by presenting ‘the story of individuals estranged from their conditions of existence who are nonetheless hindered in their efforts to do something new by their constrained imaginations, their cathexis to a charismatic leader, and his own estrangement from himself’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 138). Since we have identified through Althusser that ideology in the Marxist sense is about the actions taken, and not the thoughts mused, we can understand that Fight Club is all about the realm of action, in contrast with the thoughts mused. Kornbluh (2019, pp. 139 - 140) uses the example of The Narrator’s workplace interactions, highlighting the contrast between the cinematic construction of his ‘corporate exploration of outer space’ speech (00:04.15) and the instructions imparted by his boss (00:04.35) - not only does the former employ voice-over narration (implying internal thoughts), dreamy, computer-generated imagery and vitriolic critique of consumerism’s future, it stands in stark contrast to the actions undertaken by his character in the real-world - he sits below his boss, conversates and accepts the work he is given, all whilst belittling his vocational superior in the safe confines of his thoughts. Here, The Narrator’s ‘listless accession to the rules of the game - the headless manager who earnestly enjoys, the spineless worker who readily obeys … guarantees this set of social relations will be held in place’, and, contradictingly, like the difference between his thoughts and his literal actions, this sequence also highlights the ‘illusory freedom of our cynicism in doing what we do but telling ourselves we object to it’. The cycle continues, and as Althusser states, the system keeps going.
Finally, we can see how Fight Club achieves a mediation of the capitalist mode of production and of ideology through its form, boasted in six elements that Kornbluh (2019, p. 149) suggests ‘actualise the film’s critical representation of the capitalist and cinematic modes of production’. Specifically, these six aspects are: cinematographic innovations, genre-bending, intertextuality, splicing, narration and inconclusiveness. Whilst we cannot explore each of these individual elements, we can conclude that the overall style and construction of Fight Club’s form is crucial to its mediation of the capitalist mode of production and ideology. In fact, the film is self-reflective of this importance, making many references to the medium of cinema itself, including film in the technologies that are responsible for producing the social order from which it dissents - this can be in small ways with the fourth-wall breaks, or in larger ways with the use of splicing and film editing as a major plot point and central trope. The references here make up the cinematic apparatus itself as an object of study, allowing spectators to think about the industrial construction of reality and the superstructure of late capitalism, and to think of the film as a large element of this superstructure, contributing to the capitalist machine in the small ways that the film’s style and makeup contribute to its own greater whole.
To conclude, as we have determined throughout, and quite clearly by now, film viewed through the lens of Marxist film theory is inherently contradictory. Any piece of cinematic media that attempts to interrogate, or critique the capitalist mode of production, is almost guaranteed to contribute to the capitalist mode of production itself, through its generation of profits and the reproduction of its cyclical nature. As a spectator even, the ‘experience of enjoying a movie that appears to criticise dominant capitalist values can instead restore faith that we are freely choosing to participate in the capitalist mode of production’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 95), unintentionally reinforcing the ideology, actions and state of consciousness that it supposedly pertains to alter, distractingly ‘justifying the oppressive capitalist structure by showing that success is indeed possible for the oppressed class within it’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 74). Ideas and their mediating forms have power - but often, they can both ‘uphold the ruling classes’ and ‘critique the ruling classes’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 57) in equal part. Ultimately, as in Fight Club, and in all other Marxist cinema, attempts to ‘commercialise anti-commercialism and to market anti-capitalism are contradictory endeavours’ (Kornbluh, 2019, p. 109), and this dialectical, contradictory approach is inherent, and, whether through the narrative, contextual or form-based analysis, necessary to consistently keep in mind when approaching films through Marxist film theory.
Literary Reference List
Kornbluh, A. (2019) Marxist Film Theory and Fight Club (Film Theory in Practice). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1991) The Science of Logic. New York: Prometheus Books.
Eisenstein, S. (1923) The Montage of Attractions.
Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses
Filmography
Fight Club, 1999. [Film]. Directed by David Fincher. US: 20th Century Studios.
Metropolis, 1927. [Film]. Directed by Fritz Lang. Germany: Parufamet.
Battleship Potemkin, 1925. [Film]. Directed by Sergei Eisenstein. USSR: Goskino.
I, Daniel Blake, 2016. [Film]. Directed by Ken Loach. UK: British Film Institute.
Shrek, 2001. [Film]. Directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson. US: DreamWorks Pictures.
Sorry to Bother You, 2018. [Film]. Directed by Boots Riley. US: Annapurna Pictures.
How to Blow up a Pipeline, 2022. [Film]. Directed by Daniel Goldhaber. US: Neon.
The Hurt Locker, 2008. [Film]. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. US: Summit Entertainment.
Oppenheimer, 2023. [Film]. Directed by Christopher Nolan. US: Universal Pictures.
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