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November 8, 2010 2:00 PM Subscribe
Is it a reasonable reading of the film version of Fight Club to say that Marla Singer is another projection of the narrator's neurosis, and that she doesn't exist?
I was watching it again over the weekend, after having not seen it for a while. It held up pretty well, but I got the sneaking suspicion that Marla, like Tyler, doesn't ever directly interact with other characters, and in places where it seems like she does, it could in fact just be Norton's character that others are reacting to, and his mind filling in the details.
I think that what really seals it for me is when the narrator first meets Marla, and they run out into traffic together, causing horns to honk - but both characters are out in the street. This happens again shortly afterward, but it's just Marla out in the street, and the cars pass by without seeming to notice her.
I was watching it again over the weekend, after having not seen it for a while. It held up pretty well, but I got the sneaking suspicion that Marla, like Tyler, doesn't ever directly interact with other characters, and in places where it seems like she does, it could in fact just be Norton's character that others are reacting to, and his mind filling in the details.
I think that what really seals it for me is when the narrator first meets Marla, and they run out into traffic together, causing horns to honk - but both characters are out in the street. This happens again shortly afterward, but it's just Marla out in the street, and the cars pass by without seeming to notice her.
This is discussed in a few places on the internet. For example, this forum thread. The primary piece of evidence against that interpretation is that other characters acknowledge Marla as a distinct person from the narrator, whereas as they do not do so for Tyler. To wit: "the restaurant scene [in which] the waiter actually talks to both Marla and the narrator like they're two distinct people. And later on when Tyler's minions kidnap Marla they also treat Marla and the narrator as separate people."
posted by jedicus at 2:07 PM on November 8, 2010
posted by jedicus at 2:07 PM on November 8, 2010
Response by poster: This is discussed in a few places on the internet. For example, this forum thread. The primary piece of evidence against that interpretation is that other characters acknowledge Marla as a distinct person from the narrator, whereas as they do not do so for Tyler. To wit: "the restaurant scene [in which] the waiter actually talks to both Marla and the narrator like they're two distinct people. And later on when Tyler's minions kidnap Marla they also treat Marla and the narrator as separate people."
Oh yeah, I forgot about that last scene. I think you could also sweep the waiter under the table as the narrator being crazy.
posted by codacorolla at 2:09 PM on November 8, 2010
Oh yeah, I forgot about that last scene. I think you could also sweep the waiter under the table as the narrator being crazy.
posted by codacorolla at 2:09 PM on November 8, 2010
I think it's reasonable, and certainly the movie's logic allows for this explanation... but I don't think it's quite right.
The Tyler persona is certainly a manifestation of the Narrator. The Narrator interacts with both Tyler and Marla... however, Marla also interacts with Tyler. What would be the point of that sort of interaction? Tyler reveals late in the movie that he is well aware that he is sharing a body with Narrator, and is a sort of mastermind if you will. He is aware of the actions of both persona's, but I don't think he also has that awareness of Marla. Why would he be concerned about Narrator talking about him with Marla?
I see Marla as more of a catalyst. Tyler probably exists before this, but Narrator hasn't met him. He just thinks he has insomnia. I think maybe Tyler recognizes that Marla is very self destructive and so is attracted to her as a way of helping bring the Narrator to rock bottom, which is a stated goal of his. Consider the street scene you mention... it cuts right as Narrator is about to tell Marla his real name and by the end of the movie we know that he must have told her "Tyler Durden" at that moment. Since Narrator is unaware of this until later, is the moment of that cutaway an instance of Tyler asserting control to manipulate the Narrator?
posted by utsutsu at 2:17 PM on November 8, 2010 [2 favorites]
The Tyler persona is certainly a manifestation of the Narrator. The Narrator interacts with both Tyler and Marla... however, Marla also interacts with Tyler. What would be the point of that sort of interaction? Tyler reveals late in the movie that he is well aware that he is sharing a body with Narrator, and is a sort of mastermind if you will. He is aware of the actions of both persona's, but I don't think he also has that awareness of Marla. Why would he be concerned about Narrator talking about him with Marla?
I see Marla as more of a catalyst. Tyler probably exists before this, but Narrator hasn't met him. He just thinks he has insomnia. I think maybe Tyler recognizes that Marla is very self destructive and so is attracted to her as a way of helping bring the Narrator to rock bottom, which is a stated goal of his. Consider the street scene you mention... it cuts right as Narrator is about to tell Marla his real name and by the end of the movie we know that he must have told her "Tyler Durden" at that moment. Since Narrator is unaware of this until later, is the moment of that cutaway an instance of Tyler asserting control to manipulate the Narrator?
posted by utsutsu at 2:17 PM on November 8, 2010 [2 favorites]
Marla steals laundry to sell. Marla tells him that Chloe has died. Marla is kidnapped near the end. In the novel, Marla's mother's liposuctioned fat also ends up in the soap.
Most of the author's early work features a wild, liberating-if-also-chaotic female character, whereas in those same novels, the narrator has a pre-existing relationship with a male (or formerly male) character, a character who serves as a catalyst and motive force in the plot, and the precise nature of that relationship doesn't come out until later.
If you take the text, rather than the film, and the general trend of Palahniuk's early arc, that female character would definitely be a separate entity.
The problem with narrator unreliability is that once you drop down that particular rabbit hole, you can go just as far as you like and nearly any work can be reinterpreted as "So you have this person in a padded room and a straitjacket ..." (Incidentally, that is how the book ends) So, I generally go for narrator unreliability only when forced into it.
posted by adipocere at 2:23 PM on November 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
Most of the author's early work features a wild, liberating-if-also-chaotic female character, whereas in those same novels, the narrator has a pre-existing relationship with a male (or formerly male) character, a character who serves as a catalyst and motive force in the plot, and the precise nature of that relationship doesn't come out until later.
If you take the text, rather than the film, and the general trend of Palahniuk's early arc, that female character would definitely be a separate entity.
The problem with narrator unreliability is that once you drop down that particular rabbit hole, you can go just as far as you like and nearly any work can be reinterpreted as "So you have this person in a padded room and a straitjacket ..." (Incidentally, that is how the book ends) So, I generally go for narrator unreliability only when forced into it.
posted by adipocere at 2:23 PM on November 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
I can see why one would think so but I think it's a bit of a stretch. SPOILERS FOLLOW.
If she were another disassociated personality, why would Tyler warn Narrator not to mention him to her? And why would Marla believe Narrator to be Tyler?
You could explain it by doing some mental cartwheels but I think it's probably a more reasonable reading to say Marla exists as a real person in the world of the Narrator, as opposed to Tyler.
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:30 PM on November 8, 2010
If she were another disassociated personality, why would Tyler warn Narrator not to mention him to her? And why would Marla believe Narrator to be Tyler?
You could explain it by doing some mental cartwheels but I think it's probably a more reasonable reading to say Marla exists as a real person in the world of the Narrator, as opposed to Tyler.
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:30 PM on November 8, 2010
Best answer: I don't think it's reasonable.
Personally, I get frustrated by people attempting to interpret things that aren't there in films. No knock on you, but it seems that more and more people are putting more into films than is actually there. The most recent example is Inception, where people rationalize all kinds of things because parts of the film, they say, are sufficiently vague to do so. To me, this is why Inception sucks. To them, it's what makes it great.
For Fight Club, a far superior film to Inception, the problem is this: the story is being told by some of the best filmic storytellers of our time. They know what they're doing. (I know it's based on a book but I don't know of anyone--the book's author included--who doesn't think the film is better than the book). The story has a point and/or thesis, though some may argue about what that is. Revealing Tyler Durden to be a fiction *serves* that thesis. Marla being a fiction does not--and part of the proof that it does not is that the same skilled storytellers do not reveal it to be so. You gain nothing by adding the element to the story--it neither invalidates or reaffirms the thesis, it merely muddies it.
At its root, to me, Fight Club is a story about a man with a psychosis (to me, he's a depressive or bipolar) at odds with who he is. His love for Marla and her love for him is what shows him the way out of that dark place and permits him to shed the persona and return to the person he truly is. That is all up on the screen--nothing is missing to make that interpretation--with the exception of them not naming his malady specifically. Adding other things (like Marla being imaginary) is not useful to understanding the film. If more than Tyler is imagined... what is the film about? Then, instead of being a cogent tale about mental health it's just a story about a guy who imagines people.
I have a friend who hates Fight Club "because of the twist at the end". To me, believing that the reveal of Tyler being a fiction is "a twist" is his first mistake. It is not a twist--it's the next logical step in the story. My friend believes that making Tyler imaginary is absurd and the worst place they could have taken the story. I believe it is perfectly logical and the *only* place the story could have went that makes sense if you want the ending to be a happy one.
Fight Club isn't a movie about how other people, real or imagined, sabotage one another. It's a film about how we sabotage ourselves (intentionally or otherwise) and how only after we realize this can we take steps back to being whole. If you agree with me then making Marla imaginary takes away from the story and makes it make less sense. If you disagree with me, I'm curious what you think the story is about and why you think it's necessary to imagine Marla the way you're positing.
Also, back to my first point: I don't think it's "wrong" to try and figure films out. I do it all the time myself. But I do think it's odd that in the past 10 years or so people seem to be doing this in a way that seems needlessly complicated. Just because a film has an imaginary person doesn't mean everyone is imaginary. Just because a film has parts that take place inside of a dream doesn't mean the entire film takes place in a dream.
As a counter-example, take Taxi Driver (SPOILERS FOLLOW).
At the end of Taxi Driver, Sybil Shepherd is in Travis' cab. I've heard it argued many times that it's possible that this sequence is being imagined by Travis. Believing this doesn't take away from the story and it follows, logically, based on what you just watched, that it's possible that this is the case. The filmmakers has never commented on this and it's perfectly reasonable that they haven't: because both interpretations of the ending make sense. Neither invalidates the other. Again, extremely skilled storytellers make this possible. However, if someone were to argue that Travis' attack at the end were imaginary, and argue so based on the fact that he has a "rich inner life"... well, that doesn't work, and it doesn't work because there is nothing shown prior that makes that make sense--just like there's nothing shown that validates Marla as imaginary.
posted by dobbs at 3:18 PM on November 8, 2010 [17 favorites]
Personally, I get frustrated by people attempting to interpret things that aren't there in films. No knock on you, but it seems that more and more people are putting more into films than is actually there. The most recent example is Inception, where people rationalize all kinds of things because parts of the film, they say, are sufficiently vague to do so. To me, this is why Inception sucks. To them, it's what makes it great.
For Fight Club, a far superior film to Inception, the problem is this: the story is being told by some of the best filmic storytellers of our time. They know what they're doing. (I know it's based on a book but I don't know of anyone--the book's author included--who doesn't think the film is better than the book). The story has a point and/or thesis, though some may argue about what that is. Revealing Tyler Durden to be a fiction *serves* that thesis. Marla being a fiction does not--and part of the proof that it does not is that the same skilled storytellers do not reveal it to be so. You gain nothing by adding the element to the story--it neither invalidates or reaffirms the thesis, it merely muddies it.
At its root, to me, Fight Club is a story about a man with a psychosis (to me, he's a depressive or bipolar) at odds with who he is. His love for Marla and her love for him is what shows him the way out of that dark place and permits him to shed the persona and return to the person he truly is. That is all up on the screen--nothing is missing to make that interpretation--with the exception of them not naming his malady specifically. Adding other things (like Marla being imaginary) is not useful to understanding the film. If more than Tyler is imagined... what is the film about? Then, instead of being a cogent tale about mental health it's just a story about a guy who imagines people.
I have a friend who hates Fight Club "because of the twist at the end". To me, believing that the reveal of Tyler being a fiction is "a twist" is his first mistake. It is not a twist--it's the next logical step in the story. My friend believes that making Tyler imaginary is absurd and the worst place they could have taken the story. I believe it is perfectly logical and the *only* place the story could have went that makes sense if you want the ending to be a happy one.
Fight Club isn't a movie about how other people, real or imagined, sabotage one another. It's a film about how we sabotage ourselves (intentionally or otherwise) and how only after we realize this can we take steps back to being whole. If you agree with me then making Marla imaginary takes away from the story and makes it make less sense. If you disagree with me, I'm curious what you think the story is about and why you think it's necessary to imagine Marla the way you're positing.
Also, back to my first point: I don't think it's "wrong" to try and figure films out. I do it all the time myself. But I do think it's odd that in the past 10 years or so people seem to be doing this in a way that seems needlessly complicated. Just because a film has an imaginary person doesn't mean everyone is imaginary. Just because a film has parts that take place inside of a dream doesn't mean the entire film takes place in a dream.
As a counter-example, take Taxi Driver (SPOILERS FOLLOW).
At the end of Taxi Driver, Sybil Shepherd is in Travis' cab. I've heard it argued many times that it's possible that this sequence is being imagined by Travis. Believing this doesn't take away from the story and it follows, logically, based on what you just watched, that it's possible that this is the case. The filmmakers has never commented on this and it's perfectly reasonable that they haven't: because both interpretations of the ending make sense. Neither invalidates the other. Again, extremely skilled storytellers make this possible. However, if someone were to argue that Travis' attack at the end were imaginary, and argue so based on the fact that he has a "rich inner life"... well, that doesn't work, and it doesn't work because there is nothing shown prior that makes that make sense--just like there's nothing shown that validates Marla as imaginary.
posted by dobbs at 3:18 PM on November 8, 2010 [17 favorites]
I'm sorry, I don't think your theory holds water. It adds unstated, undepicted ideas to the movie - it's clear that the narrator has disassociated himself into his feckless and charisma halves, but no evidence exists to show that Marla is unreal.
It's also unfalsifiable - when it's pointed out that the waiter clearly saw both Marla and the narrator, you just say that the waiter was fictional as well. It's very "turtles all the way down."
Since the story is fictional altogether, I don't suppose anyone is going to arrest you for thinking Marla Singer is a construct of the narrator's unbidden neuroses, but in my opinion, the theory itself doesn't survive reasonable scrutiny. It would be one thing if Marla's existence were more vague, and you were filling in the gaps, but the story itself actually never deviates from Marla being real, so in saying that she's imaginary, you're writing material into Fight Club that was not there to begin with.
I think a more productive read on Marla would be to look into how, as a woman, she exists on the outskirts of Fight Club's story. Fight Club is a story by and about men. It's also interesting how Marla seems so much more bizarre until after the reveal. Her seemingly flighty, bipolar, unfaithful behavior is actually a reflection of how corrupt the NARRATOR is. Watching it a second time, you see how she's actually probably one of the most sane people in the entire movie.
This reminds me of a comment by Roger Ebert about people who theorize about the ending of Being There. (SPOILERS FOLLOW.) Chauncey walks on water at the end. Some people try to say that Chauncey is walking on some sort of support underneath the water, or whatever, but that's a poor read of the film - there is no evidence within the movie itself to say that there's some sort of sandbar or pier or whatever. That's just an additional, extrinsic item the viewer is bringing to the movie, in order to have it make some sort of particular sense. If the director had wanted to say that Chauncey was not actually walking on water, then he would have made some sort of attempt to illustrate that. Ditto for Marla being imaginary.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:40 PM on November 8, 2010
It's also unfalsifiable - when it's pointed out that the waiter clearly saw both Marla and the narrator, you just say that the waiter was fictional as well. It's very "turtles all the way down."
Since the story is fictional altogether, I don't suppose anyone is going to arrest you for thinking Marla Singer is a construct of the narrator's unbidden neuroses, but in my opinion, the theory itself doesn't survive reasonable scrutiny. It would be one thing if Marla's existence were more vague, and you were filling in the gaps, but the story itself actually never deviates from Marla being real, so in saying that she's imaginary, you're writing material into Fight Club that was not there to begin with.
I think a more productive read on Marla would be to look into how, as a woman, she exists on the outskirts of Fight Club's story. Fight Club is a story by and about men. It's also interesting how Marla seems so much more bizarre until after the reveal. Her seemingly flighty, bipolar, unfaithful behavior is actually a reflection of how corrupt the NARRATOR is. Watching it a second time, you see how she's actually probably one of the most sane people in the entire movie.
This reminds me of a comment by Roger Ebert about people who theorize about the ending of Being There. (SPOILERS FOLLOW.) Chauncey walks on water at the end. Some people try to say that Chauncey is walking on some sort of support underneath the water, or whatever, but that's a poor read of the film - there is no evidence within the movie itself to say that there's some sort of sandbar or pier or whatever. That's just an additional, extrinsic item the viewer is bringing to the movie, in order to have it make some sort of particular sense. If the director had wanted to say that Chauncey was not actually walking on water, then he would have made some sort of attempt to illustrate that. Ditto for Marla being imaginary.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:40 PM on November 8, 2010
Response by poster: Huh, yeah, you guys are right. I guess I was thrown off by Marla standing in traffic. I'm just not sure why Fincher wouldn't have the traffic react to her.
posted by codacorolla at 4:11 PM on November 8, 2010
posted by codacorolla at 4:11 PM on November 8, 2010
Perfectly reasonable analysis. Women don't really exist in Fight Club world. But I'm talking like critical theory, I guess, so it's kind of a different level.. She seems underwritten and there to move the plot along and not very interesting.
posted by citron at 8:26 PM on November 8, 2010
posted by citron at 8:26 PM on November 8, 2010
dobbs' explanation is why I sometimes describe Fight Club as a romantic comedy to annoy people who want to read too much into it. Marla Singer is the woman who motivates the self-absorbed man to get his priorities right (plus there are bits that make me laugh). If she isn't real then the movie is about a crazy person who imagines crazy things, and continues to do so, which isn't much of a plot.
re: Marla standing in traffic. I think that's just a shorthand for how 'crazy' she is, compared to the Narrator's supposedly normal take on life. The traffic misses her, but it might easily have hit her too. She's certainly a messed up person, she's just not as messed up as the Narrator.
posted by harriet vane at 10:06 PM on November 8, 2010
re: Marla standing in traffic. I think that's just a shorthand for how 'crazy' she is, compared to the Narrator's supposedly normal take on life. The traffic misses her, but it might easily have hit her too. She's certainly a messed up person, she's just not as messed up as the Narrator.
posted by harriet vane at 10:06 PM on November 8, 2010
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posted by wwartorff at 2:04 PM on November 8, 2010