Editing and Cinematography In Fight Club

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Frank Sarinana

April 13, 2004

English 001

Editing and Cinematography

In Fight Club

        Film as been around almost a century now and it has evolved from the days of silent films to the days of computerized special effects. Like in every craft there are several different aspects, which contribute to a films quality. There is the acting, the score, the story and plot, editing and cinematography. Cinematography and editing are extremely important parts of film. They help keep the flow of the movie together and allow the director to put his own impression on what is happening in a given scene. Cinematography and editing also give the viewer more information that the dialogue does not supply, such as the emotions of a background character. The movie Fight Club (1999), a movie directed by David Fincher, does a good job of using different techniques of editing and cinematography to add to the movie what actors and dialogue cannot. (imdb.com).

        I believe that fight club is a highly cinematic film. The director used many diverse ways of keeping the image alive and in motion. The most memorable way of keeping the image in motion is seen in the scene at the beginning where, Edward Norton’s character and Bob, played by Meat Loaf, are holding each other and crying. They’re not moving much, but the director keeps the image in motion by having the camera move around the actors; a track or a dolly is used to perform this task. (Phillips 89). By doing this, the scene is shown in a more dramatic way than had it been done with cuts of their two faces crying. The movement of the camera is also the way the director created the illusion of depth in this scene. If they had shot this scene from a still camera it would have seemed flat, but instead it shows that they’re in the center of a larger group. By doing this, the director did not show off his skills, but was rather showed reasonable ways of achieving these necessary tasks.  

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        The cinematic point of view of this film is mostly the indirect-subjective point of view. The director uses this point of view because it coincides with the main theme of the film: insanity. The main character Jack the Narrator, played by Edward Norton, is schizophrenic and has multiple personalities. The film starts at the ending of the movie and goes back in the main character’s memory about three years before the present moment in the film. The indirect-subjective point of view is used because it gets the viewer close to the action but does not allow them to take part ...

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