Daily Dialogue — January 27, 2020

“Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

— Fight Club (1999), screenplay by Jim Uhls, novel by Chuck Palahniuk

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Basement.

Trivia: Author Chuck Palahniuk told the producers from the very start that, although he fully supported the adaptation, he wasn’t interested in writing the screenplay. Initially, producer Laura Ziskin considered hiring screenwriter Buck Henry to adapt the novel, due to the many thematic similarities between Fight Club and The Graduate (1967) (which had been adapted from the novel of the same name by Henry). However, Jim Uhls was ultimately chosen as the writer ahead of Henry. Cameron Crowe, Andrew Kevin Walker, director David Fincher and actors Brad Pitt and Edward Norton also did uncredited work on the screenplay.

Dialogue On Dialogue: In many respects, the Fight Club has its origins in a basement as with this scene here.