Great Scene: “Fight Club”
One of the most effective ways to begin a script is to start at the ending. And one of the best scenes that opens with the ending is in the…
One of the most effective ways to begin a script is to start at the ending. And one of the best scenes that opens with the ending is in the movie Fight Club. Adapted for the screen by Jim Uhls from a novel by the notable writer Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club is a head-spinning and dark satire on contemporary society. Here is the opening scene:
SCREEN BLACKJACK (V.O.)
People were always asking me, did I know Tyler Durden.FADE IN:INT. SOCIAL ROOM - TOP FLOOR OF HIGH-RISE - NIGHTTYLER has the barrel of a HANDGUN lodged in JACK'S MOUTH. They
struggle intensely.They are both around 30; Tyler is blond, handsome, eyes burning with
frightening intensity; and JACK, brunette, is appealing in a dry sort of way. They are both sweating and disheveled; Jack seems to be losing his will to fight.TYLER
We won't really die. We'll be immortal.JACK
oor -- ee-ee --uh -- aa-i --JACK (V.O.)
With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels.Jack tongues the barrel to the side of his mouth.JACK (still distorted)
You're thinking of vampires.Jack tries to get the gun. Tyler keeps control.JACK (V.O.)
With my tongue, I can feel the silencer holes drilled into the barrel of the gun. Most of the noise a gunshot makes is expanding gases. I totally forgot about Tyler's whole murder-suicide thing for a second and I wondered how clean the gun barrel was.Tyler checks his watch.TYLER
Three minutes.Jack turns so that he can see down -- 71 STORIES.JACK (V.O.)
The building we're standing in won't be here in three minutes. You take a 98-percent concentration of fuming nitric acid and add three times as much sulfuric in a bathtub full of ice. Then, glycerin drop-by-drop. Nitroglycerin. I know this because Tyler knows this.Jack manages to SHOVE Tyler away. Then, he leaps onto him and they
fall onto a table, then roll off onto the floor. The gun falls and
slides. They wrestle with each other, then dash for the gun. Tyler
gets there first and grabs the gun. DURING THE ABOVE:JACK (V.O.)
The Demolitions Committee of Project Mayhem wrapped the foundation
columns of this building with blasting gelatin. The primary charge
will blow the base charge, and this spot Tyler and I are standing on
will be a point in the sky.Tyler drags Jack back to the glass wall and forces him to look out at the city skyline.TYLER
This is our world now. Two minutes.JACK (V.O.)
Two minutes to go and I'm wondering how I got here.MOVE IN ON JACK'S FACE.SLOWLY PULL BACK from Jack's face. It's pressed against TWO LARGE
BREASTS that belong to ... BOB, a big moose of a man, around 35 years old. Jack is engulfed by Bob's arms in an embrace. Bob weeps openly. His shoulders inhale themselves up in a long draw, then drop, drop, drop in jerking sobs. Jack gives Bob some squeezes in return, but his face is stone.JACK (V.O.)
Bob had bitch tits.
The movie begins with some guy named Tyler with a gun shoved in some guy named Jack’s mouth. Then we learn of an imminent explosion, apparently some sort of terrorist event. And the two guys who know about this impending violence — and seemingly involved in its execution — are chatting inanely about immortality and vampires.
Two minutes to go and I’m wondering how I got here. That is precisely what opening a story at the ending does: It plants that question, so that whatever happens, for the rest of the entire story until it catches up with the ending, the reader is wondering the same thing: How does he get there? And that’s one big reason why this is a great scene.
A few other movies that begin with the ending: Sunset Blvd., Memento, and The Usual Suspects. I’m sure you can add others to the list. Comments await you.
And I know we’ve got to have a lot of huge fans of Fight Club. Why? Because the movie is currently ranked #17 out of the IMDB top 250 movies (as voted by The People). Fans of the movie, please tell us why you love this movie.