[Cattle Rustler]

(05-20-2017 08:06 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

It's politically correct and acceptable (even desirable) to talk about the struggles of women and minorities. But if you're a poor white guy, you are anonymous. You are invisible. You are the unwanted, the unloved, the downtrodden, the dispossessed. There have been tons of movies made, and books written, about the experiences of women and minorities.

Have you ever read a Charles Dickens' novel or seen The Departed?

[Quintus Curtius]

(05-21-2017 12:12 PM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:  

(05-20-2017 08:06 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

It's politically correct and acceptable (even desirable) to talk about the struggles of women and minorities. But if you're a poor white guy, you are anonymous. You are invisible. You are the unwanted, the unloved, the downtrodden, the dispossessed. There have been tons of movies made, and books written, about the experiences of women and minorities.

Have you ever read a Charles Dickens' novel or seen The Departed?

Charles Dickens was a novelist who wrote 150 years ago about the plight of the British lower classes.

"The Departed" was a crime drama about gangsters and police.

Dickens wrote good books, and "The Departed" is a good movie. But neither one of these things has anything remotely to do with the plight, struggles, or aspirations of the average white guy in the USA or England today.

[Foolsgo1d]

Why would a black guy from the streets have any recognition for a white mans struggles and vice versa? Segregation has worked for decades and will continue to do so for decades to come.

The rich cannot have empathy with the poor or middle class and they them. You could do the same argument for tax bands. Do the lower classes want more or less taxes on those above them?

Does a black man from some hood in the US have anything in common with a white man from suburbia or a low income area? They don't and never will because the machine has put them in two camps separated by high walls.

[Paracelsus]

(05-21-2017 03:36 PM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  

Why would a black guy from the streets have any recognition for a white mans struggles and vice versa? Segregation has worked for decades and will continue to do so for decades to come.

The rich cannot have empathy with the poor or middle class and they them. You could do the same argument for tax bands. Do the lower classes want more or less taxes on those above them?

Does a black man from some hood in the US have anything in common with a white man from suburbia or a low income area? They don't and never will because the machine has put them in two camps separated by high walls.

A quote from the ever-increasingly-predictive-and-relevant film Bulworth has application: "Black people and white people have more in common than they do with rich people."

That aside, onward, and continuing to break Tyler's rule...



Coincidentally, there was another movie which addressed the same subject as Fight Club. Same year, in fact. It even beat out Fight Club for an Academy Award (in sound editing, the award given to all films that rich liberals would prefer buried). Can you guess what it was?



The only difference between these two movies is that one of them was marketed as an action movie and therefore in the fantasy genre, and one of them was not.

The Neo of both films has two lives. In one life they are both white guys doing essentially meaningless jobs and pretending to live in the real world, and in the other life they are subversives, devoted to bringing down system/s from within. Neither film allows for two identities. Remember what is the ultimate fate of Tyler Durden in Fight Club. As Agent Smith says, commenting really on both films: "One of these lives has a future; the other does not."

I say it's basically the same movie in each because both are addressing the ennui of middle class Western men. They both are touching on the fact there is a system all around you that does not require your input in any meaningful way. They also (or rather as a result) touch, in a fundamental way, on the narcissism that is endemic to the West and which comes about because of the lack of healthy coming-of-age rituals. Those of you who read a lot of Last Psychiatrist will probably know where I am going with this, so rather than bore you all with another restatement of the topic, I'll leave one crumb at the trailhead for you to contemplate. How far you go down the road from there is up to you.

When you glance over the Shittypedia entry for Fight Club you're given reasons a voiceover was used:

Quote:

Uhls started working on an early draft of the adapted screenplay, which excluded a voice-over because the industry perceived at the time that the technique was "hackneyed and trite". When Fincher joined the film, he thought that the film should have a voice-over, believing that the film's humor came from the Narrator's voice.[29] The director described the film without a voice-over as seemingly "sad and pathetic".

The Last Psychiatrist expands on this aspect of filmmaking:

Quote:

Voice overs are supposed to be an example of bad or lazy writing, but I have a theory: when a movie has a voice over, it means the character is being dishonest. Not "it wasn't me who stole the cookies" dishonest, but "it's not as simple as it looks, you don't know the whole story, let me explain" dishonest. In other words: BS. This can be consciously manipulative (The Usual Suspects) or unconsciously rationalizing (Sex And The City). The voice over pulls you into the mind of the character and so you are less able to make an objective assessment about what you see. What's important about it is that the story would be impossible to tell without the VO because no one would buy it.

Narcissism is defined by making the world relate only to you. It is about convincing the rest of the world of the story that you tell them as your identity.

[Barron]

Oddly enough: another movie that hits on the same themes that also came out the same year, only marketed as a comedy (but became so much more):



Indeed something unusual, even for Hollywood, was going on twenty years ago

[Simeon_Strangelight]

Fight Club and even the Matrix are not movies that would be made today.

Fight Club is way too masculine and anti-establishment at the same time. They don't want to get close there and give men any ideas. The same is true with The Matrix. They dunked the movie into the stupid-sauce in parts 2 and 3, but could not completely delete the message.

The progressive critics back then described the movie as macho-fascist - keep in mind that this was in still saner times. Now they would call it full on NAZI, decry the lack of diversity, the lack of strong female role models, the lack of Muslims, lack of fat actors, lack of biracial relationships, lack of gays and trans-people etc. They would have to change the entire script to make it half-way SJW-conform.

Studios now have diversity and gender consultants. What would those psychos have to say about the movie?

Recently I watched the new Twin Peaks series which is directed by David Lynch and it seems that he has enough clout so that the movie studio lets him do what he wants. The funny part is that the Twin Peaks universe is still in the 1990s without any changes. It is still cool, bizarre and weird. And only later did I realize that there was no gender-swapping, no empowered super-women, no diversity hires where Twin Peaks is now 40% black and Latino. It seems to be marooned back in time of 1991. Those places exist in reality, but not in Hollywood social justice land.

[sterling_archer]

Nice, I knew that Lynch wouldn't fall down to his knees. Twin Peaks and all his movies give important messages about ones psyche and how the world operates. Jay Dyer has very well written analysis of Lynch in his book Esoteric Hollywood.

[Atlanta Man]

I think is is worth noting the main characters in both films did not have children. A lot of existential angst in life is ameliorated by having kids. I do not know this from experience, because I am childless, but many of my peers with children have expressed this to me. I know for fucking sure the meaning of life is not work, I know this from experience.

[Enigma]

(05-20-2017 12:21 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

When it comes to "ideas," I'd say that I don't agree with every single thing the movie tells us. There is a nihilistic streak running through the film that doesn't match my own philosophy of life. I understand where it comes from (it springs from modern man's repressed rage at his marginalization in the face of feminism, egalitarianism, and modernity), but I don't think it's the answer. I have a different vision.

Think of the scene on the bus where Tyler and the unnamed Edward Norton character are looking at the ads on the walls of the bus. They see a picture of a well-muscled frame. Tyler says, "Is this what a man looks like? Self-improvement is masturbation...self-destruction, now that's an idea." Or something to that effect.

Consider also the scene where Edward Norton beats himself up in his boss's office. It's as if males are turning their collective rage inward on themselves, rather than outward against the weasels, parasites, and scum who sold them out. I don't believe in self-destruction as an antidote for our modern ills. I have a different prescription for our malaise.

But here again, even though I don't agree with everything the movie posits, I can still recognize that it is a supreme piece of cinematic art.

Tyler is not supposed to be the "hero".

The Narrator was too much of a pussy, and Tyler is his polar opposite, his shadow.

Neither is a fully healthy individual, which is why the Narrator becomes schizophrenic and later tries to kill himself. Rather than accepting both parts of his personality and psyche, he splits them in two.

That's why the movie is worse than the book.

For one, it glorifies Tyler, when he's too destructive. You're not supposed to take everything he says seriously. He's just the opposite of the main character.

Second of all, it turns the ending into some kind of love story, rather than the (attempted) suicide that it's supposed to be. The main character is supposed to be killed by his unwillingness to accept the dark side of his unconscious.

And third, it kills off Tyler. He's a part of the Narrator's personality; he wasn't supposed to be killed.

The healthy masculine character would have been the Narrator and Tyler integrated, with both the light and dark elements of his personality.

Instead he kills off the dark side of his masculinity to hold hands with some crazy drug addict.

[Malone]

(05-22-2017 12:22 PM)Enigma Wrote:  

Neither is a fully healthy individual, which is why the Narrator becomes schizophrenic and later tries to kill himself. Rather than accepting both parts of his personality and psyche, he splits them in two.

He didn't try to kill himself. There's two places you could say that - one when Tyler blew up his apartment (while he was on a trip) - and at the end where he shot himself (to kill Tyler.)

Quote:

That's why the movie is worse than the book.

That's objectively wrong. The book is shit compared to the movie.

Quote:

And third, it kills off Tyler. He's a part of the Narrator's personality; he wasn't supposed to be killed.

I'd say rather that he integrated Tyler.

[Leonard D Neubache]

The ending was honestly the one part of the movie that wildly set off my bullshit alarms. You don't trick your alter ego into thinking he's dead by pretending to kill yourself. That's not clever. It's just retarded.

And this is coming from someone who never read the book.

[TigerMandingo]

1999 was a legendary year for movies! American Beauty, Fight Club, Matrix, Magnolia, and Office Space just to name some of the red-pill ones!!

Mainstream music was even good back then. I look at the movies in theaters now and none of it gets me excited like the old days. Aaaaah...

[TooFineAPoint]

^
one of those movies is not like the others...

American Beauty is a homo's version of the world, replete with a grown man "finding himself" by working in fast food and smoking pot, a family torn asunder, and (of course) the masculine man being secretly gay. Topped off with the whip cream and cherry of faux insightful/artistic plastic bags flowing in the wind. No clothes for the emperor on that one.

But otherwise, it was a great year for films.

Let's put Bringing Out The Dead and Eyes Wide Shut on there instead of AB.

[TigerMandingo]

Yea, I agree. I actually didn't like American Beauty, just meant that it was influential on the redpill scene more than anything else.

I changed the channel when they were watching a plastic bag floating in the air. Fucking retarded.

[Enigma]

(05-23-2017 04:37 AM)Malone Wrote:  

He didn't try to kill himself. There's two places you could say that - one when Tyler blew up his apartment (while he was on a trip) - and at the end where he shot himself (to kill Tyler.)

*spoilers* (obviously)



The final scene in the book is him trying to kill himself twice, first with explosives and then with a gun, shooting himself in front of Marla. He fails both times and the book closes with him in a mental hospital.

The movie covers this all up with a feel good Hollywood ending, where he somehow kills his toxic masculinity alterego by shooting himself in the cheek and lives happily every after.

[Enigma]

(05-23-2017 10:02 AM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  

^
one of those movies is not like the others...

American Beauty is a homo's version of the world, replete with a grown man "finding himself" by working in fast food and smoking pot, a family torn asunder, and (of course) the masculine man being secretly gay. Topped off with the whip cream and cherry of faux insightful/artistic plastic bags flowing in the wind. No clothes for the emperor on that one.

But otherwise, it was a great year for films.

Let's put Bringing Out The Dead and Eyes Wide Shut on there instead of AB.

The "masculine man" is completely over the top. That's the whole point. He's repressed any sense of feeling or femininity in his personality that he connects to neither women nor his son.

He's not being presented in a vacuum, he's being presented alongside the other masculine character, Lester.

Lester is the old man without passion and becomes child-like and without responsibility, before seemingly balancing it at the end (but too late).

[Simeon_Strangelight]

(05-23-2017 10:02 AM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  

^
one of those movies is not like the others...

American Beauty is a homo's version of the world, replete with a grown man "finding himself" by working in fast food and smoking pot, a family torn asunder, and (of course) the masculine man being secretly gay. Topped off with the whip cream and cherry of faux insightful/artistic plastic bags flowing in the wind. No clothes for the emperor on that one.

But otherwise, it was a great year for films.

Let's put Bringing Out The Dead and Eyes Wide Shut on there instead of AB.

While the acting and cinematography in American Beauty was good, it was clear pro-divorce, anti-family, pro-gay, anti-masculine men propaganda. And he did not even get to fuck that 18yo girl who turned out to be a virgin, because what? It would have been much better if another 18yo boy had fucked her a week before, then could he do it? There are now 18yo girls doing porn who lost their virginity 10 days before the shoot.

The movie was lauded because it showed the "toxicity of family relationships and toxic masculinity". They did not like Fight Club.

And I agree that the ending was off, but the ending in the book is not much better to be honest. If anyone of us would have written it, then we would have reunited both personality streams and become a stronger, but saner masculine man. But that is what the globalist elite fears the most - that men would actually do that.

[Atlanta Man]

Sorry but fuck American Beauty. The sexual fantasy scenes with the flower pedals were bullshit, not fucking the hot cheerleader, and the homo erotic overtones were stupid. It was just not a good movie, it did not express anything I could identify with.

[TooFineAPoint]

(05-23-2017 10:50 AM)Enigma Wrote:  

(05-23-2017 10:02 AM)TooFineAPoint Wrote:  

^
one of those movies is not like the others...

American Beauty is a homo's version of the world, replete with a grown man "finding himself" by working in fast food and smoking pot, a family torn asunder, and (of course) the masculine man being secretly gay. Topped off with the whip cream and cherry of faux insightful/artistic plastic bags flowing in the wind. No clothes for the emperor on that one.

But otherwise, it was a great year for films.

Let's put Bringing Out The Dead and Eyes Wide Shut on there instead of AB.

The "masculine man" is completely over the top. That's the whole point. He's repressed any sense of feeling or femininity in his personality that he connects to neither women nor his son.

He's not being presented in a vacuum, he's being presented alongside the other masculine character, Lester.

Lester is the old man without passion and becomes child-like and without responsibility, before seemingly balancing it at the end (but too late).

Everybody in the movie is over the top. Fabulous, you might even say.

The only redeeming quality about that movie is the cinematography by Conrad Hall. Thank god he has a nice long resume of actual good films to his credit that we can watch instead.

[Leonard D Neubache]

Looking back on American Beauty the movie is like a long joke with a punchline that falls utterly flat.

The RVF ending would obviously be that Spacey bangs out that little bitch, rents another house and makes her his main. His entire story arc is about rediscovering masculinity and game only for him to snap back to white-knight in .5 seconds flat, and it's presented as some sort of liberating and "spiritually correct" moment of clarity. The ending is merciful in a sense.

[Paracelsus]

(05-23-2017 07:40 PM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

Looking back on American Beauty the movie is like a long joke with a punchline that falls utterly flat.

The RVF ending would obviously be that Spacey bangs out that little bitch, rents another house and makes her his main. His entire story arc is about rediscovering masculinity and game only for him to snap back to white-knight in .5 seconds flat, and it's presented as some sort of liberating and "spiritually correct" moment of clarity. The ending is merciful in a sense.

The reason it comes out like this is because, just as with Fight Club and The Matrix, the film's driving force is the narcissism of the main character. I can now extend my thesis: American Beauty, Fight Club, and The Matrix are all the same film.

The Last Psychiatrist:

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/12/i...nts_y.html

Quote:

"This is the first movie review I've ever read that attacks not the movie but the people who liked the movie." I'm not attacking you you if you liked it, only if you identified with it. "That's not really fair." American Psycho was an amazing movie, but I wouldn't date anyone who identifies with it. How is it different? Again, the point isn't that movies tell you who you are, they tell you how to be.

Here's an example: with 100% certainty I can predict that if you liked The Descendants, if you think you would like The Descendants, then you thought American Beauty was "amazing." That movie was, indeed, an outstanding reflection of a kind of a man and a kind of a life, but at some point before your divorce or rehab you have to consider that if you identified with the main character there is something wrong with you.

Louis CK:

Quote:

Kevin Spacey playing the man... he's fantasizing about fucking a cheerleader in high school. And the way they represent this, in this gay movie, this fucking bunch of cum through a projector-- according to this movie, when you fantasize about a cheerleader, you lie on your back and rose petals fall all over your body. Instead of her hot, sweaty ass, and the confused look on her face as you cum in her stupid eye... No, it's Kevin Spacey with a sweet look on his face, and flower petals, and jazzy music.

[And at the end of the movie, the ex-marine] is the one who's really gay. 'None of us are gay, it's actually the one hetero guy, he's the gay one.' No one else is gay, Kevin Spacey's not gay. He's straight as an arrow, he lifts weights, listens to Zeppelin, drives a Firebird-- and thinks about fucking rose petals. And then when he actually sees her tits he almost vomits....He finally sees the 18 year old tits and says, what have I been doing all this time? I forgot I like men....

Louis CK takes the gay angle for the comedic effect, but he understands this isn't about being gay but about a kind of American self-delusion exemplified by the Kevin Spacey character: everyone else is broken except me. My only problem is I am surrounded by these people. And everything gets projected onto them as both defense of the ego and as confirmation that it is, indeed, everyone else who is nuts. "Look, she's a crazy bitch."

When he throws the plate of food against the wall you're supposed to cheer his rising manliness; you're not supposed to notice that it's infantile narcissistic rage, i.e. foreshadowing: this isn't going to have a happy ending.

The problem for the audience is that there isn't an American Beauty II, the one where he gets the rose petal girl of his dreams and inherits a billion dollars and has a perfect life in Hawaii only to discover that within 5 years everything has regressed to the mean, I mean mean, and everything happens all over again. "Jeez, why do I attract these crazy bitches?" Because you're crazy, dummy. The one universal constant in all of your failed relationships is you.

[Enigma]

^ Yes, you're not supposed to identify specifically with characters like Lester, just like you're not supposed to identify with characters who live in abandoned buildings and make explosives out of human body fat.

Going back to what I said earlier, Nietzsche believed that modern man was too Apollonian and must become more Dionysian, balancing the two.

Dionysus was associated with sex, music, drunkenness, and, wait for it... roses.

What are the things that people remember about Lester's story arc (based on the last few posts in this thread)? Him listening to music, lifting weights, smoking weed, losing his temper, and imagining sex on top of roses.

There's a reason that Nietzche considered the tension between the Apollonian and Dionysian the source of all tragedy and that these archetypal stories go back thousands of years.

Does this sound familiar?

Quote:

The interplay between the Apollonian and Dionysian is apparent, Nietzsche claimed in The Birth of Tragedy, from their use in Greek tragedy: the tragic hero of the drama, the main protagonist, struggles to make order of his unjust fate, though he dies unfulfilled in the end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonian_and_Dionysian

To be clear, I'm not saying American Beauty is my favorite movie -- or even a particularly good movie -- I'm just offering an alternative to the "roses are gay, bro, I want to see sweaty assholes" or "if you enjoy watching millennia-old stories you're a narcissist" interpretations of the film.

[Philosopher]

(05-20-2017 07:53 PM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  

I enjoyed the fight club, and yes it's all about modern masculine disenfranchisement.

The move "300" also struck almost the same nerve amongst young men. "This is sparta" was their aroused catch cry for a few months before going back to porn and video games.

Watch "300" when feel down and need inspiration. If one does not fear death, than nothing can stop him.

[Teedub]

I echo everything QC has said in his response.

The first half of that film is one of the most important things for young men, intelligent enough to understand it, to watch.

[Dan Woolf]

Quote:

The original "pillow talk"-scene had Marla saying "I want to have your abortion". When this was objected to by Fox 2000 Pictures President of Production Laura Ziskin, David Fincher said he would change it on the proviso that the new line couldn't be cut. Ziskin agreed and Fincher wrote the replacement line, "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school". When Ziskin saw the new line, she was even more outraged and asked for the original line to be put back, but, as per their deal, Fincher refused.

Quote:

The layout of The Narrator's apartment was based upon an apartment which director David Fincher lived in when he first moved to LA. Fincher decided to model the location on this apartment because he claims that whilst he was living there, he always wanted to blow it up.

Quote:

When the Narrator hits Tyler Durden in the ear, Edward Norton actually did hit Brad Pitt in the ear. He was originally going to fake hit him, but before the scene, David Fincher pulled Norton aside and told him to hit him in the ear. After Norton hit him in the scene, you can see him smiling and laughing while Pitt is in pain.

The absolute fucking madman.