DOUBLE BILL 1: The Trouble With Tom, Dick and Harry

I love spotting patterns in films. There's often a degree of connective tissue between certain works of art and film is no different. What I'm going to do with these posts is suggest some double bills, some of which may not seem entirely obvious but for me share some thematic or stylistic DNA. Some may seem completely obvious to the point where you'll wonder why I've bothered writing it at all, but I'll have enjoyed pointing it out so it's really a win for me. What I'm going to avoid is two films by the same director or sequels and series. For example, Casino has a lot in common with Goodfellas in terms of narrative structure, stories of men getting in over their heads, hubris etc. because that's really obvious to me, or anyone with a passing knowledge of Scorsese. Ditto, I won't suggest Die Hard followed by Die Hard 2.

So my first suggestion for a double bill is this: American Beauty (Sam Mendes) and Fight Club (David Fincher, both 1999)

Two brilliant, meticulously constructed films from a year which brought us many brilliant films (The Matrix, Toy Story 2, Magnolia, Being John Malkovich, Eyes Wide Shut, The Insider) these two films stand out for me as portraits of modern masculinity and the problems therein. They approach this subject in different ways but the theme is the same: these are films about the emasculating effect of the modern world, about a loss of male identity, and in an industry of unchallenged male dominance and misogyny, cries for help.

American Beauty depicts the castrating effect of suburban family life through Kevin Spacey's defeated protagonist, Lester Burnham. His is a world where, having fathered a child, he has no function other than to earn money so more stuff can be bought. I'll state here that his wife is an equally fascinating portrait of an ambitious woman smothered by suburban life but that's not really the focus here, so I'm afraid she won't get much of a mention, but she also won't get the blame. Fight Club's 'Jack' sees Edward Norton playing another man with no purpose. Single, 30 years of age and with a meaningless, cynical job which contributes nothing to the world Jack, along with Lester starts as a man with whom a lot of the audience can identify. Nothing defines them other than the places they live and the stuff they own. Their achievements are not medals won nor a house built, they are the carpet, sofa and fridge-freezer. Two scenes summarise this for me: Jack walking though the interactive Ikea catalogue, and Lester's wife interrupting an intimate moment because he's about to spill beer on the sofa. Consumers and facades, not men, or as Tyler Durden suggests “We got no great war, we got no great depression.”

Ever woken up and just thought, what is the point of me getting up today? I know I have. Most days I would rather stay at home and do something I enjoy (like sit and write about films) than go to work. Well in that respect, these films operate as fantasies as well as commentaries on modern masculinity. It's highly unlike that anyone reading this will take it upon themselves to blackmail their boss, willingly quit to go work in McDonalds, start taking drugs and working out in the garage while trying to screw their teenage daughter's best friend, or start a boxing club which mutates into an ironically well regimented anarchist syndicate. But we enjoy watching the heroes here reject their identities, even if one of them does so through an imaginary friend, and just do what feels right. Where romantic comedies or dumb action films offer escapism on another level, probably for a different audience, I would argue that these films offer wish fulfilment fantasies for men who are very self aware. Both, for example, feature brilliant 'I quit' scenes.

However, on another level there is a ridiculousness about what Lester and Jack get up to. There is something inherently childish about deliberately getting into a fight or quitting work to play with a remote control car. Neither can sustain a relationship with a woman on anything other than a sexual level, so infantile and incompatible are they. Are these guys supposed to be role models? If so, then the studios producing these films (and bear in mind that one of them was Fox) are advocating a breakdown of society, starting with the XX chromosome. Perhaps, then, lessons can be learned about the folly of tearing away the masks that make our assumed identities by looking the films' endings. Both tragic and violent to differing degrees, the deaths of Lester and Tyler Durden can be read as conservative; that the world will not allow the rebel to flourish, or quite hopeful and liberal; that a man can overcome his limitations, his 'place' and either enjoy or change the world.

Two of the closing images, of Lester's face reflected perfectly in his own blood, and of the financial institutions being (bloodlessly) destroyed, are eerily beautiful for very different reasons. I suppose these reflect the filmmakers' differing viewpoints on the world. Fincher's arguably more cynical, that something must be destroyed in order for there to be creation. Mendes tells us that there is beauty everywhere in the world if we only stop what we're doing long enough to find it. I'd suggest watching American Beauty second; you'll probably get a better night's sleep.