I AM JACK'S NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

 

AUDIO

Through a wide range of sounds and music styles, Fight Club was able to reinforce the various aspects of each characters personality, and maintain the high energy 'feel' of the movie. Jacks voice changed from monotone and soft in the beginning of the movie to much louder with sporadic outburst to reflect his growth from a conservative mild mannered person to a confident and self assured individual. Tyler's voice remained constant throughout the movie, but added enormously to the variety of the audible soundscape by his many random and almost outrageous bursts of laughter (DVD TIME CUE 1:41:08), which reflected the random and spontaneous nature of this character. Marla Singer, although portrayed as a 'disturbed' individual displayed an increasing warmth in her voice as the movie progressed … sometimes displaying an almost affectionate and completely comforting 'tone' (DVD TIME CUE 1:58:17) within the chaos of a movie filled with shouting, violence and 'unpleasant' sounds (ex. explosions, car crashes). This warmth in her voice at times would understandably endear her to the audience and somewhat help signify whether her character would be interpreted as 'good' or 'bad' by the audience. The narrators voice remained constant throughout the movie, which certainly helped provide somewhat of a 'rational' guide to the audience through all the chaos that was presented to them both visually and audibly.

The soundtrack of the movie contributed to the 'up-tempo' feel and energy of the plot and it's movement. Spontaneous sounds would break the silence, such as the sudden explosion of a mid-air collision severing the muffled serenity of the previously intact cabin (DVD TIME CUE: 00:21:37) or the sudden 'insane' outburst of laughter by Tyler Durden when it was least expected. An excellent example of this is Tyler's 'rant' (DVD TIME CUE 1:24:18) where the movie seemingly stops and Tyler turns directly to the camera and speaks to the audience while the world around him shakes with a percussive vibration. This constant motion of sound, always changing, never standing still adds to the sense of movement and chaos of the film.