Discuss some specific discoveries you have made in applying a critical approach to your chosen film. [30]

Fight club is a polysemic film. Many of the messages and details in the film can go unnoticed on first viewing and applying critcal theory to this film has helped me understand it. I think the theory of the crisis of masculinity is best to apply as the entire movie's main theme is men fighting against society and the supression of their masculinity.

In the basketball room scene the men at the support group show this with there framing showing femininity being low down under the mise en scene of a basketball hoop representing the ideals of masculinity with sport. To contrast the basketball hoop, instead of using it the men are sat in a circle talking about there feelings in a wide shot this shows they have lost the masculine way of life. The Narrator feels like there a being made by society to be like this. This is shown by a close up of The Narrator looking emotionless and reinforces the idea that film is about rejecting society. We see that  behind one of the men Tyler flashes on the screen for less than a second this is edited in to show that is the moment the Narrator felt he needed to create Tyler to change what he is seeing. This is not noticeable at first but during multiple viewings and this it happens many times before Tyler is introduced as a character in the film.This also relates the films meta narrative, the film knows it is a film, with Tyler later on editing single frames into films just like what is shown here.

I think the crisis of masculinity can also be applied to the bathroom scene where see Tyler refer to the issues he feels which represent his crisis of masculinity. "we are generation of men raised by women" this shows how they feel there problems are due to their childhood and that for the purpose of their masculinity they have to reject woman and anything feminine showing the films misogynistic undertones. Tyler is framed right next to the narrator's head showing they are the same person with the same feelings. Many men would have to same feelings as the narrator as for the majority of the movie he represents the every man. Tyler being their exaggerated persona.

In the final scene of Fight Club we see the narrator chose Marla over Tyler rejecting the ideas of masculinity that Tyler presents in the film. Marla isn't portrayed in a negative way which challenges the Misogynistic messages in the film. She portrayed as quite masculine with the mise en scene of her dark clothing and cigarette in hand. This is also a clear reference to film noir femme fetal charactors. It shows her having a crisis of her own. In the phone call scene a dream like low angle shot showing her suicide she is a confused character wanting to be involved with the narrator but not knowing what is going on.

In the final scene we see that Marla is the one way the narrator wants to be with and has all along. Going against the crisis of masculinity throughout the film. This is shown by the narrator telling everyone else to leave as well as the empty space in wide two shot with just Marla and the narrator in. Now Tyler has gone he doesn't feel the crisis anymore. The non diegetic music is more than just the generic lift music used in most of the film it being an actual song with lyrics. Showing things are more uplifiting, romantic and starting to become normal compared to the insanity of  the narrators life. The two shot shows the silioutes of the narrator and Marla looking like they are wearing similar clothes this relates Tyler's and the crisis in masculinity ideals about men being feminised. This argues against the idea as it really matter after everything that has happened. The narrator is alive and thats what matters.

In conclusion I feel after applying the critical approach of the Crisis of masculinity the discoverys I made showed the film as more polysemic than I first thought with going in and out of that message showing changing nature of how men view masculity. It also contains clearly many other film theory such as freudians Id theory where we see Tyler as the narrator id causing him to give in to temptation. Many critical theories help apprieciate the many details and messages of the film even more than just one.