10 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 20, 1999
Fox hits with 'Fight'
'Dogma'joins gripes
of Brooklyn Museum
admist
Los Angeks Times
The one sure thing th
Fincher's S68 million mov
Club" has going for it, or ag
controversy.
According to movie
experts, the free publicity t
generating can either help o
film's ultimate box-office per
But many said the movie w
uphill baVtle sustaining itself i
ketplace and appealing to peo
its core audience of 18 to 3
males due to its graphically v
tent.
Despite some critics praisin
as a groundbreaking masterpi
Club" is being released at
time with violence in entert
major flash point in Washingt
Fox naturally chose not to
violence in its marketing
which some competitors rega
leading advertising. Instead th
is focusing on the film's
achievements, its originality
themes.
"Audiences are saying, 'giv
thing original,"' says Fox
controversy
chief Bob Harper. "This is not a movie
that's been made five other times. It's
hat David unique, distinct and intelligent and the
vie "Fight biggest marketing tool in its post-open-
gainst it, is ing will be that it's something riveting
and important to talk about."
marketing Fox executives are hoping audiences
he film is will look below the surface and connect
r impair a to the film's satirical, existential themes
formance. and overarching comment on the mod-
vill face an ern world and the dehumanizing influ-
in the mar- ences of such things as consumerism.
ple beyond "I think the movie is very, very intense
0-year-old in its ideas and the way they're present-
iolent con- ed, and people mistake that for vio-
lence," says Laura iskin, who as head
ng the film of the studio's movie label Fox 2000 was
ece, "Fight the executive who bought and developed
a sensitive Chuck Palahniuk's book on which the
ainment a movie is based.
on. With a script by first-timer Jim Uhls,
play up the "Fight Club" stars Norton as an alienat-
materials, ed white-collar drone stuck in a mean-
rd as mis- ingless job at a big company. He
e company befriends a freaky, charismatic loner
cinematic (Pitt) who lives in a dilapidated mansion
and larger where he makes strange soap.
The two begin an underground fight
e us some- club, where disaffected men like them-
marketing selves take out their pent-up aggressions
Is Fincher's film too violent? Pitt, Norton and 20th Century Fox don't think so.
by beating each other up bare-fisted as a
way of emancipating themselves from
the numbness of contemporary life.
Fox's movie chairman Bill Mechanic
says boxing classics such as "Raging
Bull" and "Rocky," and certainly many
war films, are much more graphic than
"Fight Club," which he notes, "I don't
see as a violent movie."
Mechanic says the fact that Ziskin was
the one who championed and developed
the movie indicates that "Fight Club"
won't turn away most women as some
people are speculating.
"I'm interested in what it has to say
about men and society at large," says
Ziskin, "And, why we have all these
(material) things and still feel numb and
can't sleep at night."
Still, Fox executives are well aware
that their unconventional movie -
which was co-financed by Arnon
Milchan's New Regency Prods. - won't
appeal to everyone. Those who have
seen it tend to either love or hate this
film. The New Yorker critic David
Denby called it "a fascist rhapsody pos-
ing as a metaphor of liberation," while
Rolling Stone reviewer Peter Travers
called it "groundbreaking."
Mechanic said, "It's an Us Vs. Them
movie. It's certainly not a middle-of-the-
road movie ... we didn't make it for
everyone."
Mechanic remains convinced the film
could do enough business to make it a
hit.
"We didn't make it as a non-commer-
cial movie. The fact that we made it at
the price we did, we had the inherent
belief that it would attract a big enough
audiences to turn a profit," said the Fox
chairman.
The film's success will ultimately
depend on word of mouth. If the movie
doesn't satisfy enough of the audience,
no degree of controversy or publicity
will help.
Nwsy 0
In "Stigmara, Patricia Arquette is
plagued by (hrist-like. blood-oozing
wounds. The Catholic Church's exis-
tence is challenged. without irony or
humor. A cardinal is shown trying to
strangle Arquette. Protest against this
ugly, sodden rip-off of "The
Exorcist" came mostly from critics
offended by its crimes against taste
and imagination. Otherwise, it's about
to disappear into home-video purga-
tory with barely a murmur from the
religious Thought Police.
In "Doema," Linda Fiorcntino is a
lapsed Catholic working- in an abor-
tion clinic who is beckoned by God's
sardonic mouthpiece (Alan Rickman)
to stop two rogue angels (Ben Affleck
and Matt Damon) from entering the
portals of a New Jersey church and,
thus, ending Life As We Know It.
Though religious mythology and pro-
priety are kicked around like so many
soccer balls (a cardinal, played by
George Carlin, is shown putting golf
balls into a sacramental cup), this
goofy, exuberant movie ends up
embracing faith, with a capital F, in
God - revealed here to look very
much like Alanis Morrisette.
Nevertheless, writer-director Kevin
Smith, the lapsed comic-book artist
and practicing Catholic best known
for his ribald, slacker comedies-of-
manners "Clerks" (1993) and
"Chasing Amy" (1996), has gotten a
taste of what may lay in store when
"Dogma" opens nationwide Nov. 12.
Its screening at the recent New York
Film Festival prompted demonstra-
tions by Christian fundamentalists
whose only knowledge of the film is
what they've read about it.
Smith, however, recognizes it was
somewhat fortunate that this screen-
ing was all but obscured by the noisi-
er ideological brushfire over the
recent opening of the Brooklyn
Museum of Art's "Sensation" exhibit.
"I feel bad for the museum. I feel
bad for the artists. I feel bad for the
people of New York," Smith said the
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afternoon before "Dogma's" first of
two festial screenings. "A the same
time, it took a little heat off me. and
I'm all for a break. I've been dealing __
with the Catholic League for months
now, and if they've turned their atten-
tion away to something else, it's a
relief, you know?"
The original idea was to avoid con-.
flict in the first place. Disney-owned
Miramax produced "Dogma" as it
had Smith's preious films.
Recognizing the hot-potato potential
of a moxie that mixes theology with
masturbation and poo-poo jokes,-
Miramax honchos Harvey and Bob
Weinstein bought "Dogma" out of
their own pockets and sold it to Lions
(late Films, the distributor behind
such hot potatoes as "Buffalo '66"
and "Gods and Monsters."
Nice save, fellas. But talk about
stigma -- the word is, as they say, out
on "Dogma." And while its hip, high-I
powered cast - which also includes
Chris Rock as the "13th apostle,"
Salma Hayek as Serendipity the Muse
and Smith and Jason Mewes reprising
their "Clerks" and "Chasing Amy"
roles as slackmeisters Jay and Silent
Bob - would be enough to guarantee
zeitgeist interest, the movie's box
office can only be helped by the con-
troversy.
"The Catholic Church isn't taking a
stance on it all," Smith said. "No. 1,a
because movies are kinda evil, I sup-.'
pose. But the Church is smart enough "..
to know that if you don't want to call
attention to something, you don't
point at it, screeching, 'Don't look at
this!' The Catholic League, on the
other hand, has been going after
Disney for years, and if calling atten-
tion to the movie means calling atten-
tion to itself, so be it. 'Stigmata' prac-
tically gets a pass because it's not a
Disney film, and I'm sure that if
Lions Gate had this film from the get-
go, there would have been no brouha-
ha over it at all."
Meanwhile, even critics who like
"Dogma" have thus far lodged their
usual complaints against Smith-'s
movies: that it's overloaded with-
comic-book dynamics, it's visually
inept and everybody talks too damn
much! Smith pleads guilty on all
counts.
To the first, he says, "There's a bit,
of 'Justice League of America' to the
way this quest-battle is devised. But if
you're going to do a movie like this
where you see ideas portrayed in the
form of angels and muses and
visions, it helps to have this play out
as if it were a graphic novel."
As for the last two complaints
(which, upon reflection, really add up
to one complaint), Smith shrugs,
"What can I say? In other movies,
they don't have to talk too much. In
mine, unfortunately, they do because
I'm not a gifted filmmaker. No one
thinks of well-directed visual movies
when they think of mine. I'm a writer
who has to direct his own stuff. And
yeah, it's because I'm in love with
language. But in this instance, you
need a lot more exposition and dia-
logue because you can't presuppose
that everybody knows about
Catholicism. So they talk a lot. It's
what I do."
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