The strange connection between ‘Fight Club’ and ‘Memento’
Around the turn of the new millennium, the cinematic world saw the release of two of the most captivating works of modern American cinema, David Fincher’s 1999 film Fight Club and Christopher Nolan’s 2000 movie Memento. They both set a precedent for Hollywood movies of a higher quality and cerebral narrative significance.
Fight Club tells of an unnamed narrator, played by Edward Norton, who, in the throes of severe disillusionment from his white-collar job, forms a “fight club” with an enigmatic soap salesman, played by Brad Pitt, who may or may not just be a part of his imagination. Fincher explores his descent into existential doubt in a style that has been endlessly imitated since then.
Memento also toyed with the darkest sides of psychology, detailing a man played by Guy Pearce, who suffers from short-term memory loss and is incapable of forming new memories. Following the murder of his wife, the man uses a system of handwritten notes, tattoos and photographs to try and find the person responsible.
There’s a neo-noir aesthetic to both films and a darkness that resides within, and most importantly, they both ask questions of their audiences. Fight Club throws up moments of doubt and subsequent clues as to the sanity of its protagonist, and Memento leaves us increasingly desperate for answers as the movie rolls on.
Quentin Tarantino once spoke of Memento in light of Fight Club in an interview with The Guardian. He pointed out how Nolan’s work asks audiences to find the clues to its mystery while they are watching it, whereas Fincher’s movie invites a second watching to see if they can find the very same clues.
“Part of the appeal of Memento is he’s challenging you in a game to poke holes in the mystery, and the scenario, and the storytelling,” the director said. “As opposed to something like Fight Club, where you watch it, and then you want to see it a second time to poke holes in it. He’s actually challenging you to do that. If you find a hole in it, that’s almost as much fun as not finding a hole.”
However, even aside from the kind of approach to storytelling in the two films, there is one fascinating detail that links Fight Club with Memento, a surprising turn that suggests that the two worlds are linked somehow. Upon closer inspection of the two classic works of cinema, one finds that both Marla Singer from Fight Club and Teddy from Memento have the same phone number: 555-0134.
Now, is this just a mere coincidence, or was Nolan – who released his movie after Fincher – toying with the ideas present in both their films, themes of lost memories and confused identities? Both Marla and Teddy are characters that can appear to defy the trust of the audiences, so could they just be linked by this identical phone number?
It’s highly improbable that Nolan had decided to copy the phone number from Fincher’s movie, seeing as he possesses his very own take on the cinematic medium and was early in his career at that point, carving out a name for himself. Still, perhaps even this coincidence proves the link between certain films’ worlds, showcasing the power that cinema has beyond the actions of its directors.
