The disastrous Venice premiere of ‘Fight Club’
David Fincher’s Fight Club is now a certified cult classic, a favourite of film bros, and a staple in Letterboxd top fours, but it wasn’t always this way. When the subversive movie was first unveiled to the world at the Venice Film Festival in 1999, it seemed the only audience members enjoying themselves were stars Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.
The cast and crew of Fight Club knew that the movie wouldn’t be an immediate commercial hit. Critiquing capitalism and ideas of masculinity through gritty cinematography and offensive dialogue, appealing to wide audiences was never Fincher’s aim. Expectedly, the first screening of Fight Club startled Venice attendees, leaving them stunned into silence or outraged enough to boo the film.
While their unassuming viewers were shocked by the scenes presented to them on-screen, Norton and Pitt had enjoyed a joint together before the showing. “It was the Venice Film Festival and it was a midnight screening,” Pitt recalled during a conversation with People, “For some reason, we thought it would be a good idea to smoke a joint before.”
“The movie starts, first joke comes up, and it’s crickets; it’s dead silence. Another joke, and it’s just dead silent… this thing is just not translating at all,” he explained. Their fellow cinema-goers might not have been enjoying the experience, but Pitt and Norton were having the time of their lives.
“The more it happened, the funnier it got to Edward and I,” Pitt continued, “So we just start laughing. We’re the a–holes in the back laughing at our own jokes. The only ones laughing.” It’s easy to understand why the humour of the film didn’t quite translate on first viewing. It’s dark and daring, sometimes so much so that it can alienate viewers.
Norton even remembered some viewers booing the screening “very loudly” while recalling the experience on The Late Late Show, but even the sounds of boos couldn’t drown out the pride he and his co-star felt for the feature. In fact, they only served to enhance the meaning and impact of the film.
“As the credits went up Brad looked at me and said, ‘That’s the best movie I’m ever gonna be in,’” Norton remembered, “and I said, ‘Me too.’ And it didn’t matter, it was… it was almost like if no one was booing we hadn’t pushed it far enough.” The film certainly pushed the limits, and while that may have limited its success at the time of release, it has only served the cult reputation of the film in the long run.
