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Integration and Rebirth through Confrontation: Fight Club and American Beauty as Contemporary Religious Parables

2002; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 17; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13537900120098165

1469-9419

Christopher Deacy,

Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes

This article discusses the religious significance of two recent American films which raise pertinent questions about the nature and quality of human existence, its anxieties and aspirations, at the turn of the millennium. Both David Fincher's Fight Club and Sam Mendes's American Beauty wrestle with the efficacy of confrontation as a means of attaining redemption from the disconnectedness and estrangement that characterise the lives of the protagonists in each of these pictures. The import that the trajectories of the characters have for the film audience will also be examined, insofar as the films are accredited by some viewers with helping to facilitate a remedy to the malaise and disaffection in their lives, which the protagonists exemplify.