By Tim Nasson
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — “This is going to be the biggest homo movie ever.”
That is what Brad Pitt says Fight Club director David Fincher predicted when shooting the film last year. Fincher’s premonition is not far off. While Fight Club is not an out-and-out gay film, it certainly pushes buttons and causes the viewer, for quite a while, to wonder what exactly is going on.
“David [Fincher] certainly punched up the gay aspect of the film,” says Pitt. Wearing-form fitting dark green draw-string cargo pants, a small yellow T-shirt, and sandals, Pitt exuded a lot of sensuality along with his interpretation of his most recent film.
According to reports I have heard and read recently, the director of the film is denying ever having made those comments. That would be kind of foolish. Because not only did Pitt allow insight into the director’s comments on the set of Fight Club, so did Fight Club creator (and author) Chuck Palcheck.
“I definitely intentionally wrote the story in a homoerotic style,” Palcheck says. “And David Fincher understood and appreciated that. He was … in his words ‘going to make the biggest homo movie ever.'”
“It is fine with me if people who go to see the film take it as a homoerotic film. That is what was intended all along, as far as I know,” explains Pitt.
“My interpretation of the whole story is that my character and Ed Norton’s are so fucked up that we have to sort ourselves out before we take on the responsibility of another person. With that said, in all seriousness, let me say that Ed [Norton] and I are lovers and are very happy with each other. We have become so close since making the film. It was meant to be.”
Never the person to take himself seriously, Pitt is unafraid to make fun of himself or be a little controversial. Not afraid of being a funny guy and taking life with a grain of salt allows Pitt to enable himself to joke around and be comfortable with his sexuality. He is engaged to “Friends” actress Jennifer Aniston, and says he is happier than ever.
“Making Fight Club was hard work, but well worth the effort,” says Pitt, sitting in a suite at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills four weeks before the film’s release.
The homoerotic elements in the film come at you from the very beginning, when Norton and Pitt meet on a plane. They seem to take to one another immediately. Then, not too much later, they bump into each other again and begin, what seems to be a bizarre relationship.
While many may label Fight Club a big studio “art” film or an “intellectual” film, Pitt does not agree.
“I was motivated to work on Fight Club by an intense personal connection to ideas in the film. However, with so many people taking this film seriously, they are neglecting to realize that this is a satire. It is NOT meant to be taken seriously at all. People watching the film may squirm a little. Not only because of the homoerotic element, but also because of the violence. If they are smart, they will figure out that these two guys, [himself and Norton’s characters] are not in love with each other but …, ” he says, his voice trailing off. “I don’t want to give away the surprise to those who are going to be reading your article,” he says.
By not giving anything away, suffice it to say that Pitt and Norton are members of a Fight Club. (As is the immensely successful rock singer Meat Loaf, who has a pair of breasts in the film that he says weighed 16 pounds each.) A club in which hot guys strip and wrestle each other to the ground with no mercy. Grabbing, touching, kicking, holding. And that is all I am going to say.
The bizarre film showcases Helena Bonham-Carter in her best role yet, and exposes much of Brad Pitt’s, Edward Norton’s, and Bonham-Carter’s bodies. But to even try to explain the film would be giving away too much.
Pitt, who is well along into a career that began more than a decade ago, is now in his mid-30s. Having received an Academy Award nomination for Twelve Monkeys — an equally disturbing, bizarre, yet amazing film — and acclaim for his roles in Seven, Thelma and Louise, A River Runs Through It, Legends of the Fall and Interview with the Vampire, has allowed Pitt the ability to slowly get used to interviews and the film-making world in general.
“I’ve had problems with the press in the past,” says Pitt. “Who doesn’t?”
“But many have gotten to know and understand my need for a certain amount of privacy and I have come to respect their need to get a story and bring to readers what they want to know about certain stars,” he adds.
Pitt, of course, does not need to be reminded about the invasion of privacy that one photographer took a couple of years ago while Pitt was walking nude along a private beach five thousand miles away from his home in Los Angeles.
“Some people just don’t have a heart,” he says of that intruding photographer.
By taking chances with roles in films such as Twelve Monkeys, Seven, and Fight Club, Pitt is poised to become the next Paul Newman. An actor who can last a very long time in a profession that seems to pick a new “favorite” every two weeks.
Brad Pitt Interview with Tim Nasson for Fight Club
