Film

Fight Club looks like someone just opened up the book and the movie popped out, like Princess Leia being projected from R2-D2. Despite its slick, digital feel (the apartment-as-an-IKEA-catalog scene, the camera trip through Edward Norton's body, our POV panning out through a trashcan), the movie was shot on film. Lots of it. Fincher shot over 1,500 rolls of film on over seventy sets and locales across Los Angeles. 

Fincher's commitment to reality makes the film's gritty atmosphere almost tangible, like Brad Pitt is going to reach from the screen and punch you in the face (which would mean that maybe, just maybe, we could reach inside the movie and stroke his fur jacket).

But the film's digital effects (the aforementioned internal tracking shots, for example, and the exploding buildings of the finale) make Fight Club seem dreamlike. Or maybe like a nightmare…depending on who you are.