Fight Club Symposium at Dual Lens

Dual Lens has kicked off their 2004 Symposium, the subject of which is Fight Club:

With movies, as with all art, there are at least three distinct versions. There is the movie meant, the movie made and the movie seen.

[snip]

Fight Club has fascinated me, and earned the attention of the 2004 symposium, because the process of filmmaking has created three versions of the film that overlap and conflict—a set of conjoined triplets, each hating but needing the other two. We are talking about Fight Club, not because it is an unassailable masterpiece, but because it is a flawed, divisive work that highlights what I find to be the most interesting struggle in filmmaking and film watching: what does the director want us to think and why should we care?
As marketing became an avalanche of ads aiming at a booming box office, it assumed a greater role in influencing the audience’s interpretation of the film

No recent film exemplifies the conflict between director and audience more than Fight Club; the film’s intent, altered by the restrictions of filmmaking, has been superseded 5 years on by the meaning that the audience gave the film. The author, and his intended meaning, has been knocked out.

The author, Ian Whitney, exhorts us: "Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule is—you must talk about Fight Club." So head on over there and kick in your $0.02.