Get Lost In These Movies About Secret Societies
Enter the shadows with us this week as we explore movies about secret organizations
Happy Friday, DYLA subscribers! This week both of our recommendations involve secret societies. This type of movie drops its audience deep into an underworld that they wouldn’t normally have access to, exploring the clandestine group’s customs and the people that inhabit it. For more movies with secret societies, check out this list on MUBI. Enjoy your weekend, stay out of the heat, and watch a new movie or two!
Billy recommends…
Odd Man Out (streaming on The Criterion Channel)
“This story is told against a background of political unrest in a city of Northern Ireland.
It is not concerned with the struggle between the law and an illegal organisation, but only with the conflict in the hearts of the people when they become unexpectedly involved.”
Odd Man Out opens with the text above. It is an attempt to alleviate the audience of adding their own subtext to the movie. Director Carol Reed is more interested in the polarization of a notoriously secretive organization. Leader of the Irish Republican Army (in this movie it’s just called “the Organisation”), Johnny McQueen has recently escaped from prison and has set up a risky robbery that ends with him being injured and killing a man trying to stop the robbery. In the chaos he is left behind and we are sent on a wild goose chase. The Belfast police are going door to door searching for the notorious figure.
McQueen’s cronies don’t trust him anymore because he got soft in prison, the kids in Belfast mimic/immortalize his debauchery similar to how John Dillinger became a legend in the States, and the everyday citizens are intrigued and horrified of the events that transpired. A man that is not worthy of “being cool,” but we can’t help but be attracted to these types of figures.
Odd Man Out seems like a brilliantly made film with no other goal than to tell a story about a dangerous man trying to survive and the community's reaction to an injured man. What makes this story so brilliant is how it sneakily shows a wonderful insight on the human condition. McQueen’s friends in the organization are trying to save the face of their political movement. Citizens that have complete hatred for this group develop immediate empathy when face to face with an injured man.
Reed doesn’t show us the ins and outs of a political organization, but a small town’s conflict that didn’t ask to be involved. Movies that create these niche perspectives in a genre like noir trojan horse a deeper message. A message that can be completely ignored if you want to. Ultimately this is a wild goose chase noir that is masterfully made that sets the stage for the next 30+ years of cinema.
Drew recommends…
Fight Club (streaming on Amazon Prime)
You only need to take a look at Fight Club’s poster with that pink bar of soap to realize that this film is about way more than just an underground fight club. Some of the best movies with a secret society at the center are the ones that start out as one thing before veering wildly into entirely unpredictable territory. Because of this, Fight Club remains one of the most divisive and provocative studio movies that Hollywood has ever produced.
Based on the Chuck Palahniuk book and directed by David Fincher, Fight Club is an extremely rich text that can’t be adequately covered in this brief space. What begins as the story of an unnamed Narrator (Edward Norton) who -- while depressed by his tedious white collar job -- creates a fight club with a carefree charmer named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) turns into much, much more. I will just say that I see this movie very differently than I did when I first saw it at 18 years old. Back then I was drawn in by Fight Club’s sardonic attack on materialism, vanity, and modern manhood. These days I’m less enamored by its philosophy, still in awe of its ballsy ambition, and even more impressed by the elite level of slick filmmaking on display. I don’t think Fight Club endorses the ideas the film’s detractors claim it does. In fact, the more valid criticism is that it has no specific ideology to promote at all.
However, there are a few things about Fight Club that were true in 1999 and remain true today. For one, the lead actors are all perfectly cast. Norton strikes the right tone of the desperate and numb young man with an untapped inner rage, while Pitt’s Greek god physicality and effortless cool make for an ideal counterpoint. Helena Bonham Carter as Marla is both dangerously appealing and repulsive. It’s also true that this is as precisely shot and edited as movies come. This is the height of Fincher in bombastic visual stylist mode. Where his recent work has been much more restrained, 90s Fincher used every trick in his bag to announce himself as a limitless talent.
READ: Director Spotlight: David Fincher
Fincher has been quoted by Norton as describing Fight Club as “a serious film made by deeply unserious people.” There’s a bleak and ironic sense of humor to the movie that has helped Fight Club live on in the pop cultural imagination. (The massive twist and explosive ending probably have something to do with this as well.) Not only is this one of the most notable cult films of the last 25 years (while it bombed at the box office, the DVD sales were off the charts), it’s also an iconic generational touchstone. Some may have co-opted the wrong message (like, that you need to pummel another human being to feel alive), but Fight Club will have a long legacy because of how solidly it tapped into the angst and id of a generation.
Links
Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, and Kathryn Hahn are in dark comedy mode in The Shrink Next Door, an Apple TV series about therapy that premieres on November 12. Watch the trailer here.
Peter Jackson has spent the last few years diving into a treasure trove of never-before-seen Beatles footage from behind-the-scenes of their final album. The Beatles: Get Back will land on Disney Plus in three two-hour segments over Thanksgiving.