Screening of FIGHT CLUB with Guest Speaker Richard Wrangham February 8, 2010

The Coolidge Corner Theatre's Science on Screen series goes ape on Monday, February 8 at 7 pm with a special screening of the cult favorite Fight Club, paired with a talk by Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham, co-author of Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence.

Directed by David Fincher from the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club was one of the most talked about films of the 1990s for its controversial takes on violence, manhood and consumer culture. Brad Pitt and Edward Norton star as two frustrated 30-somethings who form an underground group where young men channel primal aggression into brutal, bare-knuckled brawls that leave them feeling exhilarated and alive. The concept catches on, with secret fight clubs forming in other cities until a sensuous eccentric (Helena Bonham Carter) gets in the way and ignites an out-control spiral toward oblivion.

Before the film, Richard Wrangham talks about why men like to fight, what makes human violence unique compared to other primates, why we are wired to relish certain kinds of aggression more than others -- and why we shouldn't assume that male violence is inevitable.

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