A couple of thoughts on Richard's excellent points about _Fight Club_.  To
refresh to situation, I'd originally mentioned a critique of _Fight Club_ in
terms of Nietzsche's Overman.  I think those elements are present, however
Richard brought up the issue of the early Nietzsche.  Now the early
Nietzsche works almost better.  We have Tyler as the Dionysian element in
Jack's brain with Jack proper being the Apollo.  A lot of the elements of
the film can be found in both the myths Nietzsche draws on and _The Birth of
Tragedy_.  Apollo is the transformative (as we see Jack transforming) but
also the rule maker (as even the fight club has rules - it is an ordered
chaos).

The problem is, if Tyler is Dionysus how can he also be the Overman?
Certainly Tyler creates and is that passionate orgasmic drive.  And when he
escapes the bounds of Apollo, Jack must look on in disgust.  But when
Dionysus isn't present as an actual present, Jack's life lack's meaning
(outside the tragedy of the help groups).  Richard also brings up the
question of art.  However Tyler's antics are intrinsically tied to art.  His
acts of revolution and rebellion are tied to art.  Terrorism as art and vice
versa.  (Albeit one carefully tempered so as to avoid loss of life)  Further
the art isn't just traditional art, it is art as life - beings as art.  This
is in keeping with Dionysus.

I think that the solution to this problem of analysis might be found in the
overall issue of "art versus truth" as found in Nietzsche.  Tyler represents
this apothesis of art as the deification of artist.  "He feels himself to be
godlike and strides with the same elation and ecstasy as the gods he as seen
in his dreams. No longer the artist, he has become a work of art." (_The
Birth of Tragedy_, 24)  However there is an Apollo kind of art as well the
art of a different sort of transfiguration.  Both are present and in the
early Nietzsche, as I understand him, it is this balance that he seeks.
Apollo orders a stable opening where Dionysus can manifest.  So Tyler is
this deifying force that creates a new race, akin to Nietzsche's quoting of
Faust

   Here I sit, kneading men
   In my image,
   A race like myself,
   Made to suffer, weep,
   Laugh and delight,
   And forget all about you -
   As I have forgotten.

However Tyler can only do this with Jack.  We should add that Apollo is the
God who is the God of dreams and illusions and it is Jack who creates in his
dream world the Dionysus figure of Tyler.

Where then the Overman?  Heidegger suggests that the Overman is a going up
and over the man that was before.  Thus as Tyler remakes Jack, Jack is going
up and over what he was before.  Yet at the end it is Jack who goes over
Tyler, actually "killing him" (and thereby the division of truth into the
real and apparent worlds).  This final "act" of overcoming by Jack does
appear to be orchestrated by Tyler though.  Yet what is it that Tyler is
doing?  He is awaking Jack to his own self.  (Or is it Jack awakening
himself to his true self?)  The Overman's function is a nihlisitic one.  He
shows the truths of the world - any world - as negation.  Something to be
overcome.  initially this is Tyler leading Jack from the world of
commercialism.  Yet Tyler then takes Jack and shows him this new world of
the fight club taken to extremes.  He intentionally pushes the limits but in
doing so shows the negation of the very thing created.

This isn't done by Tyler alone.  His actions as Dionysus limit him only to
the orgasmic and intoxicating.  It requires Jack's Apollonian nature to see
the perversion of fight club when Bob is killed.  To see how fight club has
become a microcosm of the world and the very thing fought against.  But it
is Tyler who awakens Jack to this (or rather Jack, when he awakes, sees
this)

   But the awakened and knowing say: I am body entirely
   and nothing else... The body is a great reason, a
   plurality with one meaning.  A war and a peace, a
   herd and a shepherd...  Your self laughs at your ego,
   and at its bold leaps.  "What are these leaps and
   flights of thought to me?" it says to itself.  "A
   detour to my end.  I am the leading strings of the
   ego, and the prompter of its concepts."  (_Zarathustra_,
   34-35)

So I think I'll modify my initial concepts somewhat.  It is the actions of
Tyler taken in the context of the whole self of Jack which is the Overman.
A self which is bifurcated and can truly only overcome when that division is
conquered.  Tyler is leading Jack to overcome, but that overcoming at each
step must involve Jack as Apollo.

The question then arises at the end of the film.  Has Jack truly become the
overman?  While I've not read it, I've heard the book ends with Jack in an
asylum, unable to deal with reality and living in the dream world.  This is
Jack as failing.  In the film, things seem more complex.  Is Jack's shooting
of Tyler a return to the "pure" world of Apollo in which the meaning-giving
function of Tyler as Dionysus is lost?   Or is it Jack as accepting Tyler as
a true integral part of himself?

Zarathustra ends with him in the cave surrounded by his children.  There is
the roar of a lion after which Zarathustra looks around in a daze.

  "What did I hear?" he finally said slowly; "what happened
  to me just now?"  And presently memory came to him and
  with a single glance he grasped everything that had
  happened between yesterday and today." (_Z_, 327)

So far, like Jack.  But for the parallel to remain complete we need Jack to
laugh.

  "To my final sin?" shouted Zarathustra, and he laughed
  angrily at his own words; "what was it that was saved up
  for me as my final sin?"   ..."Am I concerned with
  happiness?  I am concerned with my work."  (ibid)

I'd be interested in knowing if something like that last bit was originally
part of the film but taken out as being too strong for the audiences.
Anyone know?