There is a common thread that unites many sitting and aspiring political leaders around the world, from Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping to Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans. All want to secure power and exercise it in arbitrary, unaccountable ways – precisely the threat that used to unite the international left.
LJUBLJANA – At the end of David Fincher’s 1999 film, Fight Club, the unnamed narrator (played by Edward Norton) dispatches his alter ego, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), and then watches as the buildings around him burst into flames, fulfilling his and his alter ego’s desire to destroy modern civilization. But in the Chinese version released earlier this year, the ending was replaced with an English-language title card explaining that, “The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding. After the trial, Tyler was sent to a lunatic asylum to receive psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012.”
LJUBLJANA – At the end of David Fincher’s 1999 film, Fight Club, the unnamed narrator (played by Edward Norton) dispatches his alter ego, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), and then watches as the buildings around him burst into flames, fulfilling his and his alter ego’s desire to destroy modern civilization. But in the Chinese version released earlier this year, the ending was replaced with an English-language title card explaining that, “The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding. After the trial, Tyler was sent to a lunatic asylum to receive psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012.”