The film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” was released on February 5, 2009 (worldwide December 10, 2008). The film was received very warmly by the audience. The film is based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. And in 2009, the film received an Oscar in the categories: Best Set Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Makeup.
Director: David Fincher
Genre: fantasy, drama
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Julia Ormond, Taraji P. Henson, Jason Flemyng, Jared Harris, Tilda Swinton, Mahershala Ali, Elle Fanning, Elias Koteas, etc.
History of creation
The author of the story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is the American writer Francis Scott Fitzgerald. This text was first published in May 1922 in Collier's Weekly. The story was later included in the book “Stories from the Jazz Age.”
Writer Francis Scott Fitzgerald
The rights to the story were then acquired by Hollywood producer Ray Stark, who retained these rights until his own death in 2004. Then the film rights were sold, and in 2008, director David Fincher released a film of the same name based on this story.
In the world of cinema fans, Fitzgerald is also known for his novel The Great Gatsby, published in 1925. The novel has been filmed five times. The last film was released in 2013, and Leonardo DiCaprio played the main role.
Directed by David Fincher
Fitzgerald's unfinished novel The Last Tycoon, published posthumously, was adapted into a TV series of the same name in 2021. In it, Hitler's government tries to control the Hollywood film business, and the main character Monroe Star tries to resist the Third Reich and his own corrupt boss.
Fitzgerald himself also wrote scripts for films, although most of the scripts created by the writer were rejected. With the participation of Fitzgerald, the films “Three Comrades” were released in 1938 and “Grit” in 1924.
The Benjamin Button Story
In Fitzgerald's story, baby Benjamin resembles an elven changeling in early childhood. The hero's body is already in such a state at birth as if he were over seventy, and at the same time the baby Benjamin is able to speak.
Birth of Benjamin Button
Roger, the boy's father, wants to see a normal child in his son and orders him to play with children's toys. Benjamin himself shows no interest in toys or children of the same age as him. The hero plays with the neighborhood boys and takes part in children's activities only in order to gain sympathy from his father.
When Benjamin turns five, he is sent to kindergarten. However, the hero constantly falls asleep during children's games and Benjamin is quickly sent back home. When the boy turns twelve years old, the Button family notices that the son seems to be slowly getting younger, and not growing up and aging like the people around him.
At eighteen years old, Benjamin looks fifty years old. To look younger, the guy dyes his hair and tries to get into Yale University. However, on the day of registration, as luck would have it, Benjamin runs out of hair dye. University officials send the hero home, deciding that this is a crazy old man.
"Childhood" by Benjamin Button
The hero continues to grow up and get younger. Benjamin gets his own company and a son named Roscoe. In 1910, the hero transfers control of the office to his son, and he again tries to enter the university, this time Harvard. At this time, Benjamin already looks twenty years old, the hero registers without any problems and tastes the sweet fruits of student life.
The hero successfully studies at Harvard and plays American football. Benjamin even gets a chance to take revenge on Yale University, where the hero was not accepted in the past, by defeating the Yale team on the playing field.
Benjamin Button's hairstyle
After graduating from university, the hero returns home - even more rejuvenated. Roscoe’s own son forces Benjamin to call him “uncle” in front of the guests and treats the hero unkindly. By the time the hero returned from Harvard, Benjamin’s wife had already left for Italy.
As the years go by, the hero turns first into a capricious teenager, and then into a child. By that time, Roscoe has his own son, and he goes to kindergarten with his grandfather, since Benjamin looks exactly the same age as his grandson.
Benjamin Button - art
Having become even smaller, Benjamin stops going to kindergarten and begins to forget his own past. The hero slowly loses his memory until the only memory left is the nurse who cares for him. After that, everything dissolves into darkness.
Film adaptations
In 2008, the film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” was released, directed by David Fincher, where Brad Pitt played the main role. Filming began in 2006 and took place in and around New Orleans. The hero was played by the same actor at all stages of life, and visual effects and a special camera were used to show age-related metamorphoses, right up to infancy.
Fincher's team received a bouquet of awards for this film, including an Oscar for best special effects, best work of make-up artists and production designers. Actress Tilda Swinton, who played the role of Elizabeth Abbott in the film, received the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.
The plot of the film bears little resemblance to the Fitzgerald story on which it is based. The script preserves only the name of the main character, what concerns the process of “reverse” aging to which the hero is subject, as well as the title of the story itself.
Still from the film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
The film retells the events based on the entries that Benjamin Button left in his diary. A hero is born on the day the First World War ends. This is the first difference between the film adaptation and the story, since in Fitzgerald the action begins six decades earlier - before the outbreak of the American Civil War.
Newborn Benjamin looks like an eighty-year-old man, the hero's body is covered with wrinkles, and his legs are atrophied. The baby terrifies his own dad, and he puts Benjamin in a nursing home. There, the kind nurse Queenie takes care of the child. The strange baby, instead of dying, looks a little better every month and is slowly getting younger.
Newborn Benjamin Button
The hero’s body lives “in the opposite direction,” but the mind and feelings develop in the same way as other people. In a nursing home, a “young old man” falls in love with the granddaughter of an old lady - and this creates difficulties for the hero. The events of the film continue until 2005, when the hero dies in the guise of a newborn baby.
There are a number of interesting facts associated with the film. In his prime—the age when the hero looks like a tough guy, a strong young man—Benjamin rides an iconic motorcycle, a red Indian Scout 101. This motorcycle was released in 1928, and Benjamin himself was born ten years earlier. This shows the hero’s attachment to things from his strange “old” childhood.
Benjamin Button on a motorcycle
The story of Benjamin Button itself is, of course, a literary fiction, but in the film adaptation there is one episode based on real events. This is the story in the film about a dwarf who lived in a cage for monkeys.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a mysterious monkey-like creature lived in the Bronx Zoo. The creature was sitting in one of the enclosures and rushed at anyone who approached it. Ultimately, the creature was removed from the enclosure and after examination it was determined that it was a human, a dwarf from the Congo. After adaptation, this man even worked for some time at a local tobacco factory. This is how amazing things that happen in life inspire filmmakers.
Progeria disease
Although a specific prototype of Benjamin Button never existed, there is such a disease as progeria. In this disease, the human body ages eight times faster than normal, so that young children suffering from it look like old people. Of course, this diagnosis does not promise the patient such bright prospects as in the film - no rejuvenation occurs over time. The biography of Benjamin Button in this sense is much more optimistic than the stories of real progeria patients.
The plot of the film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2008)
The film is about a man who was born at the age of 80, and then... began to look younger. This man, like each of us, could not stop time. His path into the 21st century, beginning in New Orleans in 1918 at the very end of the First World War, will be so unusual that it could hardly have taken place in the life of anyone else. The film tells about the fate of a unique person, about the people and events that await him ahead, about the love that he will gain and lose, about the joys of life and the sadness of losses and about what remains with us beyond time.
Quotes
In the film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” there are many motivational moments that are divided into excerpts and quotes from the film:
“Believe me, it’s never too late, or in my case it’s never too early, to be who you want to be. There is no time limit, start whenever you want.”
“They are going in the opposite direction! I made them so that the boys we lost in the war could get up and come home again. To your native land, to your job, to have children, to live a long, fulfilling life. Perhaps my own son will someday return home again. Sorry if I offended anyone. I hope you enjoy my watch."
“It’s funny how sometimes the people we remember least are the ones who leave the greatest impression on us.”
“Don't let anyone tell you that you're not like that. You must do what you were created for!
I was born to be a damn artist!”
“Someone is born to sit by the river. Someone gets struck by lightning. Someone has an ear for music. Someone is an artist. Some swim. Someone knows everything about buttons. And some - Shakespeare. Someone is made to be a mother. And someone... is dancing."
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
What are you looking at, Caroline? - Wind, mom. They say a hurricane is approaching. I feel like I'm on a boat... drifting. Is there anything I can do for you, mom? Any way to ease your suffering? Oh my sweetness. There's nothing you can do anymore. Everything is as it is. It's getting harder and harder for me to keep my eyes open. As if mouth was full of... cotton Hush, hush, Miss Daisy. You will hurt yourself. Shall I give you another pill, ma? The doctor said you can drink as much as you want. Nobody wants you to suffer. A friend of mine said... that she did not have the opportunity to say goodbye to her mother. I wanted to tell you... how much I'm going to miss you. Mother. Oh Caroline. You're scared? - I'm interested. What will happen next... The station was completed in 1918. Our father attended the opening ceremony. He said that there was a brass band playing there. They had to find the best watchmaker in the entire South to create a magnificent watch. His name was Mister Gateau. Mr Cake. He was married to a Creole from an Evangelical parish. and they had a son. Mr. Gateau has been blind since birth. Having reached adulthood, the son went to war. They prayed to God that nothing would happen to him. For months he focused exclusively on creating watches. And then one day they received a letter. Doomed to eternal night, Mr. Gateau went to bed alone. And their son returned home. They buried him in the family grave so that he would be there when their time came. Work on the clock was coming to an end. It was a memorable morning. Dad said there were a lot of people there. Even Teddy Roosevelt came. They are going in the opposite direction! I made them so that the boys we lost in the war could get up and come home again. To your native land, to your job, to have children, to live a long, fulfilling life. Perhaps my own son will someday return home again. Sorry if I offended anyone. I hope you enjoy my watch. From then on, no one ever saw Mr. Cake again. Someone said that he died of a broken heart. Someone that he went sailing... Excuse me, do you mind if I go and make a call? My little boy is being looked after. - Certainly. I hope I didn't disappoint you. You couldn't disappoint me. Well, I... I know that I have almost nothing to brag about. Suitcase. There's a diary there. This? Could you read it to me, dear? - Is this what you want? Hundreds of times I tried to read it... Mom, I... Just the sound of your voice, dear. Dated April 4, 1985. "New Orleans" This is my last will and testament. I have almost nothing to bequeath, some things, almost no money. I will leave this world the same way I came.
