A baby who is born as an old man has a medical anomaly of aging in reverse. Throughout his life, he will meet many people and live through rare adventures that will affect him during much of his life. This is the story of Benjamin Button.
In David Fincher’s film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 short story of the same name, the director expands upon the original text to create a life for Benjamin on screen, which is provided with more characters and events than in the short story. Throughout the film, the director establishes for Benjamin and the audience a vision that expresses how life is as curious as it is unpredictable.
In his essay Adaptation, Dudley Andrew states, “In the history of the arts, surely ‘borrowing’ is the most frequently used mode of adaptation. Here the artist employs, more or less extensively, the material, idea, or form of an earlier, generally successful, text,” (30). This is true for Fincher’s film, because the short story is only 52 pages to begin with. The director made this into a nearly three-hour movie. In order to do this, he mainly “borrowed” the idea from the Fitzgerald story. The only three things that the film has in common with the book are the title, its titular character, and Benjamin’s aging process. The film adds many new characters and plot threads. All of these additions help to contribute to the theme of time, and how it contributes to a feeling of isolation within Benjamin.
In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the element of time factors significantly into the narrative, even more so than in Fitzgerald’s short story. The film displays time as an irrepressible part of our lives that we can’t change, but that leaves impressions that will have a lasting impact on our lives. How our lives are planned out can cause a feeling of isolation, because we know that each person will live differently and have experiences that aren’t similar to everyone else’s. Such is the case with Benjamin and his reversal of aging. To bring Benjamin’s sense of isolation to light, Fincher uses colored and black-and-white old-fashioned film footage in certain scenes, eye-line matches and reaction shots, voiceover narration, the adaptation concept of “borrowing” an idea and much more to translate the story from page to screen.
The film’s opening scene fades into Benjamin’s wife, Daisy, resting on a hospital bed. The makeup that is used shows her as an elderly woman who looks on the verge of passing away. She begins to tell her daughter a story about a clockmaker. In order to tell her story visually, Fincher uses what looks like old-fashioned film footage, which is appropriate, as it’s the type of film footage that Daisy would have watched in her earlier years, although what’s used has color. The scene carries an irony about the clockmaker, because he’s a man who creates an object that tells time, but neither he nor any human being can control time itself. The clockmaker is also blind. This acts as a deeper irony because although we can tell time, we can’t see time as a visual entity.
After his son dies in World War I, he creates a clock for the local train station, which he designs to have moved counter-clockwise. As the clockmaker explains why he did this, Fincher uses footage of soldiers fighting in the war, and shows it in reverse, expressing the desire of the clockmaker and everyone else to move time backward to make things normal again. The giant clock is mostly seen in low-angle shots as the bewildered crowd looks up at it. These camera angles help to illustrate the concept of time as a dominant and unchangeable factor in our lives.
The short story, however, begins with Benjamin telling the reader that he was born in a hospital, when it was common for most babies to be born at home: “As long ago as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at home. At present, so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one,” (Fitzgerald, 1). This beginning quote helps to emphasize to the reader that Benjamin’s life was different from others even before he was born, since his parents decided to have him be delivered in a hospital instead of at home, which is what most families did. Those that read this story back then would understand this. Readers today would think of Benjamin’s parents as being more progressive for having their baby delivered in a hospital. The beginning of the short story sets up the reader to experience with Benjamin a less-than-ordinary life. In the film, he is born at home. However, he is then left on the steps of a retirement home by his father, out of the horror of seeing his son born as an old man. This is suitable for Benjamin, since he looks elderly. His early years are spent in a place that’s meant for people to live their later years. He is at first left alone on the steps, isolated because of his medical condition, until the couple that owns the retirement home brings him in as their own.
Besides the fact that Benjamin is growing younger among people who are growing older, there are recurring encounters between him and an elderly man in the retirement home. Every time they meet, the man tells Benjamin of a different time when he had been struck by lightning. To present this, David Fincher uses silent black and white footage that fits in with the film’s time period. There are several meetings like this. These encounters between Benjamin and the unnamed elderly man assist in putting into further perspective of how rare Benjamin’s condition is. Getting struck by lightning doesn’t happen often, but it can occur. This man was struck by lightning several times, which is already uncommon to happen once. The fact that this happens to the man more than once, highlights how rare Benjamin’s condition is by comparison.
According to Matthew J. Bolton’s essay, “The Curious Adaptation of Benjamin Button: From Fitzgerald’s Satire to Fincher’s Sentimentality,” “…‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ is a fascinating example of the complexities inherent in adapting a story for the screen. In the hands of Fincher and his screenwriter, Eric Roth, Fitzgerald's short, satirical fantasy becomes a sentimental romance. While the broad outline of the plot remains the same - a man is born old and grows progressively younger - the theme and tone of ‘Benjamin Button’ change radically in the adaptation,” (Bolton, 1). In the short story, the idea of a man aging in reverse carries a whimsical and light-hearted feel to it. In Fincher’s adaptation, however, Benjamin’s process of aging-in-reverse is still enchanting because his situation is one-of-a-kind; but it attains a certain hint of tragedy underneath, because as he grows younger, his loved ones grow older and eventually pass away before him. According to Robert Stam’s essay, “Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation,” “Much of literature on adaptation has concentrated on specifically textual operations having to do with plot events and characters. Often we find a kind of condensation of characters. The many Okie families of The Grapes of Wrath are foreshortened into the Joads of the John Ford version,” (71). This is the opposite of Fincher’s film, because since it is based on a short story, the screenwriter has to add characters in order to provide enough material for the film’s running time.
The idea of his friends and family dying before him adds a stronger feeling to Benjamin’s isolation caused by his condition. In one scene in the film, he is with an elderly woman in the retirement home as she gives him a haircut. Benjamin asks her what she would think if he told her he was growing younger instead of older. She replies, “Well, I would feel sorry for you, to have to see everybody you love die before you. It’s an awful responsibility.” This then cuts to a straight-on close-up of Benjamin sitting in the chair with a contemplating and solemn expression on his face. The woman then tells him, “Benjamin, we’re meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they were to us?” The look we see on Benjamin’s face is one that shows that he is recognizing how alone he is. Having him face himself in the mirror heightens the sense of Benjamin’s self-realization. The lighting used in this scene helps to show Benjamin’s conflicted feelings of his condition. He first didn’t think much of it, but he now feels sorry for himself. To show these feelings, Fincher keeps one side of Benjamin’s face in light, but keeps the other side of his face not as well lit.
There is a similar scene in the short story. Benjamin is getting ready for his first day of college, and he looks in a mirror. He sees that his hair is looking white, and must apply some brown dye to it in order to make him appear younger. Mirrors play a small, yet important role in the movie and short story, because they help Benjamin with his coming to terms with his unique condition.
Benjamin’s isolation isn’t always an unfortunate state. Sometimes, isolation can come down to how an individual experiences life. The last scene of the film is narrated by Benjamin. He briefly describes all of the people who have had an impact on his life, including his adoptive parents, his wife Daisy, his birth father and a boat captain: “Some people are born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people dance.” This scene expresses the other side of isolation that we’re not used to thinking about. This isolation deals with how we each experience life in our own different ways, and how varying impacts that certain people and events have on us end up shaping us into the people we eventually become. For each character that is shown, Fincher tracks the camera inward to get closer to each character, so the audience can get a better look at them as Benjamin is describing them. This provides a more emotional attachment to these people. Fincher uses direct cuts as Benjamin lists each person. Throughout this final sequence, Fincher uses non-diegetic sound out of the piece of music that an elderly woman taught Benjamin in the retirement home. This helps to hint at the influence this woman had on Benjamin. This reminds the viewer of an earlier scene when this elderly woman first arrives at the retirement home. Benjamin is narrating while he’s trying to remember her name. He says, “It’s funny how sometimes the people we remember the least make the greatest impression on us.” Having these images and the piano tune in the last scene of the movie puts the audience in Benjamin’s shoes, because we are remembering who he has met as he’s remembering at the same time.
In the short story, however, the ending is different and less poignant than the film’s ending: “Through the noons and nights he breathed and over him there were soft mumblings and murmurings that he scarcely heard, and faintly differentiated smells, and light and darkness. Then it was all dark, and his white crib and the dim faces that moved above him, and the warm sweet aroma of the milk, faded out altogether from his mind,” (Fitzgerald, 52). The short story’s ending simply has Benjamin forgetting everything as a baby and eventually passing away, and the whole story is in the third-person. The film, however, is narrated by Benjamin, so the story is told in the first-person. Although he loses his memories in the end of the movie, he’s able to recount his experiences later on in the final scene because of the first-person narration and the use of visuals. It wouldn’t make as much sense to do so in the book, since we have neither visuals nor a first-person narration.
In the beginning of the death scene in the film, the camera tracks inwards toward an elderly Daisy sitting in a chair and holding an infant Benjamin. There is some side lighting from a window in the room, as well as some backlighting from another window in the room; but the lighting is dim, which adds to this scene’s melancholy atmosphere. On this part, Daisy is narrating, and she says that she could tell that Benjamin still remembered who she was. During this, we have a close-up shot of Benjamin as he looks up at Daisy, which then cuts to a low-angle close-up eye-line shot from Benjamin’s point-of-view. There isn’t much light that is placed on Benjamin’s face, which emphasizes that he is close to the end of his life and is forgetting everything he knows. Daisy’s face is only half lit. The half-lit section of her face emphasizes that she is the last person that Benjamin will see; but the unlit part shows that Benjamin’s memory is almost done fading away, and Daisy will soon fade from his sight and mind. He soon dies, and the camera then tracks outwards, in order to show Benjamin’s departure from this life. This scene captures the tone of Fitzgerald’s story because both the film and text have a magical quality to it, since Benjamin’s condition is one-of-a-kind; but it ends on a solemn note, because despite Benjamin being very different from everyone, he still passes away like everyone else. He and all others have the same destination.
The theme of isolation is also shown in the sequence when Benjamin has to leave his wife so she won’t be burdened with having to take care of their newborn daughter and him as he continues to grow younger. The beginning of this scene also touches upon the isolation Daisy experiences. This scene takes place in the dim light of the early morning, which contributes to the overall atmosphere of gloominess. There is some diegetic sound of quiet early morning noises from outside, such as birds chirping. There isn’t any music, except for a piano softly playing for a few seconds in the beginning of the scene as non-diegetic sound. This contributes to the ambiance of the scene because it helps reflect the moods of Benjamin and Daisy, those of sadness and uncertainty. As Benjamin exits the bedroom, there is an eyeline-match through Daisy’s point-of-view as she watches. He is seen for a few seconds positioned in the doorframe. This is then followed by a deep-focus shot of Daisy seen through the doorframe while she is sitting up in her bed. These two shots of Benjamin and Daisy positioned between the door frames not only show the feeling of isolation, but the feeling of entrapment as well. They were put into this situation, and time is a controlling factor for their relationship, because they both know that it’s only a matter of time before Daisy becomes an elderly woman and Benjamin becomes an infant.
This is then followed by a sequence that shows Benjamin traveling across the world and residing in different and exotic places. At one point, he has a job as a janitor. Then, he gets a job working at a security booth; and then, gets a place of his own later on. While this sequence is happening, David Fincher uses the shaky-camera technique for the shots. This plays a role in making the viewer, for these few minutes, feel like they are watching footage of a real person having these experiences. We relate to Benjamin throughout the film because we feel the same urge to make the most out of our lives the way we want to, and the shaky-camera approach helps us to become more attached to his character. In the original text, however, Benjamin doesn’t travel too much. He does things such as go to kindergarten, have a family, attend college, play college football and graduate, in that order.
Just like snowflakes, there aren’t two lives that are alike. We all go through life and follow different paths that can take us anywhere. A person can feel alone at times, because they aren’t certain where their life will guide them. Both the film and short story of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button take this into consideration as they place their titular character in a life that is unlived by anyone else. With a wider expanse of plot and characters than the short story, the film adaptation captures, to a greater degree, the magical and tragic accounts of a man who is aging in reverse, but is trying to move forward with his life.
Works Cited
Andrew, Dudley. “Adaptation.” Film Adaptation. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000. 28-37.
Stam, Robert. “Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Film Adaptation.” Film Adaptation. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000. 54-76.
Bolton, Matthew J. “The Curious Adaptation of Benjamin Button: From Fitzgerald’s Satire to Fincher’s Sentimentality.” Critical Insights: F. Scott Fitzgerald. Pgs. 73-87. Literary Reference Center. EBSCOhost. Oct. 2010. http://search.ebscohost.com.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. New York: Scribner, 1922.
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