I haven’t seen CCoBB yet, but you wrote: “I know there is a post on this movie already, but it’s a 360 turn from that one.”
I think you meant “a 180 degree turn”. 360 is a full circle.
Um, I meant 360. THX for the correction, 180 is correct but 360 sounded better!
It is undoubtedly the most touching tale of romance I have ever seen. Even with a slower narrative, unbearable Katrina interludes the movie packs in ample entertainment, good deal of emotions, poetic flow, arresting visuals and a commendable performance from Brad Pitt. come to think of it – its been a long time since I praised a movie that came out in the recent years.
I personally found it to be a bloated film where the thematic statements are spoon-fed to the audience and is filled with countless unnecessary subplots that eventually arrive no where. The title character is practically flat despite Brad Pitts enthused and melancholic performance.
… and the forrest gump self-plagiarizing didn’t help it.
Then it it isn’t for you, Kurt. Not disapproving you, of course. But Fincher’s a pretty exacting director, one who avoids spoon feeding the audience. Look at his filmography, they’re filled with films that challenge the audience. BB is pissing people off because the mindset of what a blockbuster can be is narrow minded in a sector of the audience who can’t appreciate unique movies no more. Not saying that’s what you’re saying, I’ve said all I have to say above. All answers are valid, but the film is very well constructed.
Then it it isn’t for you, Kurt. Not disapproving you, of course. But Fincher’s a pretty exacting director, one who avoids spoon feeding the audience. Look at his filmography, they’re filled with films that challenge the audience. BB is pissing people off because the mindset of what a blockbuster can be is narrow minded in a sector of the audience who can’t appreciate unique movies no more. Not saying that’s what you’re saying, I’ve said all I have to say above. All answers are valid, but the film is very well constructed. Judging by your taste in auteurs, I find your answer a little bit curious…
To be honest, Alan, I think you put more thought into the film than Eric Roth or David Fincher did.
I understand everything you’re saying, and the only thing I greatly disagree with (besides the overall positive assessment of the movie) is your statement that many people who dislike the film may simply be too young to “get” it. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that such a statement is offensive to the intelligence of many people on this site, myself included (being a young buck of twenty-three) who happened to dislike the film.
You are 100% correct about it being a film that has so far been greatly appreciated by the elderly community, though. This could be attributed to fantastical wish-fulfillment on their part, however, and a general love of melodrama that people beyond their 70’s seem to have.
I also feel that, in no way, is Benjamin Button a film of much subtext, as you’ve implied. It’s all shmaltz and it’s all available to see directly in front of you. There’s little need to think deep about what’s behind the curtain. I’m pretty sure all you’ll find back there is a bank of computers and some stage props… and maybe a copy of The Dummies Guide to Screenwriting.
Thank you for your insights Brandon. I think I might have dissected it too much, it made such an impression on me that well, it’s better than not expressing it ya know? I didn’t want to imply that younger people didn’t “get it”, I could care less what audiences think. However what I said was that it helps if you’ve lived life a little longer and taken the bumps to appreciate it. Another film I’ve felt similar to is The Wrestler. If you reach your 30’s you’d probably find subtext in this movie that doesn’t exist now. That’s just my hunch. When I was your age, there where many films whose intellectual ideas where experienced differently. I’ll stick to my point and say age is important when appreciating Benjamin Button. Sorry, but it’s true. Remember Titanic? I didn’t give a flying damn about that movie, and felt it was teenage pandering with a doomed disaster along the way. But why is it the highest grossing film in history? because it connected with people. There are few movies that can transport you to their world, and raise questions that intellectually stimulate while also entertain. Benjamin Button represents big budget storytelling well enough to the confinements of it’s template.
Another topic I wanted to point out was about today’s attention spans, and what constitutes a good movie. I appreciate something that doesn’t spell it out for you, like lesser filmmakers with higher grosses do. Anything philosophical (it is a movie about death) is bound to hit people a certain way. There’s no way to please everyone, it isn’t very complicated, but it’s one of those films either people love or hate. The central question of the post is…how much does an epic blockbuster need to accomplish to please, and does it accomplish what it sets out to do?
I think it does, but it’s enjoyment depends on people buying it or not. The subtleties of the story. Eric Roth’s screenplay is very tightly focused on it’s conceit, and that’s all it’s supposed to do. The direction takes care of the rest. In some cases like these, what movies can you connect to about life?
You raise some good points, I think you’re also right. If you dislike the film, well then you don’t think it merits such subtext. I happen to think it does, otherwise. One thing I go as far to say is you didn’t connect with it the way some films have the ability to do.
I’m curious to know which films have you connected to philosophically? it’ll greatly enhance your theory of computer banks and dummies guide to screenwriting, if that’s what you saw. Like Fincher said “movies make a pact with their audience”, that statement is true.
Hold up, another one I’ll point out is Eyes Wide Shut. That’s another movie that most people was indifferent to upon it’s release, and like all Kubrick films, is appreciated later when people get their heads around it. It’s a movie full of subtext, and I understand why people hate it too. Ambiguity is a cancer for most, a drug for some. Kubrick (and to a lesser extent…Fincher) made films that didn’t telegraph the audience, because they respected what they brought to the movie is as much what the people take out of it. I went back and I watched it. I found the subtleties more striking. Being married added another dimension to it.
I’ll agree with the original poster; BB is under appreciated, especially among the “auteur” crowd. I also think that 17-year-olds can still emotionally connect to the movie.
You know, not once have I seen a BB hater write a well thought out, detailed review on why they didn’t like the film. Every time somebody goes to take a dump on it (which happens a lot) it’s always the same two sentence “lol this movie sucks and doesn’t say anything” post. Alan, that was an absolutely amazing post and summarizes everything I loved about the film. If only the haters would put as much thought into why they don’t like the film I’d take them a little more seriously, but as it stands the BB hate reeks of snowballing elitism.
Well, here’s my review of why I didn’t like BENJAMIN BUTTON. It may not be quite detailed enough, as I only sat through the film once. I certainly understand that there are folks who like it:
A strange choice for director David Fincher. There’s no denying the visual impact of his best work, but there’s also no denying the emotional coldness either. SEVEN and FIGHT CLUB are two of the most famous examples of Bleak Chic, films that revel in their own status as Hip Cynical Bummers. ZODIAC upped the ante a good deal, combining Fincher’s trademark visual finesse with a group of characters that seemed to have some connection to reality. BENJAMIN BUTTON seems to offer Fincher the chance to join the Major Director Club, to move from Chilly Technician to Soulful Visionary. Alas, it doesn’t work. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON has all the heart and soul and passion and warmth of Dick Cheney.
BENJAMIN BUTTON is the story of a man who ages in reverse. Born as a miniature version of an old man, an infant with gray hair and arthritis, he gradually gets younger as he gets older. He gets more limber, his hair gains color, and he basically becomes Brad Pitt (a mixed blessing, as it turns out). Benjamin’s journey from Youthful Old Age to Aged Youthfulness spans about 80 years from WWI to Hurricane Katrina, he witnesses assorted Big Events of the Century, and occasionally meets up with his One True Love Daisy, played by Cate Blanchett.
Comparisons with FORREST GUMP can’t be avoided, and BUTTON has GUMP’s screenwriter, one Eric Roth. GUMP and BUTTON are both set in a Louisiana where things like race and money are never issues. Benjamin’s youthful use of crutches to walk echoes Forrest’s “magic legs,” and the on-again off-again decade-hopping romance between Benjamin and Daisy is a replay of Forrest’s affair with the doomed Jenny. BUTTON has a strange symbolic hummingbird that implausibly shows up at strategic times, a la GUMP’s famous feather. Roth also tosses in elements of THE ENGLISH PATIENT, in a framing device showing Daisy on her deathbed having her daughter read Benjamin’s diary to her as Hurricane Katrina prepares to rage outside.
Think about it. A combination of FORREST GUMP and THE ENGLISH PATIENT.
Still with me? The movie aims hard at being a fantastic-type meditation on time, love and loss. All the signifiers of Hollywood’s version of Serious Cinema are there: luscious production values, cutting edge technology, Oscar-winning actors from abroad, distinguished literary pedigree, nearly three hour length and all that. The movie is a big fat piece of Oscar bait, perhaps the most blatant since the atrocious COLD MOUNTAIN. Fincher seems to have studied Anthony Minghella closely, as it happens: no film since Minghella’s passing shows his influence so thoroughly. There’s a total lack of passion and energy that the director of THE ENGLISH PATIENT and COLD MOUNTAIN would instantly recognize as his own, combined with that Mingellian Delusion Of Relevance that makes his films such agony to sit through. The film goes through its carefully orchestrated and arranged and computer generated paces, each narrative and technological cog clicking into place like the creation of the blind clockmaker in the film’s opening anecdote. Fincher, alas, is no visionary. He’s a mechanic, more interested in showing off his techno-toolbox than anything else.
The cutting edge technology is most particularly in evidence in the depiction of Benjamin’s reverse aging. They seem to have used a variety of actors of assorted sizes and added an aged version of Brad Pitt’s face to them where necessary. The results don’t really work terribly well, I don’t think, especially in the first half of the film where Pitt looks more like 70s singer/songwriter Paul Williams than anything else. Pitt doesn’t suffer alone. The process by which Cate Blanchett is made to look about 20 years younger than she is comes off like some hideous page out of Airbrushing For Beginners. These effects keep calling attention to themselves, at the expense of the characters and ultimately the film. It eventually settles down a bit, by the time that Pitt and Blanchett are supposed to be near the same age and can play their roles without techno-cosmetic assistance, when Fincher starts to load on the lingering closeups of Pitt’s astonishing beauty, but it is too little too late.
I’ll say it clearly, because nobody else will. At heart, the film’s biggest problem is right there on the poster and above the title. Brad Pitt’s alleged performance is a colossal bore, a great black hole that sucks the energy out of all that surrounds it. There’s a certain possible justification for some of it, I guess. Benjamin Button is after all a freak of nature. He is fully aware of his difference, and aware of how it might be seen by others, and a certain emotional reserve might be an interesting starting point for an actor to build a performance on. For Pitt, this reserve is the final destination, the beginning middle and end of his attempt at a performance. It isn’t just a matter of the digital tweaking to make him look older or younger. There’s just nothing there. His voice is a flat uninflected monotone. His eyes are unlit with any sign of life. Tens of millions of dollars worth of CGI aging technology and a battery of technicians can’t add life where Pitt doesn’t. Just watch what happens when the sublime Tilda Swinton appears onscreen with Pitt. She lights up the screen in a way that poor old Brad just can’t come near, and quite simply obliterates him. It could be argued that Swinton’s performance is also the one in the film least affected by CGI and latex, but it is more than that. She steals the film by sheer acting ability alone, showing more humanity in one single smile than the rest of the film is able to summon in its entirely indefensible three hour running time.
Life’s too short. Avoid this one. You’re not missing a thing.
Preordered this movie, now waiting for Criterion to send it my way. I’ve heard so many good things and really like most of David Fincher’s films.
Saw this the other night. Mediocre at best, but this quote from Pitt’s character is how I summarize the essence of the film, or at least imo:
“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again. "
great movie
Alanedit
This is a post for The Curious Case of Benjamin button. I know there is a post on this movie already, but it’s a 360 degree turn from that one.
There are themes in this movie that merit greater detail than mere Forrest Gump comparisons. I really liked this movie and will try to be balanced in my opinions, share yours. You either love it or you hate it. The accepted practice is to say “why” you didn’t like the film and that supercedes why you liked the film.
I took a little time from it and reflected on what it meant, and still can’t believe it’s the only movie about death that I’ve seen that had me reflecting on my own experiences. Maybe because I’m past 30 I could appreciate time more. David Fincher has made a fable about a man’s cycle of life. Customary of his work, it doesn’t telegraph it’s themes as expected of epics of this sort. Soliloquy is where life begins as a series of episodes, and ends as the light the rises everyday comes to a close. BB entertains these notions while posing interesting questions about their meaning. It depends if you buy the premise or you don’t. Roger Ebert clearly doesn’t, and that informs his review. Typical of movies he’s missed to boat on (Blade Runner comes to mind) and states that the premise devalues any relationship. I can see what he meant, yet I don’t think it’s evident on the picture because the story doesn’t bend that way.
The central theme in the film is that nothing lasts, whether it be love, friendship, career, or life. A life is a journey with many roads but ultimately it comes to an end. Benjamin is not trying to make sense of his condition, and if it did the movie would have to dwelve into scientific mumbo jumbo to please those story requirements. It’s a fable and a love story, and that’s where the film is. Benjamin Button is diametrically opposed to Forrest Gump, and all the better for it. That film was about how extraordinary Forrest’s life was, where Benjamin Button is a character whose life unfolds at a pace faster than he can comprehend. This poses a significant philosophical question to us all: Do we serve our purpose in life by trying to comprehend it? or is it all just how life is?
It’s a lot for a big budget blockbuster to ask, and to it’s credit it entertains the notions by making Benjamin an observant. This is the number one criticism labeled at the movie, that he’s too passive. I think it’s a wise choice, and Eric Roth wrote it that way. Benjamin isn’t an interesting character, because he’s defined by his condition. What the movie frames him against is what makes it great, and this is what’s different from Forrest Gump, a film magnificently made and told, but phony as fuck. It was a different time, and movies have changed since then. To quote Roger Ebert, this is what he thought:
“But it’s so hard to care about this story. There is no lesson to be learned. No catharsis is possible. In Fitzgerald’s version, even Benjamin himself fails to comprehend his fate. He’s born as a man with a waist-length beard who can read the encyclopedia, but in childhood, plays with toys and throws temper tantrums, has to be spanked and then disappears into a wordless reverie. “Benjamin” rejects these logical consequences because, I suspect, an audience wouldn’t sit still for them".
Wrong again. The last ten years has shown audiences changing (they’ve gotten younger, and older) and films decreasing in quality.
I think many who have had negative reactions to this film may be younger viewers who can’t appreciate the subtleties displayed in the film. It requires patience, a connection to your feelings. Got a black heart? never been in love? tough thing. Older people seem to enjoy more out of it. You may change your view. The taste of people, how they read a film, is impacted by these changes. The web has made a generation reliant on seeing results right away, the brain going into overdrive without second thought. It’s technology by instant gratification, a sign of the 21st century way of experiencing things. 30 years ago, people where more patient, more subjective to film’s ability to penetrate the subconscious. This should not be discounted on the subject of movies that pose an intellectual challenge the audience. It’s not a requirement to enjoy this movie, but it’s there.
In the end, Benjamin’s reverse-aging is just a filter that allows us to gain a slightly skewed perception about the process of living and, perhaps by looking through that glass darkly, a better understanding of human nature. Is that too much for a mainstream movie to achieve? Perhaps, yet people are satisfied with bullshit and demand more of films that set out to do something interesting. I never understood this parallel. The spectre of death lurks in every frame in Benjamin Button, there is no idealism other than who we love, who we care for in the passage of life. Fincher’s direction never undermines the emotion of it’s characters, and even if some of the passages feel forced (like the mid section where Benjamin joins the navy) it still is a intricately constructed narrative. Fincher presents the movie as a series of vignettes, its full impact is not felt until the whole is absorbed. This pays off in dividends and is a deeper experience. It’s a story about a journey. Lots of films lock themselves on a box where it’s story arcs operate on the same cylinder, allowing for exhaustion. Benjamin’s journey takes him full circle, yet our parallels to our own mortality are examined by our fear of change. This is seen in the character of Daisy, whose youth (and selfishness) takes a second course by the fate of events. We are obsessed with youth, and see aging as a natural component of life that sees our best years pass us by. The trends of plastic surgery inform this opinion, and our vanity is to blame. We hold on to life, and try to slow down the process by which it moves. The sequence with the clock at the film’s opening may not have anything to do with the film, but it cements this concept of slowing down time. Later, there is a terrifically edited sequence where fate collides and changes begin. It reminded me of Run Lola Run, another film that explores the conceit of time.
So Roger Ebert thought Synecdoche, New York was a better movie. What a mess. Some of you would love it and some of you would hate it. That’s the way the tide turns in moviedom. The possibility of the latter is quite high, since the auteurs audience prides themselves in being quite particular about their tastes. If you’re a cynical cinephile who thinks stories about life are a Wes Anderson movie, then go watch a Wes Anderson movie, and check your pulse. Anyone with an open mind can enjoy BB. It depends if you buy the premise or not. Benjamin’s reverse aging, in my view, was simply a device to explore the theme of death by living.
To be criticizing, the movie does have some problems. The film is rocky in certain areas, where the direction overcompensates the story’s shortcomings. But I wouldn’t change it any other way. The biggest problem I had was the scenes with the boat. They felt added to the script and it was a chance for Benjamin to expand his horizons, the be less passive an observer. Daisy is not an easy character to like, and adding Hurricane Katrina was a bit on the nose. It’s a fable, there was no need to smack real events onto such a premise. A bit too much cutting to the hospital scenes too, we’re so caught up in Benjamin’s unraveling that we find ourselves liking those scenes less, until Daisy’s arc comes full circle we like her. Kate Blanchet did her usual strong performance.
But the film belongs to Pitt, and all the supporting characters. It’s amazing that the actress who played his mother is younger than Pitt. I have been to New Orleans, and the film captures the town magnificently. Never did racism or any real life issue took hold of the narrative. This is a trap that epics tend to navigate more successfully than others, social issues. Pitt does his most acting during the film’s first hour, where his popeye voice and child like mannerisms feel played down, instead of “acting”. Other actors would use this as a showcase to extend themselves, but the visual effects support the story, and so must the performances. I was concerned Fincher might get carried away with the effects, since he’s a fetishist. But he did not.
BB is a good rendition on the things that happen is life against the clock. Ten years from now, perhaps we’d understand what it was saying.