David Fincher | 166 mins | Blu-ray | 12 / PG-13
Benjamin Button was released in UK cinemas two years ago last week. Time really does fly. The critical reception was a little divisive — the Rotten Tomatoes score is 72%, which is good but hardly outstanding, and reviews even by notable critics range from ones to fives and everything in between. It seemed to me there was a bigger backlash a little later, giving the impression it wasn’t as good as it had been cracked up to be. Still, it was nominated for 13 Oscars, winning three.
That’s as good a place to start as any, because those three wins were for Art Direction, Makeup and Visual Effects. Unusual for a Drama to win for visual effects, but even the film’s staunchest critic surely wouldn’t deny its right to claim victory in those categories. As you undoubtedly know, Benjamin Button is born as an 80-something year old man and ages backwards to a baby. In between, he’s almost entirely played by Brad Pitt, or other actors/models/semi-CGI creations with Brad Pitt’s face. The integration of Pitt into the CG faces of old-Benjamin is astounding good; so much so, in fact, that you almost can’t help but look for faults and joins. Even at its least convincing, however, it’s no worse than very good old-age makeup. Later, as Benjamin gets younger, the digital smoothing de-ages him well too — aided, it must be said, by plenty of shadows. Nonetheless, it’s a lot more convincing than the only other examples I’ve seen, namely Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in X-Men: The Last Stand and Wolverine.
The visuals in general may be Benjamin Button’s strongpoint, holding up a variety of era-evoking colour palettes and other design elements as it passes throughout the 20th Century. Flashback-like asides are conveyed in older film styles — scratchy prints for instance, or with a silent movie aesthetic — that on the one hand could seem an inappropriate indulgence, but objectively work very nicely. For a director who has a reputation in some corners for exhibiting excessive flair with swish shots and effects, Fincher shows steady restraint here — as he did in Zodiac, and Se7en, and all the moments in his other films where it was appropriate.
But what of the story this is all in aid of telling? As noted, Benjamin Button is the story of a life, right from birth through to death. Few biopics take such wide a scope, ending before the end or picking up some way from the beginning. Naturally such a tale can become episodic — who plausibly lives a life that throughout conforms to a neat three-act structure? — but it nonetheless ties together with the main thread of Benjamin’s relationship with Daisy, not to mention the primary thematic element: love, in various forms — fatherly, matey, sexual, everlasting…
Many comparisons have been made to Forrest Gump, in no small part because both were adapted for the screen by Eric Roth. I’ve not seen that in a very long time, 
but Button didn’t feel nearly as episodic, nor nearly so obsessed with History. Benjamin encounters foreign diplomats and is embroiled in World War 2, but both are relatively non-specific and don’t colour his life in the way Gump’s parade of Defining Moments do. Instead the storytelling is character focused. Viewer awareness of time passing in the narrative is left to the odd snippet of dialogue or obvious jump; aside from a few clear points, there’s a less convincing sense of era than Fincher evoked in Zodiac. Whether this matters or not is debatable — Button isn’t a chronicle of the 20th Century through one man’s eyes, which is what Gump arguably was, but is rather the story of a (somewhat unusual) life lived during that timed period.
And I say only “somewhat” unusual because, actually, a lot of Benjamin’s story might just as well be imagined with a life that runs forwards. The fact that he’s ageing backwards colours events, certainly; it gives it the surface sheen of a more unusual story; it gives motivations for some of his actions — such as leaving the woman he truly loves and their one-year-old daughter — but if he was a regular orphaned boy, it wouldn’t take much extra creativity to see the same tale work. But the devil is in the details, as they say, and so maybe more would be lost than I’m perceiving.
Or perhaps it’s the very point: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Benjamin is ageing in completely the opposite direction to the rest of us, and yet his life isn’t all that different. Witness the end of the film (naturally, spoilers follow): Benjamin loses his language and memory, his life fading away as his brain fails. Presumably this is because he’s regressing to childhood, his brain shrinking and devolving to that of a child/toddler/newborn, but don’t we see the same thing happen to adults with dementia? As Daisy observes earlier in the film, “we all end up in diapers”. A life backwards is not so different to a life forwards, then. It’s all in how you live it, that kind of thing.
And speaking of death, there’s an awful lot of it about in Benjamin Button. He grows up in an old people’s home; most of the people he knows there die. It ends by detailing his final years, his gradual slide to death. Threaded throughout is the tale of Daisy’s death, in a hospital right before Hurricane Katrina hits — a natural disaster which claimed almost 2,000 lives. For a film that’s about A Life, this seems like rather a lot of the other. Either it’s me reading a lot of death into it, for whatever reason, or that’s something else it has to say: life is defined by death. As one character comments, “Benjamin, we’re meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?”
Ultimately, Benjamin Button strikes me as less than the sum of its parts. Bits are good, even very good — “bits” both as in story episodes and technical elements; and I particularly like the sections with Jared Harris, who’s always worth watching — but what does it add up to? It’s quite long and, unlike Zodiac, feels it. It may be easy to admire, but I find it awkward to love.
I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as part of a David Fincher Week. Read my thoughts on all his films to date here.
How time flies — I’ve been meaning to re-watch Zodiac ever since I 
As the changes have little impact on the film’s fundamental quality, the points in 
but the sheer weight of evidence the other way seems to leave little room for doubt. More so, then, is that the murders are done with before the halfway mark. That’s because it’s still following the story of the investigation, true, but a lesser filmmaker could have weighted it differently, rushing through Graysmith’s later enquiries in a speedy third act. Instead, Fincher’s focus throughout is on the people looking into the crime, and it’s as much the tale of their obsession — and what it takes to break their obsession, be it weariness or pushing through ’til the final answer — as it is the tale of a serial killer.
and place-and-time subtitles too, but hey, sometimes you need specificity.
I used to have a friend who loved all kinds of action movies and rap movies and other kinds of violence-obsessed forms of entertainment. He once tried to watch Fight Club, in the wake of the praise poured upon it and no doubt interested in the visceral thrill of the fighting element, but got bored about halfway through and turned it off. He was not impressed. Please note that halfway through is certainly after the titular club, and all its associated antics, begins.
Perhaps I’m coming at it from too privileged a background? I don’t know. But I still don’t believe people would be so easily led as Ebert implies; and those that might be probably got bored and switched off.
and what he’s lacking as a human being. That just underscores the action, however; it adds something to the film, certainly, but there’s nothing there to lead viewers to “leave the movie… discussing [its] moral philosophy”. Fight Club, on the other hand, is more forward about its thematic points. Both the Narrator and Tyler spout philosophical tidbits at various points, and their differing reactions to the path they take considers this too. It still works as a story — it isn’t just facilitating an essay on the subjects of free will and consumerism — but it’s more present, and presents more to consider, and perhaps discuss, than The Game does.
Fight Club explores what might happen if he were, but leaves it up to the viewer to decide if it turned out for the best (while strongly erring, despite what Ebert suggests, to the side of “no”).
To round off this defence of Fight Club, let’s call up the BBFC (this is the point I said I’d return to). You may remember they cut four seconds of violence from the film (reinstated in 2007. Incidentally, the MPAA had no problem whatsoever with the violence but questioned some of the sex, such as Tyler being seen wearing a rubber glove. American values regarding sex/violence on film and TV are seriously questionable.) In 1999, when asked to ban the film for glamourising and encouraging the kind of behaviour it contains, the BBFC refused, and in no uncertain terms:
If you’ve not read it, know that the film keeps a lot of Palahnuik’s novel. The narration often takes it verbatim. With the exception of the ending — changed, for the better — it’s a remarkably faithful adaptation.
(shh, whisper it) (…oh yes, I’m keeping this spoiler-free). There are counter arguments to that being his real name (his colleagues never call him it, only those who met him… after), but that’s beside the point. Stop calling him Jack. (I believe I read somewhere that, on the relevant DVD commentary, Ed Norton says he calls the character Jack. Not good enough reasoning for me.)
what’s missing from it, from him as a person, etc. — but these are more of a nice undertone than a major factor. Arguably Fincher would explore similar ground more thoroughly, though focused on a younger generation, in 
Watching it again, though, I couldn’t help but realise I used to like The Game more than I do now. After a couple of watches it becomes like a holiday photo album: a nice record and reminder of good times had, rather than ones experienced anew.
I usually say that Se7en is my favourite film.
Black seems to be its default position — everything else is cut out of the darkness with as little light as possible. Often backgrounds and locations are better lit than foregrounds or actors, making the viewer focus on silhouettes with minimal light offering splashes of detail. Even the scenes that occur at daytime (most, anyway) do so in the middle of ferocious, ceaseless rain that ensures it never gets too bright.
all but one of 
Mills delivers his riposte with greater hyperbole — of course, because that’s the character — perhaps bedded in a form of naivety and idealism, ending with a repetitious “I do not agree. I do not.” Then we see Freeman’s face, completely static, but you can read in it everything you need to — his anger at Mills for making him realise that it’s all a lie he’s been telling himself, and anger at himself for believing the lie. That’s one scene; Freeman is incredible throughout.
This is where liking the characters pays too, because we are on Somerset’s side and we’re on Mills’ side and we agree with both and disagree with both and don’t necessarily know who’s right or what to do or what we would do. I can spend the whole film anticipating this scene, knowing exactly what will happen in it, how great a piece of filmmaking it will be, yet it still makes my hair stand on end.
The quality of a crime thriller is often so tied to its mystery that the film can only sustain so many viewings — sometimes, only one — before you know it too well. I have seen Se7en at least seven times now, which for me is a lot — a helluva lot, even — and yet I still get something from it every time. That’s a rarity, that’s a reason to love it, and that is why it may well be my favourite film.
It’s getting on for two years since I last (and first) watched most of the Alien 
(as I haven’t watched that copy, obviously), but on Blu-ray the added footage, 2003-era new effects and 2010 re-recorded audio are indistinguishable from the rest of the film.
One of the biggest things I remember being told about Alien³, before the Special Edition, was that most of Paul McGann’s performance had been cut; that originally he had a sizeable role that justified his fourth billing, rather than his cameo-sized part in the theatrical cut. It doesn’t feel like there’s an awful lot more of him in this version, though scanning through 
Unsurprisingly, therefore, they’re almost all totally underused. Charles Dance gets the biggest slice of the cake and is as good as ever, but doing little more than show their face we have Pete Postlethwaite, Phil Davis, Peter Guinness, Danny Webb (they don’t all begin with P…) Alien³ is 19 years old now, no one could’ve predicted the future; but viewed with hindsight, the volume of under-utilised talent is almost astounding.
It’s also, perhaps, interesting to remember this being Fincher’s first film. He might seem like an odd choice, a first-timer paling beside the experienced hands of Scott and Cameron. But that would be to forget that, for both, their Alien films were only their second time helming a feature*; and while Cameron’s previous had been sci-fi (
David Fincher’s multi-Oscar-nominated latest, 
My viewing starts tonight, for a week running Friday to Friday — I’m relying on HMV to get The Social Network to me in timely fashion for that to work. I intend to start posting reviews on Sunday night — technically, Monday morning — which gives me a couple of days to write them, for a week running Monday to Monday. Neatness in both watching and reviewing, then.
So the week begins with a film I’ve seen in a cut I haven’t, ends with two films I’ve never seen, and along the way takes in several of my favourite-ever films. Lovely.
#1 
#7 
OK, it’s far from flawless. It’s still tangled up in the over-complex ongoing story, and peppered with flashbacks, varying from flash frames to large chunks, to try to help you follow it. On the one hand that’s lazy storytelling; on the other, much welcomed — the plot would surely be impossible to navigate without it.
Following it, there’s a nicely edited closing montage. Not particularly relevant — in other entries it’s used to expose the twist, here the twist is pretty self explanatory — but it’s oddly, briefly, rewarding for those of us who’ve sat through all the films so far (and, to be frank, if you haven’t sat through the others, you’d be mad to jump on at this point). Plus there’s an intriguing post-credits scene. No idea what it means or signifies, but it’s clearly laying the groundwork for something in the future.
Note: this is an Extended or Extreme or Whatever Edition again. Minor differences only, I believe, which you can find listed 
In the world of 
which could well have gone down a more modern-styled route.
It’ll be interesting to see how it fits into the film when I finally get round to watching The Ultimate Cut — I already have some reservations waiting to be expressed in my review.
100Films.co.uk 