Based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was a project that took a long time to finally reach the big screen in Christmas of 2008. Originally optioned in the 80's, the project landed at the laps of several major directors, with many screenwriters taking a stab at it over the decades. Eventually it landed. Eventually it landed with director David Fincher, with a script by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord. Fincher seemed an odd choice, more known for his cold, dark thrillers, but he delivered a film that was a box office hit and fared pretty well with critics and audiences, even garnering several Oscar nominations in the process. The film tells the story of a man who ages in reverse, and his relationship with his adoptive mother, and the love of his life, underscored by a tragic frame narrative set during hurricane Katrina. Fincher and cinematographer Claudio Miranda created a melancholically gorgeous tone that washes over the audience like a dream, pushing the edges of digital filmmaking, and with cutting-edge computer effects for the reverse aging.
Joining the fable would be French composer Alexandre Desplat. Desplat had been busy composing in France for over a decade, but had only broken through into the American market in 2004. In the intervening years, his career exploded. This film gave Desplat a large canvas upon to tell a tragic love story, and he delivered with his signature orchestral textures, and meticulous prancing rhythms, mirroring the ticking clocks that track Benjamin's curious life. Centered around an airy love theme, the score often feels more like a series of vignettes, rather than a traditional narrative. It doesn't play like traditional romance, in the Golden Age sense, but there is always a deep sense of yearning, and a buried sorrow, as Benjamin's life is magical, but also brings loneliness and pain for those around him. Nevertheless, for me the score weaves an intoxicating spell and was an early favorite from the composer.
Released by Concord Records, the original soundtrack album featured an hour of Desplat's score, as well as a second disc that feature source songs from the period, and bits of dialogue. The cover featured an odd wide format, with lots of negative space. This film hit while I was in college, and I have lots of fond memories of the score and watching the film with other film-student friends. It was fun to revisit this artwork, and I present a total of seven new covers to explore.
Most of these covers took fairly little editing, and I was mostly about to crank out this project in a day or two. A nice change of pace. Cover 1 is an alternate, more interesting version of the main poster artwork. For some reason Brad's face seemed quite a bit smaller proportionally than Cate's, so I just cut him out and stretched him a bit larger. I couldn't find the exact title font, so I found a similar one, and then manually matched it to the title, as I felt being able to add a drop-shadow into the mix would help the title pop out on several of the covers.
Covers 2 and 5 use some of the promo posters, there were several others, but I thought these two would work best for my purposes here. For Cover 6, I needed to paint out the top, as I could only source this from a wallpaper with the title superimposed.
I'm not yet sure the source of the final piece of artwork. I assume this was a fan creation, though I haven't been able to find the original artist yet. I thought it was a cool addition, and I know there's fans out there of the more minimalist covers.
Hope you enjoy!
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