Immense is the difference between F. Scott Fitzgerald and David Fincher's perception of the reverse process of aging as seen through the life span of Benjamin Button. After being educated on the literariness of the artful projects of the novella, and cinema scene movie, the differences are well noted. Originally Fitzgerald's intents tended to point at showing the readers the major clichïs such as life is a gift, and you should live it to your fullest without fear, and the major one, you are only are old as you feel. The movie is very loosely connected to the novella; Fitzgerald original intentions have been affected by the vast changes in the plots and characters. In comparison, if the novella and the movie were like maps, and one party of explorers were assigned to each map; they would begin and end in the same place, but there journeys would be parallel and they're paths would never intersect until ending at the same point in time.
One of the most crucial part of a novella or movie is the well thought out plot. Although Fitzgerald, and Fincher seem to have the same exposition and resolution does not make them coincide with one another throughout the plot. In the novella, Fitzgerald begins with a tight knit mother and father figure known as the buttons, and portrays a loving family Benjamin is getting born into. In the same sense, it is very comical because once they figure out he is a a baby of threescore and ten, all hell breaks loose. Noting on the underlying theme, that you never get what you expect or plan. The plot goes to show him aging in reverse, and seeing all the signs when he hits a mere twelve. By chapter five, it stops focusing on the revelations about family, and moves to the adult lifestyle of Benjamin Button, even though he's always been an 'adult'. This is the chapter of the novella that he meets his life partner, Hildegarde Moncrief. In a sense, it also shows the theme of naivety that she thinks shes dating a more mature man, when he is truly just as old as she is, especially when she marries him and brings shame to the Moncrief name. They go on to have a son named Roscoe, Ben joined the war ranked up to a lieutenant-colonel. When he got back from the war everyone took note he was reversing aging. Then Ben tried his luck at school, and started off strong, but finished weak. He kept anti-aging, and eventually Roscoe had his first chitlin. Then Roscoe took in his father, and the nanny one night rocked him asleep to his death, so essentially he came into the world knowing everything, and left knowing nothing. Yet, again showing his readers the theme of how lucky you are to live and learn.
The movie completely differed in every aspect you could possibly think of, including plot. The plot begins with the news of hurricane Katrina encroaching, and Caroline, Daisy's daughter, reading to Daisy on her deathbed, a diary from Benjamin Button. It begins with a very elderly man being born, his mother dying at the birth, and his father being moronic, dropping the baby (Ben) off at a nursing home. That is where the sweet couple from the nursing home raise young, or should one say old and help him. He was taken to a church where he met Emily at the age of 6, and her grandmother lived in the nursing home. Benjamin eventually ages and decided to work on the docks along side Thomas Button, his father, whom he has no idea that exists. Eventually Benjamin goes to Murmansk, Russia where he has his first encounter with physical love. Then pearl harbor occurred in the movie, so Ben and his crew were sent back to America. Coming back to New Orleans, he meets Daisy yet again, and his father, who reveals the paternity and leaves all of his assets to him, because he is dying. Then Daisy gets in a horrible accident, and shuns Benjamin away, despite his youthful appearance. Then she comes back when they are the same age, so they fall in love get an apartment and have a baby. Then he leaves because he can't fathom being a fatherly figure to Caroline. Eventually Daisy gets a call from social workers that Benjamin is twelve and seems to have dementia, and Daisy moves into the nursing home where they grew up and takes care of him. Ben dies in Daisy's arms, and Daisy dies just right before hurricane Katrina.
The movie changed in Fitzgerald's intent vastly. The plot went from showing off the value of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, along with age being a number to something completely propaganda like for sappy love stories, and Hurricane Katrina. The main difference was the characters names being changed. In the book Hildegarde Moncrief was his love and life, and the person he had Roscoe with, whom was a boy, and changed his life. Compared to being married to the cliched name of Daisy pawned off Fitzgerald's other work, the Great Gatsby, also changing Roscoe the love child between Hildegarde and Ben, into a sweet young girl by the name of Caroline. The whole scenario changes from post civil war to post world war two, and the setting change from Baltimore to New Orleans, changing the whole plot. The plot was also altered in the sense where Benjamin dying in the nanny's arms to Benjamin dying in Daisy's arms, when in the novella, Benjamin completely resented Hildegarde by the end. The movie jumps around to much for the plot to keep it's overall oomph that Fitzgerald tried to instill in the reader, and although Brad Pitt believes giving to Hurricane Katrina is a good cause, it doesn't mean that one needs to sacrifice a wonderful work of literature by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature." Ernest Hemmingway. Characters are essentially what make and break the differences between the novella and the movie. In the novella, the father and mother are so believable, especially the fathers reaction to having an elderly man as a son, and that is portrayed by how he treated the tailor, and the hospital staff. Then Benjamin is a cigar smoking, encyclopedia reading baby, who completely is well rounded, and hasn't even been alive for a decade. Then he meets Hildegarde Moncrief, and she becomes a well rounded figure after Ben gets home from war, and Ms. Moncrief yells at him for looking young. Then, Roscoe shows his true colors when his father is dying and let's him just go and get taken care of by the nanny. This whole novella paints a picture from the distinct action of each character proving a woven foundation of themes that far surpasses the movie.
The movie on the other hand has a lot of characters that differ from the movie, of course the same being Benjamin Button, the baby that was born an adult. Yet, his mother dies, and his father is named Robert Button, he abandons the baby to a couple who work for the nursing home, and then meets Emily, the woman who he loves pretty much the entire movie. Ben meets his father. Then he eventually travels over to Russia where he encounters his first female relations, her name being Elizabeth, having no meaning to the story once so ever. Then goes back to Daisy who has Caroline. Essentially that is all of the characters in a nutshell, except for the random clock maker Gateau, thrown in there to justify a clock spinning backwards. Basically, the plot changed because of the characters. In the novella, like Hemingway's quote Fitzgerald created the people. In the movie, even though they were real people, they seemed like flat characters, or caricatures, because they misrepresented what Fitzgerald wrote his story about. When you change the name of a character you change their integrity as a believable person, and the movie compared to the book was a long shot, because of the characters alone.
Overall, saying the movie is based of the novella is used loosely. There is a lot that goes into writing a novella, and getting out the message that Fitzgerald meant to give to all of his readers, where as Fincher decided that the messages of love, and Hurricane Katrina was more important to instill in the population of America. The messages of each were construed into what Fincher felt, and what Fitzgerald felt, and there was no in between ground. Subsequently, the exposition and resolution may happen to be Benjamin was born an old man, and dies a newborn baby, but there is essentially nothing in common. Each story is written in black and white, there is no nanometer that matches the wavelength of color in the novella compared to the cinema spectacular, forever to be paralleled to one another.
