Plenty of people online cried foul when word broke that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was immediately getting the Criterion treatment. Having gone through the extensive supplements on the Blu-ray hitting shelves this Tuesday, I can't imagine what would have resulted without their platinum touch.
Fincher's process is so exacting that any of his films deserves the most detail-oriented and comprehensive treatment possible, especially one that went through a 20 year development. The Birth of Benjamin Button feature documentary clocks in ten minutes longer than the movie at 2 hours 55 minutes, and it covers everything one could want: script development, the talent involved (at one time Frank Oz directing Martin Short), the choice of New Orleans, and the nearly invisible visual effects. Among my favorite anecdotes throughout the doc are the effects guys talking about Fincher's impossibly high expectations and one where Fincher talks about casting and apologizes to Darren Aronofsky.
I'd estimate that around or over half the running time focuses on the various stages of practical and CG work, and rightfully so. I found myself replaying each of the post-production chapters covering the replacement effects as soon as I finished watching the whole thing in one go.
The consummate professionalism brought to the production value of this doc is why a studio single disc-only edition wasn't going to cut it. The movie's craft deserved better, and it got the best. Even if you didn't fall in love with the movie, the doc alone is worth purchasing the set. It's a high-end, 3-hour film school class on a disc. I could actually see myself re-watching it more than once.
most of the talking heads featured in The Birth of Benjamin Button The individual chapters of the feature doc are also viewable individually, along with a couple featurettes not available as part of the Play All version. Tech Scouts [12:23] is just additional behind the scenes footage captured from various location scout trips. Costume Design [7:38] feels three times longer than it is in a good way. Costume Designer Jacqueline West takes us on a visual tour of all the great clothes in the movie and how the actors' performances and the costumes informed each other symbiotically at times.
After going through all of this in addition to about half of the Fincher feature commentary, I'm dumbfounded as to why I haven't bought the Zodiac SE on Blu-ray as well. Fincher is more cognizant than many directors of the fact that no one likes commentaries duplicating info available elsewhere on the DVD and keeps things interesting. One fact related to the old guy who keeps getting struck by lightning frustrated me: the seventh lightning strike was cut from the movie and it's not available anywhere on the DVD as an extra or easter egg. Also included are Storyboard, Art Design, Costume Design, and Production Still Galleries.
For me, the most important thing about Criterion jointly releasing this 165-minute movie with the studio is that quality-conscious Criterion have split the Feature and Supplements across separate discs. They even put the Theatrical Trailers on Disc 2. Only the movie and the various audio tracks (French and Spanish included) are on Disc 1 of both the DVD and Blu-ray, ensuring the highest possible audio and video bitrate. The deep blacks and rich contrast on display wouldn't look quite as decadent if the movie were crammed on the same platter (even dual-layer BD-50) as any or all the extras.
I admired the movie's craft when I saw it in early December, and my wife's reaction at the time was that "it was ok, but I didn't get too invested because I didn't want it to really affect me." There are many in our generation who are more afraid of conscious vulnerability than anything else, and I suppose plenty of others had the same reaction. There were a few moments that got me upon my initial viewing, but it was when I saw it later on, after my father had a stroke and nearly died, that Benjamin Button really wrecked me.
Fincher starts the Prelude of the Birth doc talking about how it's a movie about death that was greatly informed by the passing of his own father. It may be that to get the full impact of the movie, you have to have recently lost someone you never truly knew as well as you could, as Daisy's daughter does over the course of the movie. At the very least, the ability to summon that feeling of loss is instrumental to getting the most out of the movie, and not everyone wants to do that voluntarily. You've got to be there already or be really close. When you have that recency of loss, Button allows one to escape within that emptiness, imagining the remarkable life experiences you never did or will know about. The movie does not work for everyone, but I figure that's precisely why.
EDIT: As of this writing, the two-disc DVD ($22.99) is only $3 less than Amazon's price on the Blu-ray ($25.99). The single disc is $15.99 but is just the movie and commentary track, no Birth of Benjamin Button.
If you found this review helpful and plan on buying this title, you can click on any image in this article (or here) to order it at Amazon. A small percentage of your purchase goes toward supporting this column, and I'll link elsewhere if someone has a better price on a title during the week of release.