Ruminations on backwards-aging, the phenomenon of 'Benjamin Button'...

In a beautiful new hardcover coffee-table book entitled "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: The Making of the Motion Picture" -- a copy of which Paramount was kind enough to send me and others -- screenwriter Eric Roth discusses the inspiration for the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that he adapted into the film's script:

"He wrote it after his baby girl had been born three months earlier and his editor had given him a Mark Twain quote: 'Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.' So that was the kernel."

In related news, my own mother has long kept the following Woody Allen quote -- which could well have been inspired by that short story -- on the refrigerator:

• "In my next life I want to live my life backwards.
• You start out dead and get that out of the way.
• Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day.
• You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then, when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day.
• You work for 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement.
• You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, and then you are ready for high school.
• You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a baby, and then...
• You spend your last 9 months floating peacefully in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day, and then voila...
• You finish off as an orgasm!"

Sure, I'd also be sorry to have to say goodbye to Daisy, but it's pretty hard to argue with that!

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Photo: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Credit: Paramount Pictures

Comments

[Anthony]

Interestingly, the biography of Katharine Hepburn by Scott Berg mentions reading the author reading the Fitzgerald story to Kate shortly before her death.

[Pam Kriger]

I love the quote your Mom kept, but can Woody Allen take credit for it???