Brad Pitt Films - Thelma & Louise to Ben Button
Oscar Deserving Role in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Feb 21, 2009
The movie is compelling, an emotional roller coaster at times. Brad Pitt’s talent is unmistakable throughout the film that runs for nearly 2.5 hours.
It Started With The Dark Side of the Sun
Success for Brad Pitt did not start when The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was released on December 25, 2008 in the United States. Born December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma as William Bradley Pitt, the actor began his movie acting career in 1987 at which time he appeared in No Man’s Land. In 1988, Pitt appeared in The Dark Side of the Sun and got his first taste of life as a movie star.
Opening lines in The Dark Side of the Sun, a movie that didn’t see the silver screen until nearly a decade after it was shot due to civil unrest in Yugoslavia, the country where the film was made, are, “I want to live. But sometimes I wish I had never been born.”
In the movie, Brad Pitt plays the character of a guy named Nick, a man who has a rare disease that causes him to become deathly ill whenever he is in the sun. In the hopes of remaining well, Nick stays away from light and lives in darkness. That is, until he has a chance meeting with an actress. The love that the two share convinces Nick that life for him would be much better if he came out of the dark and lived, basking, if you will, in the actress’ love. By the time The Dark Side of the Sun finished shooting, Brad Pitt was a star.
Continuing Movie Success for Brad Pitt
The next major role for Brad Pitt came when the actor appeared in the hit movie Thelma & Louise. Pitt played a smooth talking con artist named J. D. in the 1990s classic. He was the brief love interest of Thelma, played by actress Geena Davis. Other major motion pictures Brad Pitt has acted in include Sleepers, Seven Years in Tibet, Spy Game, Ocean’s Eleven, Troy and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
In his latest role in The Curious Base of Benjamin Button, the actor is convincing as both the younger and the older Benjamin. And again the actor finds himself playing a character who is challenged with a physical illness that sets him apart, that makes it difficult for him to get close to other people, an illness that makes it difficult for other people to take the initiative to get close to him.
Benjamin Button’s father, Thomas Button, leaves him on the outside steps of a nursing home. It appears that the father does not know who lives inside the nursing home. He simply wishes to relieve himself of the responsibility of caring for a newborn son who has an obvious birth defect.
He abandons young Benjamin moments after his wife and the infant’s mother passes away while giving birth to the boy. A woman named Queenie takes the child in. She loves Benjamin as her own, perhaps partly because she has, up to this point, been unable to conceive and give birth to her own biological child.
The boy grows older in years but younger in his physical appearance. He has the body of an 80 year old man when he is only a few years old. Spencer Daniels does a marvelous job portraying the young Benjamin Button. After the boy reaches his teens Brad Pitt begins to portray the character.
Uncommon Artistic Talent Revealed in the Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons
The ability with which Brad Pitt conveys the thoughts, emotions and feelings of a younger man growing up in a 1920s New Orleans, the risks he takes and the friendships he strikes up with residents at the nursing home, people who come and go as death and time turn on their hinge, is uncommon. But it is the way in which Pitt convincingly portrays the older Benjamin Button, a man who has now become a father himself, while his appearance grows younger by the months that leaves an indelible mark.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a movie that pulls at the heart and draws up memories charged with emotion. It is a movie about living life to its fullest rather than living a minimal life tucked away in a safe haven, even if the stakes are frighteningly high. The character of Benjamin Button brings these messages across splendidly, and it is Brad Pitt who brings that man to life.
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