KINO OBSCURA

GREAT SCENES
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher, 2008)

Eric Roth’s overcooked script has never dampened my appreciation for Fincher’s poignant meditation on impermanence. Benjamin Button brims with moments of grace and wonderment, some as simple as father and son watching the sunrise on Lake Pontchartrain.

Fincher’s own father, Jack, passed away during the film’s long pre-production period. “He had been sick for over a year, but one night he got a blood clot,” Fincher tells The Times. “I was there the moment the doctor told him, ‘You have five minutes.’ And there was a look on his face that said, ‘Oh my God, this is the last time that I’ll see you.”

GREAT SCENES
The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)

Henley Royal Regatta, 2004. Representing Harvard University’s lightweight rowing crew, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss face off against a powerful Netherlands squad. Set to a synthesized rendition of Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” the sequence recalls the primitive might of a Sergei Eisenstein montage.