The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

Paramount asked YouTube not to show the trailer for this movie. So in its place, we give you the trailer for Youth Without Youth below. The trailer for Benjamin Button is here.

Stephen King’s short-lived The Golden Years had a similar idea:

But when it comes down to it, the “man growing younger” motif is much, well, older. Look at this excerpt from William Blake’s “The Mental Traveller”:

Her fingers number every nerve
Just as a miser counts his gold;
She lives upon his shrieks and cries—
And she grows young as he grows old,

Till he becomes a bleeding youth
And she becomes a virgin bright;
Then he rends up his manacles
And pins her down for his delight.

Then later, he gets young and she gets old, and it goes on forever. Here’s the complete poem.

These aren’t just “fountain of youth” stories; they are about someone old becoming younger. Is that just because the transition provides more texture for the story, more time for the anti-ager to marvel at his own transformation, or is there something else to it?

The “fountain of youth” story goes back forever, and the appeal is as simple as the universal fear of death. (Isn’t it?)

Here’s another one (of many) in the larger genre: