Award-winning composer Alexandre Desplat's score to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button creates a mesmerizing sonic mindscape that mirrors the unique emotional world of the movie's lead character, Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt). Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story of the same name, the score and movie explore the life of someone who is born an old man and ages backwards.
Desplat's haunting score creates a mystical, diaphanous haze through which we watch events in Benjamin Button's life transpire as if through a scrim of heart-tugging sadness.
"All the people Benjamin meets he loses quickly," says Desplat, "as they age and die while he gets younger. Because a continuous love relationship with anyone cannot work, his life is composed of heartbreaking flashes of connection. The music has to express the movement of going inexorably forward but still backwards, and the melancholia that is the essence of Benjamin's character."
The movie begins in New Orleans in the 21st century, just before Katrina hits. As it flashes back to the time of Benjamin's birth, in New Orleans in 1918, and follows his retrograde journey through life, Desplat's haunting music finds its counterpart in the forthright, authentic sounds of the jazz era in New Orleans, as performed by Bix Beiderbecke, The Boswell Sisters, Louis Armstrong, and other greats. The contrast between the two sound worlds, as heard on the two separate CDs, speaks volumes.
Disc 2 contains the following music included in but not written for the film, interspersed with dialogue snippets from the film:
1. We Shall Walk Through the Streets of the City (Traditional) - Doc Paulin's Marching Band
2. Ostrich Walk (Edwin Edwards, James La Rocca, H. N. Ragas, Anthony Sbarbaro, Larry Shields) - Frankie Trumbauer & His Orchestra featuring Bix Beiderbecke
3. That's How Rhythm Was Born (Nat Burton, J. G. Burton, George Whiting) - The Boswell Sisters
4. Freight Train Blues (Traditional) - Billie & Dede Pierce
5. Basin Street Blues (Spencer Williams) - Preservation Hall Jazz Band
6. If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight) (James P. Johnson) - Louis Armstrong & His Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra
7. Chanson Sur Staline (Matvey Blanter) - Choeur de la Cathedral de la Rue Daru, Paris XVII
8. Arabeske For Piano In C Major Op. 18 (Robert Schumann) - Unknown
9. Out Of Nowhere (Johnny Green, Edward Heyman) - Sidney Bechet
10. Dear Old Southland (Turner Layton) - Louis Armstrong
11. Skokiaan (Moonshine) (August Msarurgwa) - Perez Prado Orchestra
12. My Prayer (George Boulanger, James Kennedy) - The Platters
13. Bethena (Scott Joplin) - Randy Kerber
