The curious case of Benjamin Button is a short story written by F.Scott Fitzgerlad. The movie captures the light of a boy who is born with a body of a dying man, throughout his life he grows younger improving his physical state of a young man eventually making his way into a new born baby. Throughout the movie the symbol of a hummingbird appears, symbolizing Benjamin’s life and the concept of eternity, Dave Fincher captures the eye of the viewer by presenting these symbols with the correct camera shots to create a noticeable scene. 

The nature of the Hummingbird, is a small delicate animal, a single squeeze of the human hand could instantly kill. The bird is rarely seen as it flies as an individual not in big groups, plus its the only bird that is able to fly backwards. The symbol of this hummingbird is a visual representation of Benjamin Buttons life, both the bird and the boy share more in common than you would think. The significance that Benijan was born as a small brittle old man with very little strength at a young age even the doctors were giving him a short time frame to live. Benjamin button suffers from the rare disease “progeria”, it wouldn’t be everyday that you would walk along the street and see a man or woman with the same diesis making him  are rare slightly much like a hummingbird. This disease causes Benjamin Button’s life to be in reverse (backwards),the way the hummingbird flies backwards represent the way Benijans life moves. 

The hummingbird is also represented as a symbol of death in many cultures. The hummingbird appears in two main scenes throughout the book. The first scene is in Pearl harbour after the death of Captain Mike Clark (who significantly also had a hummingbird tattooed on his chest), where the camera captures a close up shot to draw the viewer into the hummingbird flying beside the ship. The rare sighting of a hummingbird that far out at sea represented the life lost of Mike. The second scene where the hummingbird appears is by the window of Daisy’s hospital window during hurricane Katrina (also a rare sighting) this is captured by a midshot focuses on the significance of the bird. The presence of these birds represents the idea of death.