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I was born under unusual circumstances-

Those opening words, spoken in voice-over narration by Brad Pitt, who plays the title character in David Fincher’s much anticipated—and already much heralded—new film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” make a perfectly understated introduction to the stoical Button, but also to the epic movie in which Fincher has framed him.

Among the unusual circumstances surrounding the making of the film is that film figured so little in it. Although nearly every major Hollywood movie of this size and budget is still made on film, “Button,” except for some high-speed and underwater sequences, was shot digitally on high-definition Thomson Viper cameras directly to hard drive, without ever touching tape, then captured into Final Cut Pro for editing.

Shooting this way allowed Fincher to bring film-like resolution to the screen without surrendering the speed and flexibility he could only achieve by building his movie entirely from data. And because Fincher had used the same workflow to create his critically acclaimed previous film “Zodiac,” he was confident that it could be ratcheted up to meet the even greater narrative, technical, and logistical challenges of “Button.”

Early critical reaction to the film suggests he was certainly right. “Button,” which opens Christmas Day, has been nominated for five Golden Globe awards; shortlisted by nearly every credible Oscar handicapper; and touted by at least one critic—who was moved to call it early—as “one of the best films of the decade.”