The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel, 2007)

[dadaistnun]

Official site (with photos)

French trailer

[Antoine Doinel]

Trailer.

[GoldenPilgrim]

Did anyone else see this?

There isn't as much buzz around this film on the forum than I thought there would be.

I saw it last weekend followed by Q and A with Director Julian Schnabel (a Q and A is always a great opportunity but I swear to god if I hear someone say, "tour de force," one more time...)

It's one of my favorite movies of the year and I liked it a lot more than the trailer had me believing I would. It's very interesting, to say the least, I especially loved the bold 15-30 minute opening shot entirely from the perspective of a paraplegic waking from a coma along with some of the sequences which were clearly French New Wave inspired. SOME of the soundtrack was great too, Tom Waits' "All The World Is Green" and "Green Grass" along with some music from The 400 Blows. Schnabel's Best Director award at Cannes was well earned.

Check it out if you haven't already.

[Jeff]

Did anyone else see this?

I saw it a few weeks ago, and liked it well enough. Those first twenty minutes or whatever of first-person stuff were especially engaging. After that, the remarkable story itself was certainly fascinating but the filmmaking didn't really didn't do anything for me.

[David Ehrenstein]

I quite liked it.

It just won Januez Kaminski Best Cinematography of 2007 from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

[Grand Illusion]

What a masterwork! The shots capture the beauty of life, yet place the viewer resolutely in an unmoving prison. How nice to see a film that is neither deep blue nor rusty orange.

The writing is observant and clever--more than you'd expect. The film doesn't sentimentalize the rougher edges of its lead subject. We empathize with him because he is a person. A person in an unthinkable position, one that strikes indiscriminately and without warning.

[miless]

I started off resisting this film (not a particularly interesting subject to me, from a director I've never really cared for), but I now think it's one of the best films of the year. I was surprised with how experimental the cinematography was coming from Spielberg's DP.
beautiful film, it is also very emotionally involving. A nice shiny gem for the year.

[Dylan]

SOME of the soundtrack was great too, Tom Waits' "All The World Is Green" and "Green Grass" along with some music from The 400 Blows.

There's also a piece by Nino Rota, "Napoli milionaria," which was my favorite use of music in the entire film. I also remember the theme from Lolita and "La Mer" by Charles Trenet (which was, along with the theme from The 400 Blows, also used a few years ago in The Dreamers). And the brief original score is by Paul Cantelon.

[tavernier]

Now I want to read the book.

It's a wonderful book, and a very quick read. It's interesting that, in the book, the song that he returns to when he thinks about the day of his stroke is "A Day in the Life." Reading about it is very moving, but it would probably have seemed a bit heavy-handed to hear that song, great as it is, in the movie, so Schnabel wisely didn't use it. (Of course, the rights probably cost a mint as well.)

[sevenarts]

Not much discussion of this great film here, huh? I haven't seen either of Schnabel's previous two films, but this one really blew me away. The opening 30 minutes or so especially are wonderful, with all the images from the first-person POV of a paraplegic, evoking the fragmentary and experimental imagery of something like Brakhage's Deus Ex. I was initially a bit disappointed by the switch to a (slightly) more conventional narrative framework after this jaw-dropping opening, and I still do wonder what the film might've been like if it had maintained its claustrophobic first-person perspective, but the the film as a whole is such a dazzling and moving experience that any complaints are trivial. It's a wonderful, thought-provoking film, examining vision, the mind, and the power of imagination and memory without ever falling into the heartstring-tugging sentimentality that most films on this subject would probably resort to. One of the best of the year, easily.

[colinr0380]

The Treatment podcast interview with Julian Schnabel. He makes an interesting comparison between Diving Bell and the Butterfly and his early script for Perfume.

[domino harvey]

Saw this in NYC this weekend and thought it would have been a lot better had it stuck to the Lady In The Lake-stuff, which already figures for like 70% of the movie anyways and is by far the strongest material in the film, rather than cheating by including memories (The I WORKED AT ELLE flashback gives the opening of the Departed a run for worst music cue ever). It was good but not as good as I'd hoped. Also, how in the world did this get a PG-13?

[GoldenPilgrim]

The I WORKED AT ELLE flashback gives the opening of the Departed a run for worst music cue ever

Seriously!

and I wonder if Lenny Kravitz is in the book.

[tavernier]

Saw this in NYC this weekend and thought it would have been a lot better had it stuck to the Lady In The Lake-stuff, which already figures for like 70% of the movie anyways and is by far the strongest material in the film, rather than cheating by including memories

How is that cheating?

[domino harvey]

Cheating from the structure of just showing his point of view, which the film obviously wants to do the most given how much screen time is alloted for POV. The shaky middle ground makes the film weaker than if it had been all in on one side or the other.

[tavernier]

I wouldn't call that cheating -- it's based on a book that has a strong flashback structure.

[domino harvey]

I meant that the casting of Joey Greco was questionable

[tavernier]

Ah, I see.

[rs98762001]

Agree that the subjective opening sequence was by far the best part of the film. The rest is somewhat conventional, although occasionally still effective. I must admit I'm surprised by the amount of acclaim Schnabel is getting for this - the second half of the film had a number of moments which felt extremely heavy-handed and overdirected. The use of that fucking U2 song was especially irritating, and much of the imagery was less reminiscent of Schnabel's fine art background (or, as most reviewers seem to keep blabbering about, Brakhage) than of modern advertising. Still, nice performances and some wonderful moments, but for me this was less than the sum of its parts.

[Andrew_VB]

this movie was fantastic. i loved every minute of it. max von sydow in particular was phenomenal (though that's not surprising).

[pro-bassoonist]

The French release for Julian Schnabel's award winning drama is set to be released on February 20th in France/Monaco. Preliminary info indicates lack of English subs for the main feature so the upcoming Pathe UK release should be the preferred option for English-speakers.

Official Site and Trailer

Variety

By JUSTIN CHANG

The almost unbearably poignant memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby, who found himself immobilized by "locked-in syndrome" after a stroke, becomes a ready-made canvas for the painterly indulgences of Julian Schnabel in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." Most compelling in its attempts to re-create the experience of paralysis onscreen, gorgeously lensed pic morphs into a dreamlike collage of memories and fantasies, distancing the viewer somewhat from Bauby's consciousness even as it seeks to take one deeper. Still affecting, and already sold to a number of territories, bittersweet "Butterfly" should find a warm worldwide reception upon release from the Cannes cocoon.

It's impossible to read even a sentence of Bauby's miraculous memoir -- published in 1997, three days before the former Elle editor-in-chief died at 45 -- without an awareness of the monumental exertions it must have taken him to write it. Painstakingly dictated, one letter and one blink at a time (his eyelid being the only muscle he could control), it's the work of a fantastically keen and witty mind, trapped in a vegetative state.

The viewer experiences that state alongside Bauby (played by Mathieu Amalric) from the film's disorienting first frame, which opens, "Twilight Zone"-like, from the p.o.v. of a hospital bed as he awakens from a coma. Realizing he can't move or speak, Bauby learns from the smarmy Dr. Lepage (Patrick Chesnais) that his brain stem has been incapacitated, leaving him paralyzed.

Early sequences are inventively shot by Spielberg regular Janusz Kaminski, who blurs the focus and makes the images quake and shudder, mimicking the sensations of drifting in and out of consciousness. It's from this vantage that we meet the people in Bauby's life, including his children, Theophile (Theo Sampaio) and Celeste (Fiorella Campanella); their mother, Celine (Emmanuelle Seigner); speech therapist Henriette (Marie-Josee Croze), who teaches him the rudimentary, blink-powered alphabet system that becomes his means of communication; and Claude (Anne Consigny), who takes dictation for his book.

Staying at a naval hospital in northern France, Bauby also receives visits from friends Laurent (Isaach de Bankole) and Roussin (Niels Arestrup). Latter's own amazing backstory, involving four years spent as a hostage in Beirut, awakens unresolved feelings of guilt in Bauby.

Though the initial first-person perspective may try some auds' patience, Amalric's delightful interior monologue -- by turns wry, sardonic, panicky and lascivious -- proves continually involving. It doesn't hurt that almost every woman who enters the frame (health-care professionals included) looks young and beautiful enough to have stepped from the pages of Bauby's magazine, or that the walls of the coastal hospital are such an inviting shade of sea green. Even when portraying the lower depths of human suffering, artist-turned-filmmaker Schnabel paints a pretty picture.

Eventually, the camera's scope broadens and the viewer is taken outside Bauby's motionless form, shown confined to either bed or wheelchair. Additional stimulation is provided by the vivid interpretations of Bauby's very active imagination: The titular symbols of oppression and freedom are both literalized, as is an extended hallucination of the Empress Eugenie. "I cultivate the art of simmering memories," Bauby writes, and the book is crammed with intimate reveries and recollections that Schnabel all but lunges at in his eagerness to craft a surreally creative essay on the human condition.

In that respect, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" fits snugly alongside 1996's "Basquiat" and 2000's "Before Night Falls" in Schnabel's gallery of tortured, misunderstood artists. But the fact that Bauby suffered for every word of his art, whereas Schnabel has bottomless visual resources at his disposal, inevitably makes the film a less intimate, more exterior experience.

Amalric is perfect within the tightly circumscribed parameters of his role, spending much of the pic immobilized with one eye wide open and his lip in a permanent droop. Thesp also has a pair of wonderful scenes with Max Von Sydow as his aging father, who weeps when he realizes, during a phone call, that Bauby can't answer back.

Pic reps a talent reunion of sorts from Spielberg's "Munich," reteaming producer Kathleen Kennedy, actors Amalric and Croze, and d.p. Kaminski, whose work is a continual wonder to behold. Juliette Welfing's editing maintains coherence despite multiple shifts in perspective.

Paul Cantelon's piano music amplifies the film's delicate, conflicting emotions, while somewhat less gracefully, the soundtrack samples everything from U2 and Tom Waits to the scores from "The 400 Blows" and "Lolita." Inventive credits sequences were designed by Schnabel himself.

Camera (color), Janusz Kaminski; editor, Juliette Welfing; music, Paul Cantelon; music supervisor, Schnabel; set designers, Michel Eric, Laurent Ott; costume designer, Olivier Beriot; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS), Jean-Paul Mugel, Francis Wargnier, Dominique Gaborieau; visual effects supervisors, Malika Mazaurie, Yann Blondel; visual effects, Eclair; associate producer, Leonard Glowinski; assistant director, Stephane Gluck. Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 22, 2007. Running time: 114 MIN.

Ciao,
Pro-B

[Grand Illusion]

this movie was fantastic. i loved every minute of it. max von sydow in particular was phenomenal (though that's not surprising).

Ah yes, I knew I was forgetting someone when discussing the nominees for my Personal Oscars.

I agree with your entire assessment as well.

[MichaelB]

Saw it this evening. Generally very impressed indeed, though I agree with the consensus that the first 30 minutes is so strong that the film hasn't really got anywhere to go after that, and I'm not surprised that 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days beat it to the Palme d'Or. Still, there's plenty there to hold the attention later, including a superb Max Von Sydow cameo that was worth the admission price on its own.

Oddly enough, the scene that resonated the most with me is one of the most matter-of-fact: it's the bit with the two telephone delivery men, culminating in a tasteless joke which Bauby inwardly finds hilarious. But that may well be because one of my closest friends is disabled and delights in undermining people's attempts at being PC about her condition. But it's moments like that which prevent it from being the mawkfest that it might well have been in the hands of a more conventional director.

[ogygia avenue]

I caught this last night in Boston, on what will apparently be the film's last screening for this engagement. It completely blew me away.

Schnabel has a very, very strong ability at putting the audience in the character's perspective, and the use of avant-garde techniques to further place us in his perspective were organic to the film without seeming contrived. I agree with Domino (!) that the Elle photo session was rather gratuitous (the ten people in the theatre with us started laughing when Lenny Kravitz came on screen). Some of the racier POV shots got a little tiresome... you know that these are things both Jean-Do and Schnabel has thought about, but they came off as rather cliched and overstating. (I'm thinking particularly about the shot in which one of the nurses is teaching Jean-Do how to say "L". We got the point, and when his voiceover came in I rolled my eyes.) Schnabel's unsentimental, straightforward tone went a long way towards making the film work; had anyone else directed it, I sense that it would have been way too sentimental.

All that said, the pacing was a bit questionable in spots. While the Lourdes scene is in there for sort-of-good reason, it weighted the back half of the film down.

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw this tonight and loved it. A very unique and moving take on a subject that could've very easily been Hollywood-ized. I'm glad that Johnny Depp, who was originally cast in the lead, wasn't able to ultimately take the role as Mathieu Amalric is magnificent.