Julian Schnabel's THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

[mouton]

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Written by Ronald Harwood
Directed by Julian Schnabel

Jean-Dominique Bauby: Mon premier mot est “je.” Je commence par moi.

People often find themselves feeling trapped. They feel trapped at work or trapped in a bad relationship. When we find ourselves in these sorts of situations, we are sometimes fortunate enough to have choices. We can change our surroundings; we can look to new possibilities and put the scenarios that are suffocating us behind us. And if we can’t make that change happen immediately, we can find ways to escape for a while. We can go for walks; we can talk to friends; we can go to the movies. Now, thanks to director, Julian Schnabel, we can feel just as trapped at the movies as we already may feel in our regular waking lives. THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY is a French film about one man’s true account of what it feels like to experience the medical condition called locked-in syndrome. Someone in this condition can see and think, even remember everything but his body is paralyzed from top to bottom and he cannot move his mouth to speak. As depressing as this all sounds, it is nowhere near as intense as how it feels to see the film from the perspective of the patient, which is exactly where Schnabel places his viewer. Whatever you were escaping won’t seem so important after having experienced this cinematic paralysis.

The film is even more devastating because this horror is a true story. Former Elle magazine editor, Jean-Dominique Bauby (played in the film by Mathieu Almarich) suffered a stroke that left him in a coma in 1995. The film tells his story from the moment he awakes from that coma twenty days later. He must battle his way through his confusion to deal with the crushing news that the life he knew is now over. This is a man who worked in fashion. His life was glitz, glamour, always moving and now he is sitting in a cramped hospital room and unable to get out of bed or even sit up. While Bauby wakes up to hell, we wake up to cinematic heaven. Award-winning cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, developed a style of shooting that shows the viewer what Bauby is seeing. Doctors and orderlies are constantly in his face; images are blurred or skewed depending on how alert Bauby is; and when he closes his eyes, we see nothing but the back of his eyelid. We get out of that claustrophobic space the same way Bauby does by following his imagination, which takes him back to many memories or to all-together new places for experiences he’s never had. The dreamy technique is humbling, inspiring and, rather ironically, cinematically alive. Kaminski has taken a paralyzed perspective and made it dance.

Ronald Harwood’s script lights a fire of frustration in the viewer while it exposes the stupidity of humanity. While no one around him can hear his thoughts, we are privy to all of them being trapped in the mind where they are formed. The manner in which the senior doctors speak to him and the liberties they take knowing he cannot speak back or push their fingers away while they poke at him exposes the inequities of the medical profession. Hope is casually dropped into the conversation whenever there is nothing more to say. Even in this so obviously dire situation, people cannot directly address pain and suffering. Harwood is also careful not to inundate us with imagery of Bauby’s former existence. The memories we do see alert us to significant relationships and moments but make no linear trajectory of everything that led up to this. Nor are we subjected to clichés of everything exciting that Bauby will never know again. Instead, we are just shown glimpses of the man we are meant to identify with. This story would be tragic no matter what the background and Harwood’s sparse humanization allows us to see that clearly. More importantly, the dialogue in Bauby’s head and the little that manages to get to those around him allows us to see who he is right now. After all, he is still alive.

As harrowing as this all sounds, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY is still uplifting. Bauby manages to maintain some of the relationships he had prior to his attack and their new context is a reminder that something deeper than mindless chatter holds them together. And for every bumbling doctor that doesn’t know what to do with him, there are just as many others determined to help him, even some that develop all new relationships with him. While his whirlwind life may seem to have come to a deadening halt, he learns a lesson that we all need to remind ourselves of regularly. There is no sense in sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves while we are still alive and capable of progress. If you need an example to see that, you should know that by blinking his way through the alphabet one letter at a time, Bauby wrote the book on which this film is based.

www.blacksheepreviews.com

[oscar jubis]

You might want to correct your spelling of the lead's last name. It's Amalric, not Almarich. Mathieu Amalric has built an impressive career over the past two decades. He has won two Cesars for performances in Arnaud Desplechin's films: My Sex Life and Kings and Queen.

[oscar jubis]

My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space, set out to Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas's court. You can visit the woman you love, slide down beside her and stroke her still-sleeping face. You can build castles in Spain, steal the Golden Fleece, discover Atlantis, realize your childhood dreams and adult ambitions.

That is an excerpt from a memoir written by Jean Dominique Bauby, an editor-in-chief at Elle magazine, after his brain stem was rendered useless by a rare cerebrovascular accident. After 20 days in a deep coma, Bauby regained consciousness gradually. He learned that only some eye movement and blinking were under his control. His right eye was sutured shut to prevent corneal ulcerations. Then he satisfied his creative impulses by dictating "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by blinking his left eye in response to a series of letters arranged according to how often they occur in his native French language.

Painter-turned-filmmaker Julian Schnabel's adaptation of Bauby's memoir is his third biography of an artist. The film opens when Bauby begins to regain consciousness; he appears groggy and somnolent as he gradually realizes the extent of his disability. Schnabel facilitates the viewer's empathy by means of a subjective camera, or first-person point of view. This approach was used briefy in the 1930s in Julian Duvivier's Poil de carotte and Karl Freund's Mad Love. It was used more extensively in two outstanding films released in 1947: The Lady in the Lake, and Dark Passage, in which the subjective camera is only abandoned after the protagonist has undergone plastic surgery so he can have Humphrey Bogart's face.

Schnabel and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski use various photographic techniques and devices to recreate Bauby's post-coma perceptions, including his inability to focus clearly with his right eye. The resulting expressionistic images have been a staple of avant garde or experimental cinema since the late 1920s, but have rarely been incorporated into narrative cinema with such conviction. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a biopic of sorts because Bauby (played by Cesar winner Mathieu Amalric) wrote not only about his immediate experience but also about his dreams, fantasies, and memories. A most effective flashback involves Bauby shaving his elderly dad Papinou (Max von Sydow). The elder Bauby is reflected on a mirror framed by pictures of the son stuck in the crevices where the mirror's surface meets the wooden frame. Other memories seem less resonant, including one in which Bauby reluctantly accompanies his religious lover to Lourdes. Some brief sequences find Bauby fantasizing about the Empress Eugenie and ballet legend Vaslav Nijinsky. Other images are reflective of Bauby's use of metaphors and symbols, not only the ones mentioned in the title but also recurring shots of melting icebergs and a lone skier careening down a snowy mountain.

Certain aspects of the production indicate Schnabel's efforts to achieve realism. Indeed, that is the exact hospital balcony facing the English Channel that Bauby named his "Cinecitta". And some of the hospital staff seen in the film are the ones who treated the real Bauby a decade ago. Then again, Schnabel does take liberties with the material, not all of them for obvious reasons. In his memoir, Bauby expressed guilt at not restoring contact with a friend returning from 4 years in captivity in Lebanon. Schnabel and screenwriter Ronald Harwood's decision to invent a reunion between them yields a powerfully dramatic scene. Other deviations from the source raise questions about intent. What is the purpose of giving Bauby and his wife, from whom he was separated, a third child they didn't have? Why would they choose to invert the roles played by his wife and his mistress during his convalescence? The switch is not required in order to regale us with an emotionally charged scene in which one of the women must cooperate so that Bauby can communicate by phone with the other.

Questions aside, if one of the characteristics of great art is to augment our understanding of human nature, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a remarkable achievement. It puts the viewer in a position of intimate identification with a man in a unique and horrifying predicament. It gives us intimate access to his mind, making us complicit with his need for validation and acknowledgment. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a monument to the resilience of the creative mind and the endurance of the human spirit. More than one critic has ventured that Bauby "would have despised" such sentiments. Such conjecture is irrelevant. Bauby's gift to us is unconditional, and there's nothing wrong in drawing uplift and inspiration from it.

[Chris Knipp]

Nice detailed review, Oscar, which provides some good comments and observations, including some quite precise comparisons with the facts of Bauby's life I couldn't provide because I don't know much about him outside the film and haven't read the book. My review from the NYFF may be somewhat redundant here, but for the record I'll re-post it below

I also think highly of the movie and maybe will list it in my US ten best--hard to categorize it since it's a French movie in most respects other than the original treatment and direction. (It's no. 7 on the Voice poll which I'm using as a point of reference at the moment.)

Yes, the spelling of the actor's name is Matthieu AMALRIC--it's a tricky name and took me a while to learn. But given his work to date, it's a name we need to know.

[Chris Knipp]

JULIAN SCHNABEL: THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY


MARIE-JOSEE CROZE IN THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

In the blink of an eye

Review by Chris Knipp

[This was the first pres screening of the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center in September 2007. That review will be found here.]

Painter-turned-filmmaker Julian Schnabel�s brilliantly fractured acid-trip vision informs the best sequences of this film he has directed about Jean-Dominique Bauby, based on Bauby's eponymous book and veteran screenplay writer- adapter Ronald Haywood�s treatment. Bauby, "Jean-Do" to his friends and family, is at the top of his not inconsiderable game in his early forties, father of a cute boy and girl, lover, writer, and, most notably, editor of the fashion magazine Elle.

Then, as this film begins, Jean-Do wakes up from a coma trapped in his body following a massive stroke, so totally paralyzed his condition, as the head doctor tells him, is called "locked in syndrome." The English words are used by French doctors for his condition, but Schnabel wisely had Haywood�s screenplay translated into French and made the film in Bauby�s language and shot it where the events took place.

Maybe nothing later can match the empathy and shock of that first awakening sequence, seen through a special "swing and tilt" lens (augmented by Schnabel�s own eyeglasses) refracting images in and out of focus and in and out of Jean-Do's limited range of view, when he first comes out of his coma, lying helpless and immobile as the doctor tells him where he is and what has happened to him. He can see only what�s in front of him. Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminiski did the cinematography�he�s one of many top-ranking collaborators on the film including star Matthieu Amalric whose voice-over we hear (as heard in Bauby's head: he can't speak) to make this moment intense, shocking, intensely real and strangely beautiful to us as we watch through the patient�s eyes.

Finally the intense Amalric�s big bulging eyes are about to come into their own as he impersonates the patient� except the doctors "occlude" (sew shut) one of them because it�s in danger of drying up. We see this from the helpless Jean-Do�s P.O.V. as we see everything for a while. These early scenes are stunning, accomplished, and fresh. Remember when Schnabel showed a room as Basquiat saw it stoned? This is that, in spades.

Bauby, Harwood, Schnabel�and the Berck Maritime Hospital where Baugy was actually cared for: this is the fourth principal element behind this beautiful, touching film�s success. s Bauby�s real life caregivers appear in the picture and were consulted at every stage in the shooting at the hospital on how he looked and how he was cared for: the film balances wild invention with faithfulness to fact. The fifth element is a magnificent cast, with Amalric as Bauby, as well as Emmanuelle Seigner, Anne Cobigny, Marie-Josee Croze, Patrick Cervais, Niels Arestrup, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Maria Hands, Max von Sydow (as Bauby�s father) and Schnabel�s wife Olatz Lopez Garmendia.

A speech therapist teaches the paralyzed Jean-Do to "speak" by blinking his eye to choose letters. He is despairing at first: his first message is "I want to die." But he has spunk, and he also has irony, anger, energy and will. And everybody around him is extraordinarily kind. We may have cause to remember that in the UN study Michael Moore cites in Sicko, the French medical system came out number one. But family and friends rally round and behave commendably too.

So the patient gains heart and decides to write a book, even though he must still use this slow, painstaking method that he learned with his speech therapist. He already had a contract for one, but he changes the subject to this overwhelming experience he is undergoing and all the thoughts and images that flow through him, which become a kind of poem about life and about his own experiences. His publisher finds an especially kind and patient collaborator for him. And she, like the other women around him, is beautiful.

Jean-Do is trapped inside the diver's bell (an image Schnabel and Amalric enact literally). But also he�s the butterfly because in memory and imagination he can flit anywhere, over mountain ranges, over decades.

A soundtrack uses Tom Waits, "Singin� in the Rain," The 400 Blows theme, and other elements to pull together a wild flow of sequences with emotion and allusion. It�s a bit of a letdown to see Amalric sometimes, skillfully but still theatrically, impersonating the paralyzed Jean-Do directly onscreen. The film can be forgiven for occasionally failing to transform the ordinary and banal into the extraordinary because when it�s on point, it�s so exhilarating, terrifying, and mind-blowing to watch.

Bauby was a successful man, but his success and his life were of an ordinary kind. Writing a book one painfully chosen letter at a time was not ordinary, and he rose to the occasion in the thoughtfulness and originality of his text. This was not merely coping; it was transcending. It also gave Schnabel, who was himself dealing with his mother's recent death and his father's fear of imminent demise when the project fell into his hands, a special opportunity to make a film that serves its subject faithfully and well, and at the same time is highly personal. The book was an international bestseller. This film got Schnabel the Best Director award at the Festival de Cannes this year. That's not bad. It's a remarkable accomplishment. A French language film called Le scaphandre et le papillon, celebrated at Cannes, has turned out to be one of the year's best American movies. To watch it is an extraordinary experience and not to be missed.

Now showing in selected theaters (January 2008).

[Chris Knipp]

I might add that Schnabel, in his characteristic red plaid flannel shirt, made a colorful Q&A appearance. His talk influenced my comments on his fractured style/mind. He's nutty, but he's also admirably bold and has vast energy and imaginative instinct. Making a movie in French with what appears to have been only a smattering of the language when he started out is an example of his willingness to stride in boldly where others might tiptoe; and he carried it off. I guess he does speak Spanish and that helps. Everything about Schnabel le is marked by chutzpah. His paintings are grand and messy. The effect of his films is different, but the two media feed into each other in his case very perceptibly.

[Chris Knipp]

This movie has received four Oscar nominations, in the Director, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, and Cinematography categories.

Schnabel was interviewed for the hour on Charlie Rose January 31st and the video of this can be found here. Schnabel is an interesting man. A real artist-type feller. Not your Hollywood studio type nor yet your intense indie cinema guru. That he gives every evidence of having more than a screw loose is all in his favor, in my estimation, for him as an artist and as a filmmaker.

A piece of information I found interesting, probably mentioned at the NYFF but I'd forgotten, is that when encounters with Bauby, especially the first ones, were filmed, Amalric was in another room watching the people on a monitor and Bauby's responses, which we hear but the characters onscreen don't because he can't speak, were all improvised by Amalric, not scripted.

And that's why they feel so genuine. And are so fresh and provocative. He's like the schoolboy in the back of the classroom with snide comments on all the solemnities in front. I can relate.

Another interesting factoid: Schnabel asked what he was said hands down, a painter, and he added that during the shooting there were times when he went home and painted all night. He also had a place to work on that "Cinecitta'" porch (as Bauby calls it).

A "poem" by Schnabel's aged father (whose fears of death fed into the film and motivated Schnabel's work on it) read by Rose revealed something of the same fractured sensibility--and bold originality and elan vital as the son's got.

I rewatched the movie the other day.