THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
/
2007
DIRECTOR: JULIAN SCHNABEL
CINEMATOGRAPHER: JANUSZ KAMINSKI
WRITER: JEAN-DOMINIQUE BAUBY (novel)/ RONALD HARWOOD (screenplay)
BUDGET: $12.8 million
GROSS: $19,780,116 (worldwide)
In 1995, at the age of 43, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Jean-Do) had a debilitating stroke that left him completely paralyzed except for his left eye. Over the course of the next two years he used that left eye to blink out his memoir, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly - taking us into the head and dreams and memories of a man 'locked-in'. That book is, obviously, the basis of the similarly titled film from director Julian Schnabel.
So, how do you make a movie about a guy who can only blink his eye? It might not sound like great fodder for such a visual medium, but Schnabel and his great director of photography, Janusz Kaminski, made it one (and both of them picked up awards at Cannes as well).
The first scenes take place from Jean-Do's POV and puts us right there as he (and in essence we) wake up in a hospital. He tries to talk to the doctors, but soon realizes that what he is saying is only in his head and they cannot hear him (the shock and frustration I felt at that moment was instant). Then when they sew up his right eye and we see it from his POV, we get an even more direct sense of how closed off and 'locked-in' he really is. As we move away from the POV we get our first look at him from another perspective. The film uses both visual techniques to tell the story and does it so very well.
The story is moving and interesting and the writing is smart and absorbing, as we go inside his head and his memories - but also sit and watch the minutia of what his present situation is truly like: not being able to talk or move and having to blink as someone reads off letters until he has spelled out words he wants to say.
This is a great film, and Schnabel’s best work. Now, I haven't read the novel, and maybe I would think different of the movie if I had, but in a year (2007) that saw some great movies, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly was another stand out experience at the cinema.