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Movies and Life - by Tracy

'A good story should surprise you as it unfolds. Then afterwards it should seem the story could only have unfolded that way.’ Ken Loach

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Movies and Life - March 2008

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - a review

March 31st 2008 01:12

Julian Schnabel has discovered a second passion in his life, film-making. Firstly, he was known for being a famous and controversial painter of the eighties. But now, with his new film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon), he’s found another medium to thrive in.

A film of elemental power, it is adapted from a memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby, French Ellle’s brash and powerful editor. At age 43, Bauby had a stroke, leaving him paralysed, with lock-in syndrome, where his could only move his left eyelid. Through determination, patience and frustration, Bauby wrote the entire book by blinking his left eyelid.

Before seeing the film, such a premise seemed impossible, yet undoubtedly it is a visually stunning piece of art. It is a fine and cleverly crafted film helped by Ronald Harwood’s accomplished script. The film conveys a strong feeling of claustrophobia without it being a wholly depressing experience, which is quite extraordinary.

In a Normandy hospital, alongside the dedicated amanuensis, Henriette Duand, they begin using a laborious and at times seemingly unlikely form of communication. Henriette listed the French frequency-ordered alphabet (E S A R I N T U L etc.), until Bauby blinked to choose a letter. The completed book took about 200,000 blinks to write and each word took approximately two minutes.

His first complete sentence was ‘I want death’. As a viewer, this wish seemed completely understandable.

The Diving Bell and Butterfly - alphabet

For the first half of the film, we saw Bauby’s experiences through his eyes and body. We have access to his thoughts even though his mouth won’t respond. These early scenes are witty and active infused with Bauby’s brusque humour. This device takes the viewer into one of the most confusing, complex and amazing worlds –the mind. We saw the room as he would see it, tilted, as his head usually rested to one side. We heard his thoughts, his frustrated delight at being able to look down Henriette’s dress at her breasts yet not being able to touch them. We heard him screaming internally to try and be heard. We hear his pain from his perspective, quite literally.

Through the adept talents of cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, our views dart around as Bauby's eye would move. It never becomes tiresome because we're constantly aware of his thoughts. He feels like a man trapped in a diving suit but he says there are two things not paralysed - "my imagination and my memory". These take flight as he lies there (hence the butterfly of the title), in startling montages filled with things he loves: food, women, his work and his children. These images and experiences are his salvation.

We learn of Bauby’s life before the accident through these scenes and gain a sense of his being. He imagines experiencing the food he can’t eat, the places he can’t visit and the sex he can’t have. Colour, music and memories are all used as the sensory brushstrokes in this giant portrait of human life. And by learning to explore his memory and imagination, Bauby discovered a kind of freedom and humanity he’d never known as a prince of the Parisian fast life.

Bauby retains his macabre, sarcastic sense of humour heard through his thoughts. He doesn’t want to be treated or thought of as a vegetable, in fact, when a visiting friend tells him that people at their work think he is a vegetable, his answer is, ‘what kind of vegetable, a carrot or a pickle?’ The story is dispersed with Bauby’s scornful humour, where the audience is given permission to laugh, which at times, was a relief. Can you imagine how annoying it would be to watch a football game - and then just before kick-off someone comes in and turns it off and you can’t say a thing? Bauby’s internal dialogue was just as colourful as I would imagine it would be out-loud.

We squirm as the doctor states that he needs to sew his right eye up otherwise it will become septic. We hear Bauby yelp with fear, cry for him to stop and see the needle move towards his eye as the doctor announces in a patronising and jovial tone, ‘now, you won’t feel a thing’. I yearned for the doctor to be silent seeing as he was incapable of comforting Bauby with respect.

We feel Bauby’s frustration and indignation when forced to listen to inane dialogue from doctors who patronised him by repeatedly describing things as being a ‘surprise’. Nothing was a surprise, it was all a nightmare. This joviality continues when the doctor gives Bauby is a mirror to see himself for the first time, as though he is likely to be pleased with what he sees. He isn’t. He is horrified and shocked, describing himself as looking like ‘a vat of formaldehyde’ with his head tilted to the side, one eye sown up and saliva dribbling down his chin.

Schnabel won the best director award at last year's Cannes film festival, a well-earned achievement. Janusz Kaminski (Saving Private Ryan 1998, Schindler's List 1993) received a nomination but unfortunately didn’t win but nonetheless, it was indeed an honour, especially he had no previous experience in working on a French film.

The film had a special resonance for Schnabel. He was aware of Jean-Dominique Bauby's extraordinary memoir for many years, but he never thought he could be involved in its production. Schnabel had just lived through his own father's terminal illness, and stated as seen in the film clip below, that under those circumstances, he couldn't help but be inspired by the film’s premise. Schnabel told interviewers that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was his way of processing and coming to terms with his own mortality. ‘I made this movie, and I'm not afraid to die.’

Bauby’s book was published in France in 1997. Ten days after the book was published, Bauby died of pneumonia.

Julian Schnabel: Reasons for making 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly':

Trailer:

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Movies and Life - March 2008

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - a review

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