{"id":805,"date":"2008-05-12T21:39:01","date_gmt":"2008-05-13T02:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/?p=805"},"modified":"2022-10-10T10:25:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T14:25:48","slug":"le-scaphandre-et-le-papillon-the-diving-bell-and-the-butterfly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/le-scaphandre-et-le-papillon-the-diving-bell-and-the-butterfly\/","title":{"rendered":"The camera is an eye, in Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Julian Schnabel is an artist-turned-filmmaker, evidently preoccupied with the lives of other artists and writers: Jean-Michel Basquiat in Basquiat<\/em>, Reinaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls<\/em>, and now Jean-Dominique Bauby in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several years ago, this blogger designed Fine Line Features’ official website for Before Night Falls<\/em>. But frankly, I had trouble working up the enthusiasm to watch a biopic (absolutely not one of my favorite genres) about a tetraplegic. But please do not be dissuaded by the admittedly depressing subject matter. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly<\/em> is utterly beautiful in every way, and moved this hardened movie blogger nearly to tears in the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mathieu Amalric (who resembles a more symmetrical Thom Yorke) plays the real-life Bauby, a fashion magazine editor who suffers a stroke. He survives with “locked-in syndrome,” the proverbial fate worse than death: near-total physical paralysis but with full mental faculties intact. In the true spirit of a French film, Bauby is surrounded by beautiful women. No less than Emanuelle Seigner plays Celine, the estranged mother of his children. In a moment of bittersweet humor, the despondent post-stroke Bauby is partially consoled when he first meets his two utterly gorgeous physical and speech therapists (Marie-Jos\u00e9e Croze and Anne Consigny).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to the DVD bonus features, screenwriter Ronald Harwood conceived of the powerful visual device of using the camera as Bauby’s point of view, simulating his sole means of communication: blinking. He is, blessedly, able to move one eye, and painstakingly dictates his autobiography letter by letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The soundtrack is excellent, including Tom Waits, Joe Strummer (a really great song, new to me, called “Ramshackle Day Parade”), and the best possible use of U2’s “Ultraviolet.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Julian Schnabel is an artist-turned-filmmaker, evidently preoccupied with the lives of other artists and writers: Jean-Michel Basquiat in Basquiat, Reinaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls, and now Jean-Dominique Bauby in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Several years ago, this blogger designed Fine Line Features’ official website for Before Night Falls. But frankly, I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,2],"tags":[1115,245,1199,39,1197,2040,95,1198,110],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-4-stars","category-movies","tag-biography","tag-biopic","tag-emanuelle-seigner","tag-france","tag-jean-doninique-bauby","tag-joe-strummer","tag-julian-schnabel","tag-mathieu-amalric","tag-u2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/diving-bell-butterfly-beach.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-cZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1451,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/lou-reed-berlin\/","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":0},"title":"Lou Reed, Antony, and Julian Schnabel Dance the Rock Minuet in the Concert Film Berlin","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"January 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Lou Reed's 1973 album Berlin is a concept album relating the tale of a doomed woman named Caroline living in the eponymous city. The term \"concept album,\" then and now, invokes immediate condescension from fans and critics alike, calling to mind the progressive rock excesses of 1970s megabands The Who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Lou Reed's Berlin","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/lou-reed-berlin-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/lou-reed-berlin-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/lou-reed-berlin-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/lou-reed-berlin-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/lou-reed-berlin-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1022,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/ne-le-dis-a-personne-tell-no-one\/","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":1},"title":"Le fugitif: Guillaume Canet’s Ne le dis \u00e0 personne (Tell No One)","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"August 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Guillaume Canet's\u00a0Ne le dis \u00e0 personne (Tell No One) enjoyed a surprisingly wide US theatrical release for a French film without huge English-speaking stars (except for Englishwoman Kristin Scott Thomas, perfectly fluent in French). Roger Ebert rightly compared the tightly crafted thriller with The Fugitive, placing it squarely in Hitchcockian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"3 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/3-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/tell-no-one-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/tell-no-one-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/tell-no-one-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/tell-no-one-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/tell-no-one-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1812,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/milk\/","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":2},"title":"Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in Gus Van Sant’s Milk","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"June 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Any friend of this blog will know that I almost universally hate biopics. As I've complained in my reviews of Control, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and even Walk Hard, I believe that the feature film is fundamentally ill suited for biography. One seemingly minor lesson from college that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"3 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/3-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sean Penn in Milk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/milk-sean-penn-featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/milk-sean-penn-featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/milk-sean-penn-featured.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/milk-sean-penn-featured.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/milk-sean-penn-featured.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":328,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/the-matador\/","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":3},"title":"Pierce Brosnin lets it rip in Richard Shepard’s The Matador","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"July 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Full of suspenseful set-pieces involving assassination, The Matador is a genre film on the surface. It's actually more of a character piece about one man about to pay the price for a lifetime of being a pathological loner (paradoxically, while indulging his lusts in every other way imaginable), and another\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"3 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/3-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Matador","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/matador-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/matador-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/matador-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/matador-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/matador-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5825,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/when-happens-when-you-tell-the-bush-administration-what-they-dont-want-to-hear-fair-game\/","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":4},"title":"When happens when you tell the Bush Administration what they don’t want to hear: Fair Game","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"August 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Doug Liman's Fair Game is an important movie. The legacy of the Bush Administration's war on terror comprises many grand injustices: civilian casualties, torture, increased resentment worldwide, eroded civil liberties, et al. In other words, lots of raw material for screenplays. Most treatments of the war on terror in movies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Naomi Watts and Sean Penn in Fair Game","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/fair-game.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/fair-game.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/fair-game.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/fair-game.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/fair-game.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1248,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/w\/","url_meta":{"origin":805,"position":5},"title":"Oliver Stone skips over the defining moments of George W. Bush’s life in W.","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"October 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I had the same issues with Oliver Stone's W. that I do with every biopic. As virtually every feature film biography attempts to do the job of a book, they inevitably fall into the same trap: they become highlights reels that merely illustrate key moments in a real-life figure's life,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"2 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/2-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/oliver-stone-w-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/oliver-stone-w-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/oliver-stone-w-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/oliver-stone-w-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/oliver-stone-w-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6195,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/6195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}