Short Take: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

May 30th, 2008 | By Rick | Category: Short Take

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

Direction: Julian Schnabel
Screenplay: Ronald Harwood
Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski
Editing: Juliette Welfling

I resisted seeing this for a time, because it just didn’t seem like a story that I would like. Despite all the reviews to the contrary, it seemed gimmicky — a film from the point-of-view (POV) of a paralytic man, a stroke victim who can only communicate with the blink of one eye? How ripe for bathos can you get? Fortunately, my long-suffering wife Pam has better taste and I was able to discover I was wrong: Diving Bell and the Butterfly is wholly engrossing. The POV work, designed by director Schnabel and cinematographer Kaminski, is very convincing. It draws us into the mind of it’s protagonist, Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), from the moment he wakes up in his hospital bed through his initial therapy and forays into the world. Gradually, tentatively, we discover along with Bauby how he looks in the film’s present, and are able to compare it with how he looked in the past, or how he looked in his memories of the past. Thus, we feel some of the horror that he does, some of the loss and we grieve along with him. And although we leave his POV somewhere in the second act, Schnabel returns us to it again and again, thus retaining our grounding in Bauby’s experience. Overall, a remarkable film.

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11 comments
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  1. Pam May 30th, 2008 6:52 am :

    What I found so remarkable about this film is its ability to place each of us into Bauby’s experience of being totally helpless and dependent. The close shots made me feel bound up and unable to escape.

  2. Ibetolis May 30th, 2008 7:12 am :

    Well, you know how I feel about this impressive, beautiful film.

    I’m glad you’ve seen it now and felt the same way, it truly is remarkable.

  3. Rick May 30th, 2008 7:41 am :

    Pam, that’s what is so great about this flick, all right. We really do have a taste of Bauby’s life.

    Ibetolis, it is a very remarkable film. Too bad it wasn’t up for an oscar as best picture or foreign film (I know, it didn’t qualify for the latter)

  4. Daniel May 30th, 2008 10:40 am :

    Good on you, Pam, for steering Rick to this film. Somehow I didn’t become as emotional as I thought I would, but I still felt it was one of the best films of last year. Amalric’s performance was particularly impressive. It probably seemed like Oscar bait, but I thought it was honest and heartfelt.

    And yes, the POV aspect does set this apart from many other similar stories. Great take, Rick.

  5. Marilyn May 30th, 2008 3:49 pm :

    I avoided this film because of a very ho-hum experience with another paralytic POV film, The Sea Inside. Can anyone tell me how the two films stack up together?

  6. Daniel May 30th, 2008 5:04 pm :

    Hmm, yes, Marilyn. They are somewhat similar. This takes a much more literal approach to the POV style than The Sea Inside. As Rick says, we don’t even see our subject until halfway through. The cinematography in Bell is pretty amazing overall. Style aside, Sea focuses primarily on euthanasia while Bell, which is a more hopeful film, focuses on someone’s struggle to communicate with the outside world.

    Like you, I kind of forgot about Sea after I left the theater. I don’t think Bell will fade as easily.

  7. Marilyn May 30th, 2008 6:30 pm :

    Thanks, Daniel. That helps.

  8. Pat May 30th, 2008 6:41 pm :

    Rick - I’m also glad you liked this movie. I thought it was beautiful and moving, and very bathos-free.

  9. Rick May 30th, 2008 9:55 pm :

    Marilyn, i haven’t seen The Sea Inside, but as Daniel says, Bell is pretty amazing. I’m resistant to cheap gimmickry, but there was little of that on display to my eyes, at least. I thought it was very clear-eyed, and came by whatever emotion it evoked honestly.

    Daniel, maybe that’s why you didn’t feel as much emotion as you thought, because it doesn’t go out of its way, as some films do, to ratchet it up.

    Thanks for the comment, Pat. It was indeed exceedingly beautiful.

  10. Philip T. Blaisdell June 10th, 2008 2:53 am :

    I loved “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”, but the movie I’d rather see is “My Stroke of Insight”, which is the amazing bestselling book by Dr Jill Bolte Taylor. It is an incredible story and there’s a happy ending. She was a 37 year old Harvard brain scientist who had a stroke in the left half of her brain. The story is about how she fully recovered, what she learned and experienced, and it teaches a lot about how to live a better life. Her TEDTalk at TED dot com is fantastic too. It’s been spread online millions of times and you’ll see why!

  11. Rick June 10th, 2008 10:03 am :

    Philip, thanks for the tip, and welcome.

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