{"id":916,"date":"2008-01-05T15:08:44","date_gmt":"2008-01-05T20:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/05\/review-the-diving-bell-and-the-butterfly\/"},"modified":"2008-01-05T15:08:44","modified_gmt":"2008-01-05T20:08:44","slug":"review-the-diving-bell-and-the-butterfly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/review-the-diving-bell-and-the-butterfly\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly<\/a>Director Julian Schnabel is also an artist; in fact, he prefers to be known as a painter rather than as a filmmaker. That visual background serves The Diving Bell and the Butterfly<\/i> perfectly in its story of a 42-year-old fashion editor who undergoes a sudden stroke, leaving him completely paralyzed except for his left eye. He can still hear, but his world is largely rendered through what he can see and eventually, what he can remember seeing. Jean-Do, the playboy senior editor of the French Elle<\/i> magazine, struggles with his condition, which is termed “locked-in syndrome”–a perfectly healthy mind trapped in a husk of a body, a condition he likens to being trapped underwater in a diving bell. One of his first full sentences (once his speech therapist Henriette has worked out a system of communication using winks) indicates his wish to die; it takes time for him to learn to appreciate what he still has and to rely on his imagination and memory. <\/p>\n

The film as a whole is one of great beauty and sensitivity, with Schnabel and two-time Oscar winner Janusz Kaminski bringing an impressionistic touch to the scenes of Jean-Do’s imagination and memory, as well as to the first third of the film, which is almost completely filmed from Jean-Do’s point of view. As Jean-Do moves outside of himself, accepting the emotional investment that Henriette and his dictation-taker Claude (and also his ex-girlfriend Celine) have given him, the camera does as well, taking a third-person view. The danger in a film like this would be to list toward sentimentality, but Schnabel never does that. We care about Jean-Do, but his wry voice-over (taken mostly from the book written by the real-life inspiration for the story) and the caring but never maudlin camera allows a dark humor that keeps the film from becoming yet another heroism-in-the-face-of-adversity stories.<\/p>\n

As to Schnabel’s claim to be a painter first and a filmmaker second, he may have a hard time defending his preference after having made such a wonderful film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Director Julian Schnabel is also an artist; in fact, he prefers to be known as a painter rather than as a filmmaker. That visual background serves The Diving Bell and the Butterfly perfectly in its story of a 42-year-old fashion editor who undergoes a sudden stroke, leaving him completely paralyzed except for his left eye. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[763,535,740],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":928,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/the-fake-golden-globes\/","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":0},"title":"The Fake Golden Globes","author":"Jandy","date":"January 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, I guess the awards themselves aren't fake, but announced with staccato quickness, reaaaaaally short or nonexistent clips, and no fanfare by Access Hollywood-type hosts, they sure felt fake. In fact, I think I'm going to just pretend that No Country for Old Men and Juno won everything. Except Best\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1027,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/oscar-predictions\/","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":1},"title":"Oscar Predictions","author":"Jandy","date":"February 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Oscars are four days away, and I figure it's about time I throw some predictions out there. Also, I don't want the entire front page of the blog to be all American Idol posts, so I had to post about something else. Best Actor George Clooney - Michael Clayton\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":820,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/trailer-watch-highly-anticipated\/","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":2},"title":"Trailer Watch – Highly Anticipated","author":"Jandy","date":"November 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Haven't done a trailer watch for a while. Most of the things I'm most interested in, especially this time of the year, are limited release films, and it feels weird to plug them when they come out when I know that I and most everyone I know won't be able\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1032,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/scattered-oscar-thoughts\/","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":3},"title":"Scattered Oscar Thoughts","author":"Jandy","date":"February 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I didn't liveblog the Oscars because I was busy hosting an awesome Oscar party with awesome people at it. It was the most fun ever. And it only made it better that the Academy got most everything exactly right! I got 14 out of 24 categories right (that's after I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":920,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/best-of-2007-or-yay-more-lists\/","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":4},"title":"Best of 2007; or, Yay More Lists!","author":"Jandy","date":"January 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it's that time of year. And while most critics seem to be bemoaning to one degree or another the expectation that they compile year-end top ten lists, I still relish list-making, even though any list I might make is going to woefully incomplete. This year I saw 182 movies,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":963,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/january-2008-readingwatching-recap\/","url_meta":{"origin":916,"position":5},"title":"January 2008 Reading\/Watching Recap","author":"Jandy","date":"February 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The good part about being home from school for the first half of January? LOTS of time to watch LOTS of movies. The bad part about going back to school for the second half of January? No time to write about all those movies from the first half. This is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}