The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, shot in France, in French, enthralls American audiences and critics
February 5, 2008
In December 1995, at the age of 43, French fashion editor Jean-Dominique Bauby suffered a sudden and severe stroke in the brain stem while driving his car. He emerged from a coma several weeks later to find himself in a rare condition called “locked-in syndrome” (LIS).
Although the Frenchman’s mind was intact, the father of two had lost virtually all physical control, able to move only his left eyelid, with no hope of recovery. Then Bauby did something truly amazing. He wrote a book about his life that has now been made into a movie acclaimed in France and the U.S.: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Remarkably, even though an American director and British screenwriter are involved, the film was shot in France, in French, as Le Scaphandre et le Papillon. It plays here with English subtitles.
The film version of Bauby’s hospital bed memoir opened in late 2007 and is directed by American painter and director Julian Schnabel. The 73-year-old British screenwriter Ronald Harwood, who won an Academy Award for his screenplay to Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, has been nominated for another Oscar for his adaptation of “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” (It has garnered Oscar nominations for best director, cinematography, film editing as well.) Harwood has even won kudos from his colleagues in France for his screenplay in the second Prix Jacques Prevert, awarded by French screenwriters’ organization Union Guide des Scenaristes.
Harwood first adapted the book in English for Schnabel’s film of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But to remain true to Bauby’s story, despite fears from distributors that it would hurt the film at the box-office, Schnabel had it translated into French. So “Diving Bell” is that rare thing, a co-production between France and the US, and thus a meeting of two frequently incompatible - and competitive - cinema industries.
Johnny Depp was originally set to play Bauby, but Pirates of the Caribbean came along and caused a conflict. So director Julian Schnabel, whose previous films, Basquiat and Before Night Falls, were also studies of artists isolated from their surroundings, had the idea to make this story —of a Frenchman and his French Florence Nightingales —in French.
For authenticity, Schnabel opted to learn French himself, to cast mostly French actors, to shoot at the seaside hospital where Bauby convalesced, and to involve the caregivers who actually knew him in the production. “I didn’t speak French before I made the movie. It’s no harder than anything else. I translated the movie into French with each actor separately because I wanted to hear what they would say, what would come out of their mouths.” The director spoke a little French, having lived in France in 1987. “I thought to have English and American people make believe they were French, and then have French people read French subtitles in France, it just seemed ridiculous,” Schnabel says. “I have to be responsible for what I do if I’m the author of this movie, and I think it would have been compromised to go to a soundstage in Los Angeles.”
The role is played by French actor Mathieu Amalric, in a stirring portrayal of a man trapped in his own body. Mathieu Amalric is best known to American audiences as the Frenchman who helped the Israelis locate the perpetrators of the Olympics massacre in Munich. Here he delivers a masterful performance almost without moving a muscle. He makes Schnabel’s risky approach pay off by working within Bauby’s physical limitations to create a rich emotional portrait.
Unable to write or speak, Bauby composed each passage mentally and then dictated it, letter by letter, to a therapist who painstakingly recited a frequency-ordered alphabet until Bauby chose a letter by blinking his left eyelid once to signify “yes.” In another act of spectacular will, Bauby survived just long enough to see his memoir published in the spring of 1997. Bauby died two days after the book was published in France, to rave reviews.
The film may be in French, but very little is lost in translation for English-speakers. Unlike many faster-paced or comedic foreign films, viewers don’t miss much by reading the subtitles. This is partly because The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is an essentially visual film.
The film often shows what Bauby sees. For example, blinking is shown as the image flashing to black. Much of the movie offers mind’s-eye views and flashbacks of Bauby’s memories and imagination.
British screenwriter Harwood consulted with the mother of Bauby’s children to make the film, and with the female therapist who took down most of the slow dictation. He described the sound of the woman reciting the specially-ordered alphabet as “music,” and her rhythmical recitation runs throughout the film.
American director Schnabel, 56, has been a fixture of the New York art world since bursting onto the scene in the ’80’s with his neo-expressionist, theatrical, borrowing from Kabuki. But while his reputation as a painter has subsided, Schnabel’s credibility as a filmmaker has done the opposite. He’s earned kudos for the films Basquiat (about street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat) and Before Night Falls (Cuban poet Reynaldo Arenas) All three of his films are biographies of creative people imprisoned by their circumstances.
When The Diving Bell and the Butterfly made its world premiere last year in France at the Cannes film festival, Schnabel won the best director prize. Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski took home the grand technical prize for his innovative approach to the camerawork.
While shot in French, the film’s appeal has transcended language and culture. National Board of Review in the U.S. named The Diving Bell and The Butterfly the best foreign-language film of 2007. Diving Bell also won the Golden Globe for the best foreign film, and appeared on many U.S. newspapers critics’ top ten lists of the best films of 2007. Then of course, there are those four Oscar nominations.
Some of the French critics originally looked down their noses at the film; perhaps annoyed that an American had dared to poach a French story. The audience response, though, in France and all around the world, has been wildly enthusiastic. Diving Bell marks a new milestone in US-French cooperation in cinema.
Comments
Got something to say?
You must be logged in to post a comment.