Jump to content

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Red Alien (talk | contribs) at 08:56, 13 November 2018. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJulian Schnabel
Screenplay byRonald Harwood
Produced byKathleen Kennedy
Jon Kilik
Starring
CinematographyJanusz Kamiński
Edited byJuliette Welfling
Music byPaul Cantelon
Production
companies
Distributed byPathé (France)
Miramax Films
Release dates
  • 22 May 2007 (2007-05-22) (Cannes Film Festival)
  • 23 May 2007 (2007-05-23) (France)
  • 1 February 2008 (2008-02-01) (United States)
Running time
112 minutes
CountriesFrance
United States
LanguageFrench
Budget$12.8 million[1]
Box office$19.8 million[2]

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (French: Le Scaphandre et le Papillon) is a 2007 biographical drama film directed by Julian Schnabel and written by Ronald Harwood. Based on Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoir of the same name, the film depicts Bauby's life after suffering a massive stroke that left him with a condition known as locked-in syndrome. Bauby is played by Mathieu Amalric.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly won awards at the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, and the César Awards, and received four Academy Award nominations. Several critics later listed it as one of the best films of its decade.[3] It ranks in BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century.

Plot

The first third of the film is told from the main character's, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), or Jean-Do as his friends call him, first person perspective. The film opens as Bauby wakes from his three-week coma in a hospital in Berck-sur-Mer, France. After an initial rather over-optimistic analysis from one doctor, a neurologist explains that he has locked-in syndrome, an extremely rare condition in which the patient is almost completely physically paralyzed, but remains mentally normal. At first, the viewer primarily hears Bauby's "thoughts" (he thinks he is speaking but no one hears him), which are inaccessible to the other characters (who are seen through his one functioning eye).

A speech therapist and physical therapist try to help Bauby become as functional as possible. Bauby cannot speak, but he develops a system of communication with his speech and language therapist by blinking his left eye as she reads a list of letters to laboriously spell out his messages, letter by letter.

Gradually, the film's restricted point of view broadens out, and the viewer begins to see Bauby from "outside", in addition to experiencing incidents from his past, including a visit to Lourdes. He also fantasizes, imagining beaches, mountains, the Empress Eugénie and an erotic feast with one of his transcriptionists. It is revealed that Bauby had been editor of the popular French fashion magazine Elle, and that he had a deal to write a book (which was originally going to be based on The Count of Monte Cristo but from a female perspective). He decides that he will still write a book, using his slow and exhausting communication technique. A woman from the publishing house with which Bauby had the original book contract is brought in to take dictation.

The new book explains what it is like to now be him, trapped in his body, which he sees as being within an old-fashioned deep-sea diving suit with a brass helmet, which is called a scaphandre in French, as in the original title. Others around see his spirit, still alive, as a "Butterfly".

The story of Bauby's writing is juxtaposed with his recollections and regrets until his stroke. We see his three children, their mother (whom he never married), his mistress, his friends, and his father. He encounters people from his past whose lives bear similarities to his own "entrapment": a friend who was kidnapped in Beirut and held in solitary confinement for four years, and his own 92-year-old father, who is confined to his own apartment, because he is too frail to descend four flights of stairs.

Bauby eventually completes his memoir and hears the critics' responses. He dies of pneumonia ten days after its publication. The closing credits are accentuated by reversed shootings of breaking glacier ice (the forward versions are used in the opening credits), accompanied by the Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros song "Ramshackle Day Parade".

Cast

Production

The film was originally to be produced by American company Universal Studios and the screenplay was originally in English, with Johnny Depp slated to star as Bauby. According to the screenwriter, Ronald Harwood, the choice of Julian Schnabel as director was recommended by Depp. Universal subsequently withdrew, and Pathé took up the project two years later. Depp dropped the project due to scheduling conflicts with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.[4] Schnabel remained as director. The film was eventually produced by Pathé and France 3 Cinéma, in association with Banque Populaire Images 7 and the American Kennedy/Marshall Company, and in participation with Canal+ and Ciné Cinémas.[5]

According to the New York Sun, Schnabel insisted that the movie should be in French, resisting pressure by the production company to make it in English, believing that the rich language of the book would work better in the original French, and even went so far as to learn French to make the film.[6] Harwood tells a slightly different story: Pathé wanted "to make the movie in both English and French, which is why bilingual actors were cast"; he continues that "Everyone secretly knew that two versions would be impossibly expensive", and that "Schnabel decided it should be made in French".[7]

Schnabel said his influence for the film was drawn from personal experience:

My father got sick and he was dying. He was terrified of death and had never been sick in his life. So he was in this bed at my house, he was staying with me, and this script arrived for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. As my father was dying, I read Ron Harwood's script. It gave me a bunch of parameters that would make a film have a totally different structure. As a painter, as someone who doesn't want to make a painting that looks like the last one I made, I thought it was a really good palette. So personally and artistically these things all came together.[8]

Several key aspects of Bauby's personal life were fictionalized in the film, most notably his relationships with the mother of his children and his girlfriend. In reality, it was not Bauby's estranged wife who stayed by the patient's bedside while he lay almost inanimate on a hospital bed, it was his girlfriend of several years. [9] [10]

Reception

The film received universal acclaim from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 94%, based on reviews from 165 critics, with the general consensus stated as, "Breathtaking visuals and dynamic performances make The Diving Bell and the Butterfly a powerful biopic."[11] Metacritic gave the film an average score of 92/100, based on 36 reviews.[12]

In a 2016 poll by BBC, the film was listed as one of the top 100 films since 2000 (77th position).[13]

Top ten lists

The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.[14]

Awards and nominations

The film premiered in competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival on 22 May, where Schnabel won the Award for Best Director.[15] It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and won a BAFTA award as well as two César Awards. Schnabel also won Best Director at the 65th Golden Globe Awards, where the film won Best Foreign Language Film. Because the film was produced by an American company, it was ineligible for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Wins

Nominations

References

  1. ^ JP. "Le Scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) (2007) – JPBox-Office". jpbox-office.com. Archived from the original on 23 October 2017. Retrieved 23 October 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) – Box Office Mojo". Boxofficemojo.com. Archived from the original on 2 September 2017. Retrieved 2 September 2017. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |website= (help); Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ Dietz, Jason (3 January 2010). "Film Critics Pick the Best Movies of the Decade". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 24 March 2017. Retrieved 1 January 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ The film Julian Schnabel 'had to' make Los Angeles Times 'Calendarlive'. Retrieved 23 May 2007
  5. ^ Alexander, R.; Das, S. (2009). Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change. New Harbinger Publications. p. 210. ISBN 978-1-60882-470-0. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
  6. ^ "Schnabel's Portrait of an Artist in Still Life" Archived 8 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Review of: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, by Darrell Hartman, New York Sun, 28 September 2007. Retrieved 9 May 2008.
  7. ^ 'How I Set the Butterfly Free' Times Online 24 January 2008 (Accessed on 10 March 2008) (subscription required)
  8. ^ Tewksbury, Drew (28 November 2007). "Interviews: Julian Schnabel and cast of "Diving Bell and the Butterfly"". Cargo Collective. Archived from the original on 15 May 2009. Retrieved 13 May 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ Arnold, Beth (23 February 2008). "The truth about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". Salon. Archived from the original on 7 July 2008. Retrieved 3 July 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ di Giovanni, Janine (30 November 2008). "The real love story behind The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 15 April 2017. Retrieved 13 December 2016. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Archived from the original on 31 December 2014. Retrieved 26 July 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ "Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 8 January 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ "The 21st Century's 100 greatest films". BBC. Archived from the original on 31 January 2017. Retrieved 2 September 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ "Metacritic: 2007 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 23 February 2008. Retrieved 25 February 2008.
  15. ^ a b c "Festival de Cannes: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 6 August 2012. Retrieved 18 December 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ "65th Golden Globe Awards Nominations & Winners". goldenglobes.org. Archived from the original on 24 May 2012. Retrieved 13 January 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ a b "César Awards 2008 : The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, nominations and wins". lescesarsducinema.com. Archived from the original on 12 April 2010. Retrieved 3 July 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help); Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  18. ^ "2007 Award Winners". National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. 2016. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  19. ^ "Nominees & Winners of the 80th Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 4 September 2012. Retrieved 9 September 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  20. ^ "HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION 2008 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2007". goldenglobes.org. 13 December 2007. Archived from the original on 15 December 2007. Retrieved 5 January 2008.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Diving_Bell_and_the_Butterfly_(film)&oldid=868608225"