The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly

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Another example of how tremendous critical praise drowns out a reasonable film. By no means was it terrible, it was just nowhere near the level of authentic inspiration I was led to believe. Schnabel takes this based-on-a-true-story dealing with a paralyzed man and his one eye blink of communication and milks it for everything it is worth. This section's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. ( January 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Schnabel's thing might be helping us taste something we might otherwise let go unnoticed. In Basquiat, he introduced many people to the artist Basquiat, but also to the revered and misunderstood Warhol. (And if you want to understand someone as weird as Warhol, understanding the contemporaneous – and only slightly weird - Basquiat is maybe a good place to start.) Here, his insight is transcendent. The film is a work of art. About a work of art. The use of visual metaphor and an excellent script lets us use Bauby's condition symbolically. Ingenious editing keeps us on the edge of our seat, especially towards the resolution, as we race to work out how a drive in the countryside will end. The real story, as represented in the book and by Bauby's friends, was needlessly altered by the filmmakers. One can only imagine the very real pain and harm the filmmakers have caused to the people who were there for Bauby during his final years. The liberties taken are libel, no doubt about it, and it is a testament to the integrity of the real heroine, Florence, that she has not sued over the abhorrent way in which she is portrayed by this piece of pointlessly subversive garbage.

Outing: Weeks or months have passed since Bauby has ventured outside the hospital. On this day, he is accompanied by his old friend, Brice, and Claude, the person he is dictating the book to. Though the journey is rough on his butt and winding, he keeps moving toward his goal. Meanwhile, he contemplates how his universe is divided into those who knew him before the stroke and all others. Drawing closer to his destination, he sees Fangio, a patient of the hospital who cannot sit so he must remain standing or lying down. His destination ends up being a place that serves french fries, a smell which he doesn't tire of. This sealing of that eye is an early scene, which is so perfectly shot that it places you inside Bauby's head and body, and keeps you there for the entire film. You see the world as he views it while desiring to be free of the paralyzing feeling of a sinking diving bell. At other times, with his imagination, you find yourself fluttering as free as a butterfly. Beyond the brilliant performances by Mathieu Amallic as Bauby, Max von Sydow as his 92-year-old father, and Emmanuelle Seigner as his longtime girlfriend, among others, special recognition must surely go to editor Juliette Welfling and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Spielberg's preferred cameraman) for the various miracles they have wrought in bringing this tightrope-walking tour-de-force to the screen. It is, however, testament of the prognosis which questions the central Meaning of Life question. Bauby finds personal beauty, even if he cannot do anything with it but blink it in code to his nurse since he is absolutely paralyzed.He began his journalism career at Combat and then Le Quotidien de Paris. He received his first by-line the day Georges Pompidou died in 1974. At age 28, he was promoted to editor-in-chief of the daily Le Matin de Paris, before becoming editor of the cultural section of Paris Match. He then joined the editorial staff of Elle, [2] and later became the magazine's editor. [3]

A Day in the Life”: This second to last chapter is where the read will at least read about the day when his life was forever changed. His description of the day as well as the songs on the radio give the impression that he had no idea what was to come. Although he has a decent enough relationship with his physical therapist, Baudry's deeper relationship grows with his speech therapist. It had been her idea to come up with some kind of workable code that he could use for communication and now he is beginning to work on regaining his actual speech with her too. He is becoming frustrated that he is unable to converse with his loved ones; he can listen, but cannot say anything in return. He also listens to his father on the telephone. Their relationship has changed because before his stroke his father was the weaker and the more infirm, and the author helped to care for him, but now, his father is far more able to care for himself than Bauby is. In what follows, we see episodes of Jean-Do's fantasies, a mixture of memories and dreams, some poignant and some comical or sexy, with some fantastic mise-en-scènes. For example, elusive appearances by characters such as Vaslav Nijinsky ( Nicolas Le Riche) or Empress Eugenie ( Emma de Caunes); symbolic scenes like Bauby in his wheelchair on an isolated pontoon in the beach at Berk; glaciers crumbling into the sea; a wild dinner at famed Paris' Le Duc seafood restaurant, with a beautiful woman. There is a marvelously touching recollection of Jean-Do joking and teasing his 92-year-old father, Papinou ( Max von Sydow), while shaving him. Céline comes to see him often at the hospital and help out as much as she can, organizing a picnic on the beach with the whole family on Father's Day, or reading to Jean-Do the voluminous mail that he receives daily. The speech therapist who breaks through Bauby's barrier is excellent. Her motivation is, here is a man she respects and admires. It is also the biggest challenge of her career. Bauby's sense of humour, voiced as interior dialogue, is scathing. His lecherous thoughts about the therapist are tempered with good taste and his incorrect jokes about his own condition. Although I could feel the helplessness in his voice and the eagerness of freedom when he was comfined to an unfamiliar wheelchair--just like a diving bell waiting to be opened up--there were times he really enjoyed himself in spite of his disability. In a nutshell, he chose to be a carefree butterfly, making his spirit live on forever without burden and pain. What's more, this book/his words made me realize how blissful I am because I can live out loud, do whatever I want, go wherever I desire, talk and hang out with friends/family whenever we're available...etc. Therefore, he kind of reminded us to know and cherish such blessing since we never know how precious it is until we lose it.Di Giovanni, Janine (30 November 2008). "The real love story behind The Diving Bell and the Butterfly". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 4 November 2018 . Retrieved 4 November 2018. In addition to wonderful direction and visuals, what I'll always take from this film is (1) the incredible patience of the speech therapists (which includes Celine, his wife) and (2) continually wondering how frustrated Jean-Do must have felt in his horrible physical condition. 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 Oscar 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. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby. One of the best films in years, and in artistic cinematic terms, one of the best films I've ever seen. That's a heavy statement to make, but off the top of my head, I cannot think of another film that explores the inner workings of a character so intimately and believably, while blending cinematography, sound effects, and musical score in such harmony -- but in a fashion we (as American's at least) are not trained to enjoy. I felt the French influence strongly cinematically and, of course in the dialogue, but the writing and acting was so fluid it felt like the subtitles weren't even there.

Yesterday when I saw "Le Scaphandre et le Papillon" on DVD, I loved this movie a lot, but I did not know that it was the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby. What an amazing biography! The screenplay and the direction are fantastic, deserving the nominations to the Oscar. I was expecting to see a sad and depressing feature, like for example, "Johnny Got His Gun "; however the writer Ronald Harwood made an uplifted and positive story despite of the theme. The cast has also stunning performances in this highly recommended movie. My vote is eight. The Vegetable: This chapter marks 6 months since the dramatic shift in his life; he now sends monthly letters to family and friends. He receives many in return and feels proud to be able to exert his unwillingness to be called a vegetable, if even not in his presence. In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of French Elle, the father of two young childen, a 44-year-old man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life. By the end of the year he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brainstem.After 20 days in a coma, Bauby awoke into a body which had all but stopped working: only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking it, to make clear that his mind was unimpaired. Almost miraculously, he was soon able to express himself in the richest detail: dictating a word at a time, blinking to select each letter as the alphabet was recited to him slowly, over and over again. In the same way, he was able eventually to compose this extraordinary book. What makes it interesting is that it's not your standard tale of overcoming adversity, not like "A Beautiful Mind" or "Shine" or "My Left Foot". Instead it focuses on *dealing with* adversity, anticlimactic as that may seem. In particular, it highlights the power of imagination.Benefits Department: Do you want to enroll in the group short-term disability insurance? Group income insurance? Accidental death and dismemberment insurance? Long term care insurance? Group personal excess liability insurance? Business travel accident insurance? a b c d Bauby, J. (1998). The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (First Vintage International ed.). New York: Random House, Inc. Sunday: His least favourite day of the week. The hospital becomes a ghost town with only minimal staff and visitors. This day is often lonely, particularly since he is unable to adjust the television or read a book by himself. However, there's a similar memoir that is not as well known as this one, and which I thought was much better and more powerful : Only The Eyes Say Yes: A Love Story.