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Julian Schnabel Paints The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Julian Schnabel directs The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007).
In his latest picture, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, artist-moviemaker Julian Schnabel returns to familiar terrain while managing to explore a new landscape. Like his previous outings, Basquiat and Before Night Falls, the film is a biopic—the story of an artist living on the margins of life, searching for his voice. The true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, one-time editor of Elle France, The Diving Bell brings us deep into the inner life of its main character, a man who, flush with all the trappings of worldly success, is suddenly felled by a debilitating stroke.
Unable to move in any way except to blink his left eye, Bauby’s experience presented Schnabel—a world renowned painter who came to the cinema relatively late in life—with the opportunity to bring a uniquely subjective, stream of consciousness narrative to his audience. It was an artistic challenge that suited the director just fine. “As a filmmaker, as an artist, it was a great opportunity to put whatever I wanted into the structure of the movie,” Schnabel reflects.
Working from a script by veteran scribe Ron Harwood (The Pianist), Schnabel shot almost entirely on location on France’s northern coast at the Berck Maritime Hospital in Pas de Calais, where Bauby—holed up for 14 months—composed his luminous tome. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of Bauby’s medical “retreat,” Schnabel the alchemist could mix and match word and image into a mosaic of his own making.
Phillip Williams (MM): It occurred to me early on that we were going to be with Jean-Dominique Bauby, seeing things from his point of view, for a long time—and I wondered if I could stay with it. But I was with the film to the end. Did you have any concerns about that?
Julian Schnabel (JS): I did think, ‘How long can people take this?’ I didn’t want [seeing the story from Jean-Dominique’s POV] to feel like some kind of a trick. I wanted them to be oblivious, ultimately, and rather than thinking, “We’re not seeing this guy,” to get into what he was seeing. I think that the actresses capture your attention. They’re so good at what they’re doing—so connected to the character and their own interior compassion… It’s very funny, the different intentions you feel from these women.
MM: You feel seduced and comforted by them.
JS: Yes, exactly. You wonder how to make a movie without boring everybody… I think everyone needed to go on a journey with him until he finds his way out of [his physical prison] and that’s when the butterfly shows up.
MM: You withheld the image of your central character for so long. Why?
JS: It happens systematically: First you see what he’s seeing, then you see the inside of his eye, then you see the eye that didn’t get sewn up. You see his feet and parts of his hands and ultimately you see him in a long shot. We felt perfectly satisfied to not see him and see all these other people who were incredibly interesting to watch.
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- Comment by Wedding Butterflies on 8/13/09 at 3:48 pm
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a masterpiece, a true work of art and believe me when I say you’d be missing a lot if you haven’t seen this film.
This story was published in the Fall 2007 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
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