Redemptive Fragility

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" directed by the artist Julian Schnabel which is today available on DVD. Let’s dish.

Jean-Dominique Bauby, the real-life editor of Elle, suffers a massive stroke at the age of 43 and ends up the victim of "locked-in syndrome." He has full mental clarity -– is able to see and hear -- but unable to speak or move anything but his left eye. Through that eye he learns to communicate, one letter at a time. With the help of his speech therapist and a stenographer, Bauby writes his stunning memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

This film is the most beautiful, most humane, most artful –- and (dare we write it) most religious -- film of the last decade. It should have won the Oscar for "Best Picture" but, in an incredible blunder, wasn't even nominated. It received four Oscar nominations for Best Achievement in Directing (Schnabel), Cinematography (Janusz Kaminiski), Editing (Juliette Welfling) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ronald Harwood) and should have won in every category. It didn't win in any. Perhaps the redemption of truth or the truth of redemption is hard to bear –- or watch.

At the heart of the film's achievement is Schnabel’s unwillingness to paint Bauby –- an unfaithful, selfish bon vivant –- as a saint. He's like any one of us or all of us, clumsily surging toward redemption when everything else has been taken away. At one point, we hear him think, "I decided to stop pitying myself. Other than my eye, two things aren't paralyzed, my imagination and my memory."

How grateful we are that those two things weren't paralyzed. In a beautiful metaphor, Schnabel literally shows the diving bell, which physically imprisons Bauby, and the freeing of his imagination in the form of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis and fluttering among fields of flowers. Yes, the butterfly is Bauby’s imagination, but it is also his soul – our souls, really -- unfettered and alive.

Give your soul the gift of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

Comments

[babysis]

Thanks for encouraging me to see this movie when it was in theaters, thanks for your most beautifully written article, and thanks for that lovely and memorable image from the film.

[Flannista]

You are welcome, babysis. I've already ordered four copies -- one for me and three for gifts. And yes, the image we used in this post is just one of the exquisite images from this remarkable film. Thanks for commenting.

[Chrysosistah]

It really is amazing how the Oscars so often overlook the truly best and brightest - but I doubt anyone ever contended that the Oscars are objective. And, of course, I have to remind myself, we are discussing art, a most subjective concept. Thank you so much for letting us know of this excellent film - I shall go rent/buy right away! ;-)

[Miss Missasista]

This morning before I left for work I put "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" at the top of my queue on Netflix. Thank you, Sassistas! I love you.

[Flannista]

Chrysosistah and Miss Missasista -- you are doing good by your soul to see this film. I probably should have mentioned that it is in French (the alphabet in our photo in the post are the most used letters in the French alphabet) with English subtitles. Some may not like the subtitles. I noticed that the DVD has the option for the English language. Don't be tempted. Watch it the way it was filmed. Once you do, please report back to us what you thought! We would love to know . . . and love you, too.