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The Diving Bell And The Butterfly [2007] | ![The Diving Bell And The Butterfly [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51N1cYwWruL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Julian Schnabel
Actors: Mathieu Amalric, Lopez Garmendia, Emma De Caunes, Jean-philippe Watkins, Nicolas Le Riche
Studio: Pathe Distribution
Category: DVD
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £5.80
You Save: £14.19 (71%)
New (7) Used (1) from £5.80
Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 212
Format: Pal
Language: French (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 112
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.5
EAN: 5060002835975
ASIN: B0015VI366
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: June 9, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
The seemingly claustrophobic story of a man imprisoned in his paralysed body becomes a dazzling and expansive movie about love, imagination, and the will to live. After a stroke, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric, Kings and Queen) can only move his left eye--and through that eye he learns to communicate, one letter at a time. With the help of his speech therapist (Marie-Josee Croze, Munich) and a stenographer (Anne Consigny, Anna M.), Bauby writes the stunning memoir The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But such a plot summary makes the movie sound like lofty, self-important medicine--far from it. Director Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, Before Night Falls), working from an elegant screenplay by Ronald Harwood (The Pianist) and with an outstanding cast (which also includes Frantic's Emmanuelle Seigner as Bauby's neglected wife), has created a movie as engrossing and hypnotic as a thriller, a movie that wrestles with mortality yet has stubborn streaks of dark humour and eroticism, that portrays a man who overcomes unimaginable obstacles but refuses to paint him as a saint. Schnabel was once dismissed as a pompous and overblown painter, but he's crafted an intimate visual poem, a humble sonata about life at its most fragile. --Bret Fetzer
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 A masterpiece April 18, 2008
37 out of 37 found this review helpful
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly tells the true story of a Jean Dominique Bauby, the debonair editor of French Elle, who suffered locked in syndrome following a devastating stroke. After the stroke he can only communicate by blinking his eye.
Everything about this as a premise for a film sounds terrible - he does not move, so what is filmic about it; he does not communicate verbally, so where is the dialogue or the relationships; he reflects on his life and his mortality, but how do you show that?
Do not be put off. The film is beautifully made, turning faces into landscapes and using careful palettes of colour to distinguish pre and post stroke scenes. The film shows how Jean-Do becomes a cypher for those around him, providing meaning to their lives, even though inside he is intrinsically himself. In the end, the film is about the meaning of this man's life and all our lives, clear-eyed and fearless.
It is moving without being sentimental or mawkish, insightful, funny, beautiful and intelligent. An absolute must see.
Believe the Hype. May 25, 2008
20 out of 20 found this review helpful
Every aspect of this film is utterly sublime and extremely well-judged. I am not normally prone to writing reviews on Amazon that simply verify what has been said many times before, but I found this film so satisfying that I feel compelled.
Firstly, this film is stunning visually - as well being an excellent development of the idiosyncratic aesthetic style that Julian Schnabel deployed in Before Night Falls, it captures the atmosphere and lyricism of the book perfectly. At no point does it feel like an "against-all-odds true story" in the vein of The Sea Inside and My Left Foot, films that came across as entirely dependent on their leading actors' talents.
The film portrays potentially quite morbid details in such a way that at times they are quietly meditative and at others entirely transcended, another intrinsic subtlety brought over from the book.
The Butterfly Effect March 26, 2008
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' is an adaptation of a book many would presume to be unadaptable: former Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoirs reflecting upon his rare medical condition "locked-in syndrome". The film begins begins daringly and terrifyingly from Bauby's perspective, as he regains consciousness in hospital following a stroke and slowly realises that he is totally paralysed except for an ability to roll and blink his eyes. His only means of communication is thus to blink, once for `yes' and twice for `no', and with the assistance of his publisher he learns to spell words via a painstakingly laborious alphabetical system. Together they were able to transcribe the 144 page memoir on which this film is based.
In the first part of the film the viewer is locked, dreadfully, into Bauby's perspective as one of his eyes is sewn shut to counterbalance the effect of muscle paralysis in his face. As the camera deviates from the prison of Bauby's perspective, it seems at first to be a wasted opportunity to powerfully express Bauby's experience through cinematic style. A film told totally from his viewpoint would have been an incredibly challenging formalistic achievement. It would not have been overwhelmingly restrictive since the novel deals as much with Bauby's inner life (the butterfly) - the freedom he finds to explore his memory and imagination - as with his physical life.
Nevertheless, the film justifies its decision to roam beyond the confines of Bauby's vision. Most importantly, we are made privvy to his means of communicating, and how oddly expressive this one facet of communication could be. This film irrefutably demonstrates the notion that eyes are the windows to the soul. Bauby's single eye becomes a vessel for all his expressiveness, his mouth, his smile, his voice. It is extraordinary how much emotional range is evoked from so little. The film is a tribute to the endurance and transcendance of the human spirit over material obstacles. It also makes a total mockery of Alejandro Amenabar's mawkish pro-euthanasia drama `The Sea Inside'. A powerful, saddening but ultimately uplifting film that deserves to be seen.
Touched by genius June 19, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Just when you started to feel that film had become little more than a merchandising exercise, along comes a release that reminds you what it can be. Reading The Diving Bell one could be forgiven for thinking it essentially unfilmable - so much is going on inside the head of the protagonist, there's little `action' not a great deal of dialogue, a slight plot... Yet, Schnabel's film is touched with genius and blessed with uniformly excellent performances, from the speech therapist down to the telephone engineers. Moreover, unlike other films dealing with disability, where the audience looks `at' the disability, here we look `from' - and there's a big difference. The decision to take the point of view from inside Bauby's head is inspired and completely transforms the relationship of the viewer to the subject. Technically and aesthetically it is a triumph - it's quite difficult to think how it could have been improved, even down to the soundtrack. Obviously, there's a depressing side to the tale of a man stricken by total paralysis(!), but the film stands as a testament to the remarkable resilience of the human spirit.
Funny, moving and beautifully shot - the best film of 2007! July 4, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The book is so beautiful a piece of personal philosophy that I went to see the film with some trepidation, but if anything the film adds to the book by Bauby. The film is beautifully shot, funny and moving (but not in a sentimental way).
The director (who does not speak fluent French) chose to retain the original language of the book and this, I believe speaks volumes in a world of cinema where the digestability of a film by a mass audience is often classed as more important than retaining the soul of a piece of artistic cinema. The film was originally meant to be made by Pathe and star Jonny Depp - I think a tragedy was averted!
This film can be enjoyed (yes enjoyed - despite its theme it really isnt at all depressing) on so many levels - as a compelling human story, as an uplifting philosophy and as a work of art. You should not miss this film.
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