The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly aka "Le Scaphandre et la Papillon" (Julian Schnabel, 2007)

"Still Life with Wandering 'I'"

At one point, early in Julian Schnabel's inexplicably gripping realization of Jean-Dominique Bauby's blink-by-blink account of his coping with a paralyzing stroke, the camera leaves the confines of the eye of Bauby (his paralysis is nearly total, only his left eye is capable of movement in order to scan his world, and communicate with those around him) and changes perspective to move across the room in a blur to witness his mistress putting up pictures from his past to aid in his recovery. That surrealistic freeing moment allows us (the audience) the chance to change perspective as well; instead of looking out from Bauby's fixed position, as will happen a good 60-70% of the time, we turn inward and see an approximation of his thoughts. Or are those his thoughts; could it be an hallucination; could it be an out-of-body experience; could it be his soul talking?

Bauby's condition is referred to clinically as "Locked-In Syndrome," where the brain is active, although the body cannot move. And Schnabel's film gives a lie to the label, as Bauby's life-in-paralysis is anything but locked-in. Although he is frequently only a passenger in his life, Schnabel points out that reality and perception is only when component to a life. There is also the vast store of life inside the mind.

Throughout the film we are privy to Bauby's internal life,* but often those thoughts become images--memories, imaginings, lusts, fantasies, body-images. Rarely are there violations of the POV rule, where we share Bauby's point of view in whatever form it takes, and turn around to see his minimal reactions--a quivering lip, a tear, a drool. But even those are edited to form a piece of the whole--to make a sum of Jean-Do's experience of a "still," but rich life.**

Variations on the one-point perspective:

The Normal: Jean-Do's point of view from his hospital bed

Extreme POV: Bauby watches his right eye-lid being sewn shut

Break-Out: Jean-Do extrapolates out from his view-point to see his mistress' face

Body-image: Jean-Do imagines himself unable to move underwater in a rigid diving suit

Fantasy: Jean-Do imagines his isolation on a family outing at the beach.

Memory: Jean-Do remembers shaving his father (Max Von Sydow)--

a time when he assisted someone who was helpless

Interpretation: Pictures hung in his hospital room, abnormally close, contrasting

Memory or Imagination: Calving glaciers--a symbol of decay?

Hallucination: Is his mistress visiting or not?

Scene-setting: Jean-Do imagining his interaction, or director convenience?

Reality

* Even though the producers are American, and the scriptwriter and director are British, the entire film is in french dialect at Schnabel's insistence. It has an added benefit--it is one more "remove" from Bauby. We can hear his thoughts, but, unless you're French and speak it, it needs to be translated, just as his internal thoughts needed to be communicated through his eye-blinks and interpreted. It is one more level of audience-sympathy with the subject.  

 

** Schnabel couldn't adhere completely to that rule--In the phone conversation with his publisher, the director cuts to the publisher's office to see her quandary about agreeing to a book by a paraplegic—something Bauby is not privy to, and his nurse cannot see.

La Vie En Rose

La Vie En Rose (aka La Môme) (Olivier Dahan, 2007) Sentimentality is a funny thing. The world over, people wept for France's "little sparrow" Edith Piaf and the brief life that was snuffed out too soon. 

That she was the instrument of her own demise made no difference. That she started out as a street urchin, singing for her drinks and drugs, was discovered and "cleaned up" for public consumption but never lost the grime of the street from her soul, went through love and loss, then disappeared into a fog of drugs that left her a shell of what she once was, didn't matter. 

 

Driven by ego and the need for acceptance—from an audience she now had contempt for—she continued to perform, collapsing on-stage frequently, and still had the temerity to sing, as her last signature piece, "I Have no Regrets."

Swell. As I said, sentimentality is a funny thing. Watching Dahan's "La Môme," (or La Vie en Rose in this country) K muttered: "...France's Judy Garland." Yes, but I don't think Garland was so ferociously unempathetic. Piaf wore her street-toughness like armor and treated those who tried to manage her...with disdain. They must have really loved her to keep working for her, to the point of self-delusion, to the detriment of their own worth.

Not very sympathetic thoughts for a celebration of "the little sparrow." But, Dahan made a tough-minded film that still manages to eke out sympathy for its hard-bitten subject. And there are moments of visionary work: I'm thinking of the sequence of Piaf's formal "debut"—with new wardrobe, new presentation, new hand gestures and a hard-taught respect for a song's text—all done in fading montage and a burgeoning score. But Piaf is silent (a practical consideration, as there are no recordings of her during that period). It's a controversial, contrarian move, but all the more powerful because of it.

It showcases Piaf as presentation, and the point could not have been made more forcefully had a singing voice been dubbed in. A lot rides on Marion Cotillard's performance of that scene, and she is never less than stubbornly brilliant in the film, brushing away easy sympathy for the character, and conveying her power brutishly. The film also won an Oscar for its intricate make-up work, but Cotillard works far beyond its confines to convey the ravages that life, but mostly Piaf's stubbornness, heaped upon her shoulders.

When Piaf died, I was in grade school and the teacher brought in her records to play for us what the world had lost. Most of us listened attentively, though not comprehending what this had to do with the price of tea in China (as if we cared about that, either!). But a bunch of the kids hid giggles behind hands and snorted at the quavering tones and incomprehensible language. As that old memory came bubbling up, I couldn't help thinking Piaf would be on the side of the urchins and not the sparrows.

C'est la vie.