Julian Schnabel is not wearing one of his sarongs or viciously attacking art critics or hanging with Johnny Depp or Dennis Hopper or Christopher Walken or doing any of those things that make him the longstanding bad boy of contemporary art.
In fact, sitting down to lunch at the Bristol Lounge to talk about his new film, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” he’s downright polite. (The film opens Christmas Day in Denver.)
Told in French with English subtitles, it is the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor of French Elle who, at the age of 43, is felled by a stroke. Bauby wakes from a coma unable to move his body, or speak. But he can hear and see. And he can move his left eye. With the help of a therapist, Bauby learns to blink to signal for letters, painstakingly learning to communicate. His triumph is writing “The Diving Bell,” a poetic, heartbreaking, and ultimately inspiring memoir upon which the film is based.
Schnabel, 56, remains a controversial figure in the art world. His work, from his famous paintings made up of broken plates to his massive creations on animal hides and other materials, made him the target of critics who consider his approach lowbrow.
But there seems to be no debate about Schnabel, the director. “Before Night Falls,” about the life of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, earned rave reviews. Already, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” has earned Schnabel the best-director award at the Cannes Film Festival.
It is a film so delicate, so understated, so patient, it’s hard to believe it could have been made by a man known for his emotional outbursts, both in interviews and while creating art.
Making “Diving Bell” made perfect sense, he says.
“It seems to me the issues that come up in this film are issues I’ve been thinking about my whole life — death, claustrophobia, the limits that are put on people, what seeing is, what unconsciousness is, observing observation,” he says. “How do you escape the ordinariness of your life, and what does it mean to make art?”
Considering Bauby’s state, Schnabel has asked himself what he would choose: To be physically incapacitated and an artist, or perfectly healthy but just a regular guy. He says he doesn’t know if he has the guts to choose the former.
Schnabel is careful when he’s asked questions about the film industry. In the past, he’s been hilariously dismissive of the mainstream.
He wants people to see “Diving Bell” and doesn’t want his big mouth to get in the way.
He also doesn’t want to spook the Academy’s Oscar-nominating process.
“I find it such a novelty,” he says, “so unexpected in my life that that would be possible, that I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to win one.”
Then, as if to brace himself for the inevitable, or perhaps because he can’t imagine this industry — Hollywood! — could embrace him, Schnabel offers the advice he gave to Javier Bardem after the star of “Before Night Falls” had been nominated for a best-actor Oscar.
“I said, ‘You gave the best performance this year. This is a rigged game and you probably won’t win.’ ” A pause. ” ‘Don’t worry about it. You already won.’ “
