He was the editor of French Elle, the father of two young children, a husband, a son. The list of roles that forged his elevated place in his world was lengthy.
When he awoke in room 119 at the Naval hospital at Berck-sur-Mer near the French Channel, he’d been in a coma for weeks. He was unable to move.
****RATING | memoir
In director Julian Schnabel’s matchless “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” Bauby’s first moments resurfacing from the depths come as a blink. His. Ours.
Adapted with rare tenderness by Ronald Harwood (“The Pianist”) from Bauby’s best-selling 1997 memoir, the film is a triumph of empathy.
Bauby dictated the book to literary assistant Claude Mendibil (played here by Anne Consigny) by blinks of his right eye, once he learned an alphabet code. Schnabel captures the repetitive frustrations of the system as speech therapist Henriette (Marie-Josée Croze) teaches Bauby (Mathieu Amalric).
But long before that new language comes, a doctor tells him, “Say your name.”
Bauby’s mind is sharp. He says his name with ease.
“Try again.”
This is the beginning of Bauby’s awakening to his condition, referred to as “locked-in syndrome,” in which his spirit and mind are willing, but his body is stubbornly frozen.
“Diving bell” refers to Bauby’s body, which resembles one of Diver Dan’s leaden get-ups.
What he imagines, what he observes, where his mind takes him, these are the arcs of his “butterfly.”
Fluttering, alighting, his soft-winged mind may find the Empress Eugénie wandering the halls of the hospital. Or it may gently touch down on the beguiling space of his physical therapist’s neckline.
Or it may travel back to a moment between father and son. Bauby stops by his father’s and stepmother’s home to give his father (Max von Sydow) a proper shave.
Stuck in a corner of a dresser mirror is a photo of pre-stroke Bauby. His face rests on his hand in a way that tugs his eye and smile downward. It is not a foreshadowing, but it’s resonant just the same. Consciousness is in the details.
Movies often remind us just how unlike our eyes cameras really are. They are not embodied. They travel through walls. They zoom from incredible heights. What a liberation they provide, a freedom from our flesh and bone.
Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski finds emancipation in the opposite. He persistently delivers Bauby’s perspective, including having his/our eye sutured shut. A gorgeous tracking shot on the hospital veranda comes by way of a wheelchair.
There are moments when we are cast out of Bauby’s body. Though few, they remain potent. A seaside hug between Celine (Emmanuelle Seigner), the mother of Bauby’s children, and their son adds to the sense of what endures but also what was lost — and who bears the weight of absence.
“The Diving Bell and The Butterfly”
PG-13 for nudity, sexual content and some language. 1 hour, 52 minutes. Directed by Julian Schnabel; written by Ronald Harwood; from the memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby; photography by Janusz Kaminski; starring Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Anne Cosigny, Patrick Chesnie, Niels Arestrup, Max von Sydow, Isaach de Bankole. Opens today at the Chez Artiste theater.
