The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

[bonanzataz]

i hate basquiat.

this movie was amazing though, and everybody on the board needs to see it before it's gone. it truly was meant to be experienced in a theater. i would not want to see this on dvd.

[picolas]

most making-me-want-to-see-it-y review yet.

[bonanzataz]

most making-me-want-to-see-it-y review yet.

you shouldn't even be on the fence about it. on a purely emotional/visceral level, this film affected me way more than cmbb ever could.

[picolas]

i'm not on the fence. i was planning to see it when i wrote that. i just hadn't heard a review from someone who really didn't like basquait.

[Gamblour.]

Sorry guys, I fell asleep during this.

[©brad]

agree w/ everyone (well, except for you gamblour. were you just really tired?). this was wonderful. you know this kind of premise in the hands of say, a ron howard, would've made a corny, manipulative mess that we'd all bitch about as it won every stinking award. but thankfully schnabel sidesteps formulaic cheese in lieu of just organic, ballsy filmmaking. i think my favorite parts were the two scenes with the father (played by max von sydow, who is excellent) they were just perfect. i wept like a baby.

obvious the film is a visual feast, but even outside the obvious/POV stuff, there were small moments of magic w/ the way janusz kaminski handled the camera with such freedom. you can almost feel him behind the lens, a smile from ear to ear, just totally feeling like he was back in film school and loving it.

i also really dug the music in it.

[Gamblour.]

I don't know what was going on. One minute I was with it, then I was out with no hope of staying awake. I wasn't tired at all, but maybe I'm narcoleptic.

[godardian]

maybe I'm narcoleptic.

[idk]

http://www.charlierose.com/guests/julian-schnabel

[Gold Trumpet]

When I saw Brokeback Mountain, it took an emotional toll and also exhilarated my senses. I couldn't sum up the words in my brain to paint a picture of what I thought, but I had to make a quick post to say it was one of the best films of the year. I felt that statement mattered for the film. I think the exact same way about this film. I saw it tonight (after There Will be Blood) and it had my mind and body racing the rest of the night with great feelings and thoughts.

I promise much more later.

[MacGuffin]

Julian Schnabel Q&A
IGN speaks to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly helmer.
by Jonathan Crocker, IGN UK

Oscar nominated for The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, Julian Schnabel was already a hugely successful New York artist before he turned to directing with Basquiat (1996) and Before Night Falls (2000). His third film is the astonishing true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a man trapped inside his own body by stroke that left him almost completely paralysed but fully conscious. IGN talks to the filmmaker about life, death and why he really deserves to win an Oscar...

IGN: You won Best Director in Cannes and now you've been Oscar nominated. Do awards mean anything to you?

Schnabel: You know what? I think it just shows that people appreciate the movie. And it's not good enough to be snotty about that, saying awards don't mean anything. But I also think that this year there are so many good movies and so many good people that are being honoured, it's not a competitive feeling out there, it's a feeling of camaraderie.

IGN: Why have so many great movies have come along at once?

Schnabel: I don't know whether it's because the world is in such dire need of something that people step up to the plate or what it is. It's Sean Penn, Tony Gilroy, Paul Thomas Anderson – who I think made a great movie – the Coen brothers and me... Usually I'm one of those guys who doesn't want to be in a club that would have me as a member, but I accept this year.

IGN: Whose movie do you think is best?

Schnabel: I think my movie is the best picture, to be modest. I've never said that before. But the fact that it's a movie about a paralysed guy in France, in French, if I won Best Picture it'd seem like anything's possible in this world, no?

IGN: You think it's even better than There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men?

Schnabel: I do. I mean, it's 'better'. It's about something that's beyond the story. Maybe they all are, but I think there's a kind of affirmation of life that this is about and it's something you can use. And structurally, it's just something very different. So it's hard to compare them, I think those are very wonderful films. But this is totally radically different.

IGN: Did you expecting to be Oscar nominated?

Schnabel: I thought I'd probably get a couple. But I already feel like I won in a way because people are going to see the movie and it's done what it was supposed to do. They're showing it in stroke centres and to people that have disabilities and that makes me feel like I must have done something right.

IGN: Why take on such a tough story to film?

Schnabel: I was responding to something so personal to me – my father's death - my father being stuck inside his own body and not being able to help him. He was terrified of death. I saw it in his eyes right when he died. And I thought, if I could have just stopped that, I would have been a good son. If I could have just freed him from that. But I didn't know how to do that. And I figured it out in the making of this movie. So somehow, I'm more at peace with my own death since I made it. I thought, I've been terrified of death my whole life, if I can make a movie that would maybe make somebody else less scared of it then that would be good thing. It seems on the way, I was making a movie that could help people with their lives.

IGN: You genuinely think it changed you as a person?

Schnabel: I didn't see it past the claustrophobia at the beginning. I knew what I would be terrified of having happen to me. But when I went there and met Jean-Do's friend, who said that he'd said to him, 'I'm reborn as someone else. I'm not the same guy.' I thought, 'Wow, this guy actually thinks this is a positive thing.' When he said, 'Had I been blind and deaf, would it take the harsh light of disaster for me to find my true nature', I thought, yeah, that's true for everybody.

IGN: What are the glaciers that Jean-Dominique keeps imagining?

Schnabel: I wanted use this image of these glaciers in the film Perfume that I'd written a script for – because I thought Grenouille could smell all the way to Alaska or Eygpt! I was talking about the freedom of the imagination, the freedom to let yourself go beyond death, go beyond your body. And this man went beyond his body. So it was a way to say to my dad, 'Don't worry. Where do you wanna go right now? Imagine that and you can go there.' And it's made me live in my head more.

IGN: Is that a good thing?

Schnabel: I think so. It took away a lot of fear. I used to wake up thinking, 'I don't want to die!' That ever happen to you? You ever get that moment when it grabs you? Well, watch the movie a few times.

IGN: Is it true that Johnny Depp was going to star?

Schnabel: He got me the job. Because Universal wanted to make this movie, he was going to star in it and he said, 'I'll do it if Julian Schnabel directs it.' And then he got hung up with the Pirates thing, but they send me the script because Johnny thought I should do this.

IGN: Would things have been different with Depp?

Schnabel: He would still have been deformed in some way – he's got incredible control over his body. And it still would have been in French. It's funny, because even when Johnny was going to do it, there were many agents that were calling me up to suggest their actresses to me. And I said, 'This movie is in French so they shouldn't be offended but I need French actresses.'

IGN: Are you worried audiences will be put off because it's in French?

Schnabel: I think that it's going to turn out that if you make a good movie, whatever language it's supposed to be in, if it's good it can make money. It's been doing very well in the States, so let's see if we can prove everybody wrong.

[Chest Rockwell]

Schnabel can be really fucking annoying sometimes.

[SiliasRuby]

GT, where's your new post promising more? or is it the green screen room?

This a brutal movie that got a hold of my heart and wouldn't let go. Its so good, I can't tell you how emotional I felt at the end of this. Very few films pack a punch that this one does and it deserves all the accolaides that its gotten. The way it was shot, the characters, the dialogue...The 'slices of life' in this film seem so realistic. My soul went out to him and I really couldn't get enough o this breakthough of a film. Thats all.

[pete]

I think this was the best use of cool music in movies in the last two three years.