Trevor Belnap

Eng 272
Desi Poteet
12/09/2011
From Memoir to Movie, An Artist’s Vision of Hope “I don’t like the word no. And you know, if you declare something so, it can be. And so, I don’t see there’s any reason to accept things the way they are,” declared Julian Schnabel, acclaimed painter and director. Schnabel is the director of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a film based on the memoir written by Jean-Dominique Bauby. Bauby’s memoir is his story of finding meaning and joy in a seemingly hopeless reality. Bauby suffered a massive paralyzing stroke at the age of 43. He awakes from his coma weeks later to find he is paralyzed. The only parts of his body that he can control are his eyes. To prevent his right eye from becoming septic, the doctors sew it up, making the blinking of his left eye Bauby’s only method of communication. The death of Schnabel’s father, the location of the filming, and creative departure from the actual text are elements that helped shape the movie. Schnabel uses his experience as an artist and human being to make choices that take the story from pages of Jean-Dominique’s memoir to movie screen. In 2003, Schnabel’s father, Jack, became terminally ill with cancer and came to live with Schnabel and his family. Jack had never been sick in his life and was horrified of death. During the time his father was with him, Schnabel was sent the script for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. “I wanted to help my father not to be scared of death,” Schnabel told Lynn Hirschberg at the New York Times. “It was the only way I failed my father. And I didn’t want to be scared of death, either. I wanted to make the movie to overcome that fear.” In the film, Bauby’s first words after learning to form them were “I want death.” Bauby’s journey to overcome the fear of death became Schnabel’s journey as well. Bauby realized that even though his body was frozen, save one of his eyes, his mind could be anywhere or with anyone he could imagine and with this realization, he was free. Schnabel chose to shoot the movie in France, on location of the actual memoir. He shot scenes in the hospital where Bauby spent the remainder of his life. He would go to the roof where Bauby had sat to dictate his memoir. “I knew I needed to film in that hospital, because Bauby describes everything about it in the book. I went to France, did it in French...everything that would seem to make it more obscure, commercially. But the point was, you've got to make it authentic, and if you keep the integrity of something and give people the benefit of the doubt they will come to it,” said Schnabel in an interview with Mick Brown in The Telegraph. Schnabel’s choice to shoot the movie in France and in French influenced the movie in a profound way. Despite Schnabel’s desire to make an authentic movie, he was still forced to make choices that deviated from Bauby’s original memoir. Creative departure from Bauby’s original memoir was necessary to make a compelling movie. Schnabel used his artistic touch to add emotion and make the movie more cinematic than it would have been otherwise. In the scene where Bauby’s first words are “I want to die,” his therapist reacts harshly to this statement. Marie-Josée Croze who plays the therapist in the movie discussed the scene with the actual therapist and was told by the therapist that she never would’ve reacted unprofessionally in that situation. She discussed this scene and the change from the original events with Randy Kennedy during a telephone interview for the New York Times, “He said, ‘I need this scene, I need the emotion — it’s not a documentary, it’s a movie.” Marie-Josée Croze was upset and channeled the emotion into the scene, which ended with her fleeing the room in tears. Schnabel kept the camera rolling and yelled at her to come back in and apologize to the character of Bauby for her outburst. She did, in character, and the powerful scene was kept in the movie. The mother of Bauby’s children plays a large role in the movie. She is shown with their children, three of them in the movie though there was only two in real life, spending time with Bauby in the hospital and at the beach. In real life, his girlfriend was at his side 99% of the time. The choice to make his ex-wife the leading lady in his life was made to highlight the sadness he feels for not being a better husband and father. The scene where the girlfriend calls his room when only his wife is there to speak for him is especially poignant. It highlights his need for help from those around him and underscores his loneliness despite the companionship of the women who are actually there in person. The scene would have been impossible if Schnabel had stayed completely true to the original story. Another scene that was created solely for the movie was when Bauby is shown on a floating dock at high tide. He is in his wheelchair, looking out to sea while chest-high shore break laps at the dock. It symbolizes Bauby’s isolation but at the same time symbolizes his imagination’s freedom. The viewer is left to decide if he was actually on the dock or just imagining himself there. This is another example of creative departure that the director used to paint the film. Schnabel is a painter. His style as a director reflects his work as a painter. Under his direction, Bauby’s memoir comes to life on the movie screen. Bauby dies at the end of the movie, but it is not a grim death. The viewer has been taken on a journey through utter despair to bright hope. Bauby is no longer a prisoner of his condition. It was his vision as an artist that was responsible for the film. From the scene of Bauby’s therapist being unprofessional, to the scene of Bauby sitting in the surf, Schnabel created the film through choices made to depart from the original story and personal life experience.

Works Cited
Brown, Mick. "Julian Schnabel: Larging It." Art. The Telegraph. 19 Jan. 2008. Web. 25 Nov 2011.
Kennedy, Randy. "Don’t Call Him a Filmmaker, at Least Not First." Movies. The New York Times. 17 Nov. 2007. Web. 25 Nov 2011.
Rose, Charlie. Interview with Julian Schnabel. The Charlie Rose Show (1999).TV.11.21.11. Web.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Dir. Julian Schnabel. Perf. Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze. Pathé Renn Productions, 2007. DVD.