The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Trailer
A couple weeks ago we saw the trailer for a movie called Awake, starring Hayden Christensen as a guy who remained aware of what was happening while undergoing surgery. But if you thought that was a freaky concept, listen to the true story of Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a stroke at the age of 43 and woke up to find himself completely paralyzed and able only to grunt and blink his left eyelid. Amazingly, Bauby composed an entire book from this state, by having someone recite the alphabet over and over again and blinking when they reached the correct letter. Insane!
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (aka Le scaphandre et le papillon) is a movie based on his book of the same name, directed by Julian Schnabel (Basquiat). Schnabel won Best Director at Cannes this year for the film, which is shot primarily from the point of view of Bauby’s left eye. Schnabel even learned French so that he could read the original text from the book and maintain the dialogue. Visually it looks amazing, but I can only imagine the movie is difficult to watch and heart-breaking in so many ways. Check out the trailer over at Yahoo! now. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly hits select theatres on November 30th.
» Related Link: Yahoo!: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly trailer
Comments (8)
Interesting that Janusz Kaminski is the cinematographer on this. Now that I think of it, I think i’ve only seen one or two movies that he’s done that haven’t been Spielberg films, one of which was his own directorial debut ‘Lost Souls’, which oddly enough he was NOT the cinematographer for. (Even though it was still in his grainy, blown out style.)
Posted by Jay C. on November 7th, 2007Janusz Kaminski has a style? I wouldn’t call War of the Worlds or Minority Report anywhere near ‘grainy’.
I have only seen Spielberg movies by him as well, but he seems perfectly fine to just go by the conventions of whatever genre they’re doing, which I guess is why him and Spielberg get along so well.
Posted by Henrik on November 7th, 2007Henrik,
‘I wouldn’t call War of the Worlds or Minority Report anywhere near ‘grainy’.’
This is so completely wrong, but whatever. I suggest you re-watch it.
‘Janusz Kaminski has a style?’
No. Nobody in close working relation to Spielberg has style or talent.
Posted by Jay C. on November 7th, 2007Well, if you call thinking inside the box a style, then I guess he has it.
I never brought up talented. Obviously Steven Spielberg is a talented craftsman, who has perfected the craft of making a movie to the point of being the fastest person around to make one. He can bang out the genre-movies faster than anyone, because it’s easy when you just follow conventions.
Minority Report was blue for crying out loud! How stereotypical is that? Tom Cruise shoots like an air buffer pistol in a sleak car factory! What’s grainy about that? I’d say Saving Private Ryan is grainy, but definitely not MR or WOTW, with their overly-produced slick look.
Posted by Henrik on November 7th, 2007I mean if you think The Lost World is a grainy and blown-out looking movie, maybe I just have no idea what grainy and blown-out means.
Posted by Henrik on November 7th, 2007Yes, I do think The Lost World is a grainy and blown-out looking movie. Especially in comparison to the first Jurassic Park.
Just look at the second scene in the house when the kids are reunited with Malcom. Look at the light sources. Almost all blown out, and everything is heavily lit.
I’d say Kaminski has a similar interest in hot spots as Robert Richardson, only they don’t illuminate the actors so much (halos on the hair and hands) but rather the blown out areas come from the actual light sources.
I’ve always like Spielberg’s choice of Kaminski because of this. His stuff is still slick, but with a more raw edge. He’s a somewhat unconventional choice for such giant crowd pleasers. (well maybe not now. I do think Kaminski’s work with Spielberg has played a role in launching a trend of high contrast cinematography in big budget action films)
Posted by Jay C. on November 7th, 2007Yeah that is a good point. There definitely is alot of heavy, unnaturalistic lighting in the Kaminski stuff. The sand in my crack was more about the grainy comments, but whatever.
I can see why, if you think Kaminski is good, you would like Robert Richardson as well. He has part of the same hyper-real stylized way of shooting things. I remember watching JFK and being annoyed out of my mind with the use of the ‘movie-glasses-lighting’ where some lightpost will make the glasses completely white, obscuring an actors eyes throughout the scene. Everybody knows glasses are bend, and don’t catch light like that!
I’m more a fan of the more realistic subtle way of presenting things. If you want to talk about the masters, Sven Nykvist definitely is somebody who did alot with nearly nothing. But that’s alot more minimalistic than Steven Spielberg would need. I’d prefer somebody like Roger Deakins who has a pretty amazing eye for doing memorable visuals and compositions, like Peter Stormare getting out of the car in Fargo or Jake Gyllenhaal in the circle at the highway of death in Jarhead.
Posted by Henrik on November 7th, 2007“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is full of obvious dream sequences and flashbacks not to mention not to mention the inter-cutting of odd images to make a point. Rather surprisingly is that among all of the depressing material, the film is very humorous though it still made me cry at times.
I can’t wait to see it again.
Posted by Marina on November 7th, 2007Leave a Reply