The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

4.00
    The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
    2007

    Synopsis

    The true story of Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind.

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    Cast

    • Mathieu AmalricJean-Dominique Bauby
    • Emmanuelle SeignerCéline Desmoulins
    • Marie-Josée CrozeHenriette Durand
    • Anne ConsignyClaude
    • Patrick ChesnaisDr. Lepage
    • Niels ArestrupRoussin
    • Olatz López GarmendiaMarie Lopez
    • Jean-Pierre CasselFather Lucien
    • Marina HandsJoséphine
    • Max von SydowPapinou

    Recommendations

    • 100

      New York Magazine (Vulture)

      The film is a masterpiece in which “locked-in” syndrome becomes the human condition.
    • 100

      The New Yorker

      Schnabel’s movie, based on the calm and exquisite little book that Bauby wrote in the hospital, is a gloriously unlocked experience, with some of the freest and most creative uses of the camera and some of the most daring, cruel, and heartbreaking emotional explorations that have appeared in recent movies.
    • 100

      Newsweek

      Schnabel, screenwriter Ronald Harwood and Spielberg's great cinematographer Janusz Kaminski have found a way to take us inside Bauby's mind--his memories, his fantasies, his loves and lusts--transforming a story of physical entrapment and spiritual renewal into exhilarating images.
    • 100

      Premiere

      Every performer in the international cast -- Seigner, de Bankole, von Sydow (magnificent as Bauby's father), and the late Jean-Pierre Cassel to name but a few -- completely disappears into each of their roles, which I think is as much a testament to Schnabel's talents as to theirs.
    • 91

      Entertainment Weekly

      The most beautiful movie ever made about a man who could only move one eyelid -- almost dangerously beautiful.
    • 91

      Christian Science Monitor

      In a film that overwhelmingly avoids happy-faced pronouncements, this one sticks out.
    • 91

      The A.V. Club

      Schnabel's sleepy, drifty, at times morbidly funny film tackles something more ambitious, by getting into the head of someone who's trying to get out of there himself.
    • 88

      Rolling Stone

      The movie will wipe you out. Schnabel's previous two films (Basquiat, Before Night Falls) also focused on artists. But this is his best film yet, a high-wire act of visual daring and unquenchable spirit.

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