Moments Count

In the last two months, I saw two interesting movies directed by people who don’t consider themselves to be movie directors. The first movie that I saw was Control by Anthony Corbijn, and last night, I watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Julian Schnabel.

It’s interesting to compare their different styles in terms of their training. Corbijn is a photographer first. He shoots raw images, often in black-and-white. The shots in Control were well-composed, stark, and a bit emotionally removed. It’s a beautiful movie to watch.

On the other hand, a movie camera in the hands of a painter seems more carefree. In the Diving Bell, portions of the frame go in and out of focus. Some colors pop. Compositions were looser and it seemed there was more room for interpretation in what Schnabel’s camera chose to pick up. Certain pan shots felt like he was swinging a bucket full of paint across a big canvas. Seeing the world from the point of view of his one good eye, reminded me of Hitchcock movies.

Here's a quote from Schnabel from an interview:

Movies require more discipline, but they're ultimately about freedom, too. "When I am writing, I feel like I'm painting," he says. "When I am editing, I feel like I am painting. And what I do usually is get in the room, know what I'm supposed to do and throw the script away. That way there is not acting going on. Life has to happen to you."

As for the story, it was really cool. It’s a true story of a slightly above-average man (above average because of the way he writes) trapped in an extraordinary circumstance. In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the 43-year-old editor of French Elle magazine, suffered a stroke and awoke weeks later suffering from “locked-in syndrome.” This meant that while his brain functioned perfectly, the only way he could communicate was by blinking his left eye . . . which he then used to spell out his memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, one letter at a time. And instead of getting bogged down in tragedy, the film is filled with surprisingly humorous moments, and is a fully serious (but not a weepy) look at “quality of life,” consciousness, humanity, and death.

The absolute best scenes for me were of him spelling out the words in his book, letter by letter, to his aide. You would hear the aide recite letters and wait for his blink. The aide’s recitations would subside and the voice of Jean-Dominique would start reading his book. The words were beautiful and I will read this book soon. Plus, the scenes had bonus points for the solo piano melody.

I knew this movie would be good but this movie surprised me on two levels, the humor and its seductiveness. Bauby’s humor reminded me of my grandmother’s. Also, when Bauby’s eye/camera would linger on the bottom hem of a skirt and on the speech therapist’s tongue as she was showing him how to move the tongue to be able to pronounce “L” sounds, I decided that this movie was the sexiest movie I’ve seen all year.

The women in this movie were gorgeous. Bonus points. They are all aging well and will continue to do so with the possible exception of the woman he took to Lourdes. I wasn’t surprised when I read this morning that the speech therapist was Julian Schnabel’s wife. Then, I read a bit about her pajama line and she lost some of her luster. But that scene still rocks.