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The Diving Bell And The Butterfly [DVD] [2007]
 
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The Diving Bell And The Butterfly [DVD] [2007]

DVD ~ Mathieu Amalric
4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
RRP: £19.99
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Frequently Bought Together

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly [DVD] [2007] + Tell No-One (Ne Le Dis A Personne) [DVD] [2006] + The Lives Of Others [DVD] [2007]
Total RRP: £59.97
Price For All Three: £11.83

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly [DVD] [2007]
62% buy the item featured on this page:
The Diving Bell And The Butterfly [DVD] [2007] 4.1 out of 5 stars (29)
£4.98
Tell No-One (Ne Le Dis A Personne) [DVD] [2006]
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Tell No-One (Ne Le Dis A Personne) [DVD] [2006] 4.0 out of 5 stars (58)
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The Lives Of Others [DVD] [2007]
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Product details

  • Actors: Mathieu Amalric, Lopez Garmendia, Emma De Caunes, Jean-Philippe Watkins, Nicolas Le Riche
  • Directors: Julian Schnabel
  • Format: PAL
  • Language French
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 12
  • Studio: Pathe Distribution
  • DVD Release Date: 9 Jun 2008
  • Run Time: 112 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B0015VI366
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 262 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

    Popular in these categories:

    #3 in  DVD > World Cinema
    #43 in  DVD > DVD Bargains > By Price > Up to 70% off > Up to 70% off DVDs
    #60 in  DVD > Drama

Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
The seemingly claustrophobic story of a man imprisoned in his paralysed body becomes a dazzling and expansive movie about love, imagination, and the will to live. After a stroke, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric, Kings and Queen) can only move his left eye--and through that eye he learns to communicate, one letter at a time. With the help of his speech therapist (Marie-Josee Croze, Munich) and a stenographer (Anne Consigny, Anna M.), Bauby writes the stunning memoir The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But such a plot summary makes the movie sound like lofty, self-important medicine--far from it. Director Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, Before Night Falls), working from an elegant screenplay by Ronald Harwood (The Pianist) and with an outstanding cast (which also includes Frantic's Emmanuelle Seigner as Bauby's neglected wife), has created a movie as engrossing and hypnotic as a thriller, a movie that wrestles with mortality yet has stubborn streaks of dark humour and eroticism, that portrays a man who overcomes unimaginable obstacles but refuses to paint him as a saint. Schnabel was once dismissed as a pompous and overblown painter, but he's crafted an intimate visual poem, a humble sonata about life at its most fragile. --Bret Fetzer

Synopsis
Celebrated painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel's third feature finds him reaching new artistic heights with this audacious and personal biopic, based on the best-selling memoir of the same name. The film tells the remarkable tale of Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), the world-renowned editor of French ELLE magazine, who suffered a stroke and was paralyzed by the inexplicable 'locked in' syndrome at the age of 43. Bauby's only way of communicating with the outside world was by blinking with one eye, and after several dedicated helpers--a string of impossibly beautiful women (Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze, Olatz Lopez Garamendia, Anne Consigny)--helped him to speak through this seemingly irrelevant gesture, he began to produce the words that would form his memoir. Along the way, as he swam in and out of consciousness, memories from his past swelled into the present, resulting in a cinematic experience that is at once heartbreaking and hopeful.
Schnabel somehow manages to convey Bauby's internal life with remarkable clarity, employing first-person perspective, striking cinematography (by the always great Janusz Kaminski), and Amalric's pained, life-affirming monologues. The result is a wholly original experience, a painful and tender portrait of a life that is made all the more exhilarating because of its close proximity to death.

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Customer Reviews

29 Reviews
5 star:
 (13)
4 star:
 (8)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (29 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
82 of 82 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece, 18 April 2008
By Jaybird (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly tells the true story of a Jean Dominique Bauby, the debonair editor of French Elle, who suffered locked in syndrome following a devastating stroke. After the stroke he can only communicate by blinking his eye.

Everything about this as a premise for a film sounds terrible - he does not move, so what is filmic about it; he does not communicate verbally, so where is the dialogue or the relationships; he reflects on his life and his mortality, but how do you show that?

Do not be put off. The film is beautifully made, turning faces into landscapes and using careful palettes of colour to distinguish pre and post stroke scenes. The film shows how Jean-Do becomes a cypher for those around him, providing meaning to their lives, even though inside he is intrinsically himself. In the end, the film is about the meaning of this man's life and all our lives, clear-eyed and fearless.

It is moving without being sentimental or mawkish, insightful, funny, beautiful and intelligent. An absolute must see.
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Touched by genius, 19 Jun 2008
By Chuck E (UK) - See all my reviews
  
Just when you started to feel that film had become little more than a merchandising exercise, along comes a release that reminds you what it can be. Reading The Diving Bell one could be forgiven for thinking it essentially unfilmable - so much is going on inside the head of the protagonist, there's little `action' not a great deal of dialogue, a slight plot... Yet, Schnabel's film is touched with genius and blessed with uniformly excellent performances, from the speech therapist down to the telephone engineers. Moreover, unlike other films dealing with disability, where the audience looks `at' the disability, here we look `from' - and there's a big difference. The decision to take the point of view from inside Bauby's head is inspired and completely transforms the relationship of the viewer to the subject. Technically and aesthetically it is a triumph - it's quite difficult to think how it could have been improved, even down to the soundtrack. Obviously, there's a depressing side to the tale of a man stricken by total paralysis(!), but the film stands as a testament to the remarkable resilience of the human spirit.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Butterfly Effect, 26 Mar 2008
By Demob Happy "jamesewan" (London / Grenoble) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' is an adaptation of a book many would presume to be unadaptable: former Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoirs reflecting upon his rare medical condition "locked-in syndrome". The film begins begins daringly and terrifyingly from Bauby's perspective, as he regains consciousness in hospital following a stroke and slowly realises that he is totally paralysed except for an ability to roll and blink his eyes. His only means of communication is thus to blink, once for `yes' and twice for `no', and with the assistance of his publisher he learns to spell words via a painstakingly laborious alphabetical system. Together they were able to transcribe the 144 page memoir on which this film is based.

In the first part of the film the viewer is locked, dreadfully, into Bauby's perspective as one of his eyes is sewn shut to counterbalance the effect of muscle paralysis in his face. As the camera deviates from the prison of Bauby's perspective, it seems at first to be a wasted opportunity to powerfully express Bauby's experience through cinematic style. A film told totally from his viewpoint would have been an incredibly challenging formalistic achievement. It would not have been overwhelmingly restrictive since the novel deals as much with Bauby's inner life (the butterfly) - the freedom he finds to explore his memory and imagination - as with his physical life.

Nevertheless, the film justifies its decision to roam beyond the confines of Bauby's vision. Most importantly, we are made privvy to his means of communicating, and how oddly expressive this one facet of communication could be. This film irrefutably demonstrates the notion that eyes are the windows to the soul. Bauby's single eye becomes a vessel for all his expressiveness, his mouth, his smile, his voice. It is extraordinary how much emotional range is evoked from so little. The film is a tribute to the endurance and transcendance of the human spirit over material obstacles. It also makes a total mockery of Alejandro Amenabar's mawkish pro-euthanasia drama `The Sea Inside'. A powerful, saddening but ultimately uplifting film that deserves to be seen.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
A touching look at the frustrations of locked in syndrome.Don't watch it for light entertainment - it is a poignant film with no happy ending,but it does make you aware of stroke... Read more
Published 6 days ago by Diz

3.0 out of 5 stars Fails in the end
I won't summarize the plot, since there are already many reviews that do. Worth noting that the director is the artist Julian Schnabel, since the film is noteworthy for its rather... Read more
Published 1 month ago by S. Pawley

5.0 out of 5 stars an exquist masterpiece of rehabilitation
this is a true story about elle editor jean-dominique bauby who suffers a stroke and awakes to find that his body is completely paralyzed apart form his left eye but his mind is... Read more
Published 2 months ago by K. L. C. Adams

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected
Quite an intense film, very thought provoking, should be given to all social workers, nurses and carers to watch, who work with people who are disabled, blind, dementia and all... Read more
Published 2 months ago by jeffde

5.0 out of 5 stars A magnificent tale of courage and humanity
In this wonderful true story, we see the immense sacrifices made firstly by a young nurse (who starts off the communication method with the stricken Bauby), then by the young... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Bones

5.0 out of 5 stars compelling and original
This is based on Jean-Dominique Bauby's own memoir of the same name. Bauby was an incredibly successful magazine editor, living a life of luxury and decadence, that most people... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mrs. K. A. Wheatley

3.0 out of 5 stars Warning - cannot turn off subtitles
Was very disappointed to find out that the English subtitles cannot be turned off, which means either blocking out part of the picture in order not to be distracted by them, or... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Judith Ní Bhreasláin

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful movie
An amazing story from many perspectives. Firstly that you have insight into a condition from the patients perspective. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Marisa Calvi

4.0 out of 5 stars tearjerker
A sad but also uplifting film made all the more poignant by the fact that it is based on a true story. Read more
Published 3 months ago by N. Wootton

3.0 out of 5 stars No opinion really
I haven't bought this DVD so I don't really know why I'm being asked to review it.
Published 4 months ago by AV maestro

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