Julian Schnabel

Every year there's a film (or two) that elevates the viewer experience to the next level. That higher ground is an inspiring one and in film terms - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le papillon) is an example of the power of art; what art is supposed to do and its relevance to our lives.

Based on a novel Jean-Dominique Bauby (who blinked the book to an interpreter after a stroke left him paralyzed with only one blinking eye), if this would have happened to just about anybody else, people would scream euthanasia - but Bauby used his imagination to inspire us. Julian Schnabel who gets better with each film (Basquiat, Before Night Falls) along with Ronald Harwood (The Pianist) and a terrific cast and crew delights us with a film full of splendor and imagination about the human spirit that will move you beyond words. It's an award contender, especially for Max Von Sydow's perf if there's any justice out there. This film is the perfect merger between cinema and art - definitely one of the best films of the year... if not the best.

At a press round table which included six other members of the press in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, I met with the director Julian Schnabel, writer Ronald Harwood, actors Max Von Sydow, Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze.



Yama Rahimi: At what point was the decision made to make the film in French?
Julian Schnabel: The film came to me through Johnny Depp who was attached to it. Even then I wanted to make the film with Johnny and French actors and Johnny acting in French. So the intention was always to shoot it in France and actual locations. Not everybody knew that but you don't tell everybody everything.

YR: Did the actors received the English or translated script?
JS: The English one. I wanted each actor to translate their parts and how they would say the dialog in their own words.