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received such hype and been so ridiculously bad.
A wealthy heel with a significant other and three children by her also has a mistress for whom he is about to permanently leave the mother of his kids. He suffers a debilitating stroke.
For the first way-too-many minutes, the director attempts to make us "feel" what it's like to be in a state of total paralysis, near blindness, and total confusion.
After a few minutes of this, any sensate individual would have understood and the film could continue. Not J. Schnabel, however: he subjects the poor viewer, as trapped as the unfortunate character, to what seems like hours of it.
And that's another major problem with the film: we don't get too many of the character's thoughts but merely his feelings, which aren't very surprising and hardly worth much consideration. This may be a blessing, however, because the editor of Elle, his former occupation, hardly would be riveting.
One of the anti-climactic moments occurs-- I confess that to a French person this may seem more dramatic---when the lover, who has such deep emotions that she manages to resist the urge to see him as his life hangs by a thread or as he fights to regain communication, telephones him when his wife is present.
The long-suffering wife, of course, dutifully leaves the room so the lover can explain her absence, though the wife returns to help the communication.
And what a world this poor unfortunate is left in!
Not only is his wife a stunner, the girlfriend is too--- okay, so far, he was, after all, the editor of a marginal fashion magazine. But his speech therapist, physical therapist, AND secretary also
are all model-perfect!
I'd suggest another title, perhaps when it's released to DVD: "A Stroke of Good Luck!"
Follow Ups:
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I thought it was possibly the best film I saw in 2007. I was not bored for a single second. Au contraire, I found it insightful, sensual, humane and rivetting.For my thoughts on this film please see my comments below on another thread.
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Well, don't you think that being paralysed would become extremely boring very quickly?
Isn't the very point of the continued camera/eye angle to show just how little he can perceive and partake in the world whilst all along thinking, thinking.
And as for saying all the women are gorgeous... is this not the very thing Hollywood is continually criticised for, but in that unreal, botox and silicon manner combined with a starvation diet and 12 hour a day gym workouts that makes some actresses so repellent to look at?
At least these women look like women.
Protagonist's POV.
takes directorial skill, however, which Schnabel hasn't. I mean, Dave, after a few minutes, I got the idea, I didn't have to be bored an eternity. Remember, he has the experience--- actually to improve his situation--- while we only get a bright image on a screen.
If you live in a world where all women are perfectly beautiful, fine. I don't and envy you.
This film is a male fantasy: shit all over two women, including a woman who bears you three children and whom you will not marry, and when you're severely injured, they flock to help you and voice concern. Aren't women just terrific--- and beautiful!
This film is not about a man who seemingly has nothing to live for actually discovering something unusual. It's all about people caring about him whilst he continues on this superficial interior dialogue.
And for God's sake, if I heard that repetitious, mantra-like letter string one fucking more time! Again, another example of poor directing, wasting many minutes when obviously nothing of import was left to convey.
This film of seriously wounded people has been done before. Tarantino had a bit of it in "Kill Bill," for instance.
Diving Bell appeals to those who find life terribly difficult and need someone ostensibly in even worse shape than they to lift their flagging spirits, "Jesus, the guy's a vegetable and still finds a way to soldier on!"
Even the "art" stuff, his flashbacks, were not especially clever or inventive.
Lastly, there was one especially mean-spirited part where he went out of his way to laugh at his girlfriend's purchase of a religious figure. The quintessence of gratuitous insult: it may have happened but he gained satisfaction from recalling it, didn't he?
A superficial account of a superficial life.
Oh, one more thing: his kids, that he merrily was jettisoning (even his cheerful father thought it reprehensible) for his floozie, all loved him so dearly, so tenderly.
Ever been around kids when their parents are splitting?
No?
Well, they're hardly enamored of the "guilty" parent.
"Ever been around kids when their parents are splitting?
No?
Well, they're hardly enamored of the "guilty" parent."
I won't comment on the film. I've not seen it. But I am very familiar with kids whose parents are "splitting", having been involved in more such cases that I care to count. First, with rare exception, the kids do not blame the parent or parents. Ironically, they frequently blame themselves. Second, in most situations, both parents share the blame. I've seen situations, admittedly, a small portion, in which one child blames one parent, and the other child blames the other parent. Third, in many cases, the children are better balanced than the parents, and either do not apportion blame to one parent, or they blame both parents. But in the end, most of the time, the children remain loyal to both parents.
Ummmm, it is from an autobiography or perhaps about the writing of one, isn't it?
So the fixation on the protagonist seems kind of hard to get around...
"a male fantasy: shit all over two women, including a woman who bears you three children and whom you will not marry, and when you're severely injured, they flock to help you and voice concern."
If you want to read morality into it, it would seem that "act like a prick and become paralysed" might be closer to the mark.
As for comparing it to Kill Bill I cannot see where you get that. I would have thought the fairly recent film to compare it with would be The Sea Inside.
Enough! If you didn't enjoy it, then so be it, but since the point of seeing films is, hopefully, to experience an almost out-of-body experience, to be transported to another world, and you weren't then the rest of us are sorry for but we GET IT.
Move on and find another film that you GET and tell us about it.
This isn't really a film crit class.
There is no right and wrong.
But I can tell you from personal experience, writing about something you like is much more fun than writing about something you don't!
I like criticizing a film as much as praising one.
My take is that if the guy had maintained a functioning two fingers, enough to grip a pen, the auto and film wouldn't have gone anywhere.
Steven Hawking the guy isn't.
I mentioned, a few threads down, Sea Inside.
Brando had a paraplegic film early in his career that was terrific (The Men?).
Johnny Got his Gun also is a superior film.
Diving Bell is pretty fluff about an unfortunate but banal character.
I "get it" but didn't "like it."
:-)
"You can safely assume you have created God in your own image when he hates all the same people you do."
You do realize the movie was based on his book... within which he talked about how beautiful and desirable the lady doctors were.
I think she's pretty striking...
"You can safely assume you have created God in your own image when he hates all the same people you do."
All women are beautiful, forgiving, and willing to serve this guy no matter how badly he treats them. And we are to pity, pity, pity him.
This movie has zero insights, interesting or original thought.
Provide a few if you can, sj.
I'm not saying my view is correct, merely that no one seems to be able to post any serious commentary about why they liked it.
And is it so hard to imagine a good looking editor of that country's most famous fashion magazine having a good looking wife, girlfriend & secretary?
That picture was of one of the therapists... if he wrote that the others were also beautiful how would you have them portrayed?
"You can safely assume you have created God in your own image when he hates all the same people you do."
Alejadinho: great sculptor w/ no hands (tools taped to his wrists).
Self-promoting womanizer and editor of a execrable rag who happens to have suffered a debilitating accident?
Trite.
I got dizzy from all the look-alike blue-eyed beauties. It was like looking through Elle magazine, for god's sakes. Say, do you have a subscription?
You haven't answered: what spoke to you, specifically, about the film?
A far better film of a man in a similar position stars Javier Bardem, "The Sea Inside."
Not a very good film, mind you, but much more insightful.
How much less beautiful should he have made them... I mean I know it's very fine line because if they'd crossed the line (your line) into "ugly" then half the post would've been about that.For the record... there were things about the film that bothered me... like the trip to Lourdes. What was the point of it? They didn't demonstrate in any way that it had some effect on his life... were we just supposed to see that he thought his girlfriend was nutty? If so, why... where did that thought or realization lead? As a stand alone anecdote it just felt kind of vague and empty... maybe that's it! Maybe it was a metaphor for how he felt.
I also wasn't crazy about JS' artistic interpretations of Bauby's inner/imaginative world. That imagery didn't really resonate for me. I thought the film was much stronger when sticking with his POV and occasional views of other people (like his father... say, what did you think of MVS' performance?).
But overall it was moving just because as a human being, seeing someone overcome such an incredibly - unimaginably emotional and psychologically debilitating - condition to find a way to communicate and express, beautifully, what's it's like to be there and a growing awareness of the beauty he had in his life, was moving. That it was done so well, both by the film-makers and actors only made it more so.
Did you not notice that the impetus for him to express himself thusly came from realizing how much love and beauty he had in his life and how he'd taken it for granted/and or had been willing to throw it away? That he was overwhelmed by the fact that after all that and in his 'un-wantable' condition he was still loved and surrounded with beauty? I'm guessing you probably see that as weakness on the part of the people in his life who loved him... to me it speaks to a basic decency he must have had despite his caddish behaviour.
Oh... and one more thing. About the beautiful women... even if they were a bit of an exaggeration we were seeing them through Bauby's eyes/mind... he was a sensual, confident womanizer (to a point) and it was part of his prison to have the experience of desiring them, and wanting contact and intimacy with them but being trapped in a body that couldn't communicate any of that... it also part of his experience that as beautiful women they were interested in him not because he was handsome and successful but because he was helpless.
Sometimes, when you quickly reject a movie out of hand based on social and/or political bias, you miss a lot (just ask JI).
"You can safely assume you have created God in your own image when he hates all the same people you do."
much more, to like it.
I thought The Swede's performance was pretty good, what there was of it. Hell, I'd have been happy for two hours of HIM! As it was, he didn't have enough to do, say. Most of his time was spent in silently being shaved.
I don't want to drum the beautiful woman thing too much: we disagree. EVERY woman was beautiful. Every one. Even the transcriber, for goodness' sake.
Lourdes? He was a massive heel to her during the visit and after it, too.
Some people are so scared of death they will live on no matter what. In and of itself, I find them no more or less interesting than someone like Bardem's character in Sea Inside. What makes a character interesting is novel thoughts, novel actions in trite circumstances.
It's hard to make a film about a person in terrible circumstances because we all know it's not going to be difficult not to become a pity fest. It's like having a puppy or cute kid as a lead character, the emotional blackmail. This film didn't pass that test for me: the character found beauty around him? Uh, superficial appearances is all the guy ever noticed. Whoopee!
An autobiography doesn't have to be just about you. Those are the bad ones. Reagan's for instance. The good ones talk about the subjects's friends, acquaintances, etc. We learned nothing about anyone but the guy. And he didn't reveal much about himself except that he was selfish. It seems he remained so, didn't it? I mean the question sincerely. No thoughts about how much he was hurting the mother of his kids by continuing speaking to his woman on the side. All about him.
Not a remarkable guy.
Or story.
Helen Keller, now, THAT'S a rip-roaring story.
.
"You can safely assume you have created God in your own image when he hates all the same people you do."
Glad you don't take these "discussions" to heart.
I'm typing this by using a cursor inserted into my nostril which I then lower over the keyboard. Years ago, after a Bush speech, I suffered a massive stroke and I only can lower or raise my head a tiny bit. Occasionally, my very ugly attendant cleans the snot off the keyboard and the cursor.
Honestly when I think about the film, it just captured me visually, emotionally and atmospherically. I really didn't think about or evaluate it all that much... just went along for the ride.
"You can safely assume you have created God in your own image when he hates all the same people you do."
bleep
...but you find it "boring." I would conclude you are very, very easily bored and I don't mean that in a good way.
logic or serious opinion to defend your liking?
at least he isn't afraid to express his displeasure at works he didn't like. I'd rather say it's the decay of courage the inability of the mass mind to reach its own decisions.
"Call it Friend-o"
...that's not the point. It's the dismissive smugness of his self-certainty. This is not an isolated incident; if it was I wouldn't have replied. In my view there's a clear pattern here of superficiality masquerading as sophistication. Every once-in-a-while it bugs me enough that I say something.
problem is that you are unable to express your views with similar intelligence, wit, and examples. :-)
I'd feel very frustrated and angry if I were you.
Say, let me help you:
blink your eyes when you hear the correct letter, once for "yes," and "twice" for....
...I am happy in my miserable stupidity.
,
...I'm profoundly aware of my own miserableness. I'm just too stupid to do anything about it. Pardon me while I stumble over this chair.
There isn't a "right" opinion to hold.
The answers are not in the back of the book.
Now if you want to argue about the best way to make coffee, let me know...
commit you both to Guantanamo (Ralph's a hypocrite, in private, he's a strong Bush supporter) and when I'm done with you, the protagonist of "Diving Bell...." will seem like a privileged fellow.
I'll make sure to find the ugliest GIs I can find, too, maybe even bring back Ms. English.
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