The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le scaphandre et le papillon)

France 2007 (112 minutes)
Director: Julian Schnabel
Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigneur, Marie-Josee Croze, Anne Cosigny and Max von Sydow

Awards and Nominations

* Nominated for four Oscars including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ronald Harwood)
* Won BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay
* Won Best Director (Julian Schnabel) at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for the Palme d’Or
* A further 39 nominations and 32 nominations

In 1995 Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), the 43-year-old editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, suffered a massive stroke that left him with a condition called locked-in syndrome. He was paralysed apart from some movement in his head and eyes, and his sole method of communication was by blinking his left eye. With the help of transcribers who repeated the alphabet to him until he blinked at the selected letter, over a period of 10 months Bauby dictated a memoir of his life - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Bauby eventually completed his book and it was published to critical acclaim; shortly after its publication Bauby died of pneumonia.

The film was originally to be made in English with Schnabel as director working from Ronald Harwood’s screenplay and with Johnny Depp as Bauby. Depp withdrew from the film because of scheduling conflicts with other projects and Pathé took over as producer. According to Ronald Harwood Pathé wanted to make the movie in both English and French and that this is why bi-lingual actors were cast although everyone secretly knew that two versions would be impossibly expensive and that Schnabel had decided that it should be made in French – even going so far as to learn French in order to make the film.

Julian Schnabel made his name as an artist and after participating as the Venice Biennale in 1980 subsequently became a major figure in the Neo-expressionism movement before moving into film making. He insists that he is essentially a painter, although now he is better known for his films:

“Painting is like breathing to me. It’s what I do all the time. Every day I make art, whether it is painting, writing or making a movie.”

Both of Schnabel’s earlier films were concerned with artists: Basquiat (1996) is a biopic of the painter Jean-Michael Basquiat and Before Night Falls (2000) is based on the autobiographical novel by Reinaldo Arenas. Schnabel has subsequently directed a documentary film of a live concert by Lou Reed in New York as part of his Berlin tour, which Schnabel also designed.

Burn After Reading

This is one of the films I've been most looking forward to seeing this year. I bought a copy in the HMV sale but have not had a chance to watch it yet.

Over the holiday I caught up with In Bruges (brilliant), David Tennant's final performance inDoctor Who (alas) as well as his RSC Hamlet (to be able to purchase tickets for the first night was brilliant and for the RSC to open it on Susan's birthday was even better). After being snowed in this weekend we caught up with Goodnight and Good Luck, an excellent story about the fight against McCarthy with George Clooney, as star, director and co-writer.

Which brings me back to the notes for this week's film:

Burn After Reading

USA 2008 (96 minutes)
Director: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Starring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton

Awards and Nominations
Nominated for two Golden Globes (Best Picture and Frances McDormand as Best Actress)
A further 10 nominations including BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay

When Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) is fired from the CIA he begins to write his memoirs. Katie Cox (Tilda Swinton) wants a divorce and at her lawyer’s request copies many of Osborne’s personal files on to a CD which Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) find at a local gym. Litzke is planning cosmetic surgery and decides to blackmail Osborne Cox in order to finance it. Meanwhile Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) is having affairs with both Katie Cox and Linda Litzke.

The summary of the plot reads like a classic farce, but it leads to mayhem on a huge scale that starts with a broken nose and ends finally with execution by CIA gunmen. The Coens described the film as “our version of a Tony Scott/Jason Bourne movie” and they wrote the screenplay while working on their adaptation of No Country for Old Men (2007). The brothers created characters with George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt and John Malkovich in mind, and the script derived from their desire to involve the actors “in a fun story”. Tilda Swinton was the only main character who did not have a part written specifically for her, and the Coens struggled to develop a common filming schedule for their A-list cast.

The Coens identified idiocy as a major them of the film and described Clooney and Pitt’s characters as “duelling idiots”. Clooney had worked with the Coens twice before and acknowledged that he usually played a fool in their movies:

“I’ve done three films for them and they call it my trilogy of idiots”.

The Coens told Pitt that they had written his role specifically for him and he did not know whether to fell flattered or insulted; he told them that he did not know how to play the part as the character was such an idiot:

“There was a long pause and then Joel goes...”You’ll be fine.””

In a career of nearly 25 years the Coens have produced a series of brilliant films that have been successful with both festival and multiplex audiences. In recent years they have reached new heights of success: No Country for Old Men won four Oscars, including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film, and their most recent film A Serious Man (2009) opened to rave reviews at the London Film Festival.

The Secret Life of Bees

These are the notes for our last screening before the Christmas break:

The Secret Life of Bees

USA 2008 (110 minutes)
Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Paul Bettany and Jennifer Hudson

Awards and Nominations
10 wins and 14 nominations

In South Carolina in the early 1960s Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning) is haunted by the memory of her late mother. In order to escape from her lonely life and cruel father Lily flees with Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson), her caregiver, to a South Carolina town which holds the secret to her mother’s past, and while she is there she meets the intelligent and independent Boatwright sisters (Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo) who show her their Black Madonna and tell her about her mother.

The film is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Sue Monk Kidd. Kidd took three and a half years to write her novel and explained its origins in an interview:

“I grew up surrounded by black women. I fell they are like hidden royalty dwelling among us, and we need to rupture our old assumptions and develop the willingness to see them as they are....

As a girl I lived in a country house where at least 50,000 bees hived within the walls of one of our shut-off rooms. When I went in there, I could hear hummy-honey leaking through the wall and puddling on the floor. That image stayed with me for years before I decided to write it. And then when I finally did begin, I was told that it might sell as a short story but not as a novel. I sold the short story but... it wouldn’t let me go. Four years later I had to go back and write the novel.”

Bythewood is one of the very few African-American female directors to have a film distributed by Hollywood. She made her name by directing Disappearing Acts (2000) and both writing and directing Love & Basketball (2000), with Spike Lee as producer which won her the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. For The Secret Life of Bees her executive producers were Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith.

Borders RIP

The local branch of Borders was advertising the last few days of its closing down sale and I wandered in to see if I could find any last minute presents for anyone - or for me.

The DVD section looked as if a hurricane had passed through, but I was tempted by a few books - Margaret Attwood's latest novel plus a handsome edition of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell with a fascinating introduction by Neil Gaiman - until I realised that even with discounts of up to 40% I could probably buy them cheaper from Amazon.

Cinema Paradiso

I tend to write my notes at different times and in different places, but these have to be the most unusual. I wrote most of this between a series of meetings held over three days in London while negitiating the finer points of an international support contract.

I have to admit that this is one film that until this screening had escaped me, but having seen it I'd be happy to see it again. I subsequently found the soundtrack on Spotify and spent an enjoyable hour listening to it while marking up a contract for a bid I'm working on. Such are the joys of working from home.


Cinema Paradiso

Italy 1988 (123 minutes)
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Starring: Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi, Philippe Noiret and Jacques Perrin
Awards and Nominations

Won Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
A further 19 wins and 12 nominations


A famous film director returns home to a Sicilian village for the first time after almost 30 years. He reminisces about his childhood at the Cinema Paradiso where Alfredo, the projectionist, first brought about his love of films. He also remembers his lost teenage love, Elena, whom he left behind when he set off for Rome.

In a poll in 2007 readers of The Guardian chose Cinema Paradiso as the greatest foreign language film ever made by a considerable margin. However when it was originally released in Italy it performed badly at the box office and it was shortened to 123 minutes for its international release. In this version it became an instant success: amongst its many awards it won both the Special Jury Prize at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2002 Tornatore released an extended director's cut with a running time of 173 minute version (known in the U.S. as Cinema Paradiso: The New Version).

The 2002 version reinstates more of the story of the adult Elena, but all three versions omit the major historical national and international events of the period that would have affected the whole of Italy after the Second World War, focussing instead on the different films screened in the village. But it is this infectious celebration of film that makes the repeat viewings worth it . As David Thomson puts it:

“It has many film clips, from Renoir to Antonioni, and a little boy’s face as seen through the booth window is a winning effect – the first dozen times you see it. After that, you’re on your own.”

Tornatore has made ten further films in the 20 years since the release of Cinema Paradiso, but to date none of them has even come close to matching its worldwide success.

Milk

These are my notes for Milk which we screened in mid November. Work has been pretty hectic, so I need to catch up on things.

Milk

USA 2008 (129 minutes)
Director: Gus Van Sant
Starring: Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch and Josh Brolin

Awards and Nominations
Won Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Sean Penn)
Won Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (Dustin Lance Black)
Six further Oscar nominations including Best Film and Best Director
A further 32 wins and 39 nominations

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay politician to hold a major public office in the US. After moving to California he became a campaigner for gay rights and was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1975. Three years later a disaffected fellow Supervisor assassinated both Milk and George Moscone, the Mayor of San Francisco

Dustin Lance Black spent three years researching Milk’s life and interviewing Milk’s associates after seeing the 1984 documentary The Life and Times of Harvey Milk and used this work to produce his screenplay. The screenplay reached Gus Van Sant, who had made an abortive attempt to make his own film on the life of Harvey Milk fifteen years previously, and Van Sant at once decided to film it. The film makers used Milk’s original camera shop as well as San Francisco City Hall as key locations, and several of Milk’s associates portray themselves. Other characters portrayed in the film are still active in US public life and of these the most prominent is Dianne Feinstein, who made the announcement of the assassination of Milk and Moscone to the media. After succeeding Moscone as mayor she was subsequently elected to the US Senate and in 2009 she presided over the inauguration of Barack Obama.

Gus Van Sant had made several small independent films which had been artistically successful before obtaining commercial success with the black comedy To Die For (1995), which gave Nicole Kidman a breakthrough role as a homicidally ambitious weather girl on a cable TV station, and Good Will Hunting (1997), which launched the careers of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. After the commercial failure of a strangely pointless shot for shot colour remake of Psycho (1998) Van Sant returned to series of smaller scale films which continued to win artistic plaudits, culminating in his winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Elephant (2003), a story inspired by the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.

Critics gave Milk widespread acclaim and Sean Penn, who bears a surprising physical resemblance to the real Harvey Milk, won many awards including a second Oscar, for his performance. The film appeared on many critics’ lists of the best films of 2008.

Weird Stuff

One of the joys of my role in the Film club is that I have a valid excuse to search out reviews and other information on the films that we are screening so that I can produce the notes for our members.

Usually this involves a quick trawl through the archives of Philip French and Peter Bradshaw with the odd vist to Wikipedia and IMDB for a killer quote or a list of awards and nominations. However Cinema Paradiso presented me with a challenge as it appeared long before online reviews, although of course it featured regularly in the usual "best of" lists. However conicidentally I had picked up my copy of Have You Seen?: A Personal Introduction to 1000 Films by David Thomson, which is brilliant for late-night browsing, although I am still only on the letter C. I hadn't looked at it for a while, but after opening the at my bookmark I turned the page to find his article on Cinema Paradiso. Spooky!