Showing posts with label The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Show all posts

14/03/2014

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly



Later in the week on Friday 8th - I went with Carol to see the showing of Julian Schnabel's new film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007.) As you know Schnabel was a massive hero of mine – I knew almost all his paintings - I had seen his two excellent previous films (Basquait (1996) which was about the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat and Before Night Falls (2000) which was about the Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas) and I had read literally hundreds of reviews on his exhibitions. So when I heard he would be giving a Q&A after the film I had to be there. The night before the film I was in the pits of despair. I wondered if I would have the courage to ask him anything. I wondered what I could say. I wondered what he might make of my work if I showed him it. Then I recalled what I had written of him – the praise and the critique. I knew he’d like the former and hate the latter. Which only served to depress me even more. So by the time I got to the Irish Film Centre - I was in a full-blown self-loathing and self-important panic. Fortunately the film was wonderful and a salutary lesson on how we should always remember there are many people in the world far worse off than ourselves – not that that old simplistic truism ever seems to help anyone except those that like to lecture.                                 

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, a French language film – was based on the book by the same name - by Jean-Dominique Bauby (often called Jean-Do by his friends in the film.) Bauby was the elegant jet-setting editor of the French Elle fashion magazine in Paris in the 1990s. He was married with two children (in the film there are three because Schnabel said two children seemed too lonely and the little girl was too cute not to put in the movie) and lived a carefree life of parties and mistresses.                                                                                                                                      
Then suddenly at the age of forty-three, he had a massive stroke - which left him paralyzed from head to toe. The film started at the point when Bauby woke up from a coma - and discovered he could not move or speak or even swallow. We saw what he saw through his eyes. He was told he had ‘Locked-In-Syndrome’. To add insult to injury his right eye - had to be sown up for fear it might become infected - leaving only his left eye open and able to blink. So most of the film was scene from Bauby’s point of view – literally – when he blinked the camera blinked - and we spent the film looking up at people who loom in and out of view. The effect was terrifying but never melodramatic. This of course could have been a nightmare of a film to watch. But Bauby’s humour never left him and he fell back on his memories and imagination to pass the long ‘locked-in’ hours.                                        

Bauby’s beautiful therapist taught him to how to communicate with the world by blinking. But he was as interested in looking at the lovely therapist as communicating messages to the world.  She recited the alphabet and he blinked when she arrived at the letter he was thinking of and she wrote it down. So throughout the film the French alphabet was recited - and it took on a tragic, lyrical and bittersweet quality.                                                                                                  

Placed in this unimaginable prison of the body he called the Diving Bell – Bauby’s decided to write a book on his life – if only to give himself a task to concentrate on and distract him from the sorrow, boredom and fear of his condition. Thus the film weaved in and out of memory, fantasy and reality as Dauby - was condemned to see it. We learnt about his old beloved father, his put-upon wife, his mistress and his precious children – none of whom he could hold or touch.                                      

Unlike Schnabel’s previous films – The Diving Bell and The Butterfly never descended into mawkish sentimentality. Bauby became a kind of everyman in this film – dealing with the terror of illness, death and nothingness that we will all face in the end. This was not your usual vomit-inducing Hallmark Channel story of disability – for one thing there was no miracle cure - and Bauby died ten days after his book was published. However it was still a film of hope – that we are all part of something larger – that there is some meaning to our personal trials. It was notable that later in the talk Schnabel said that he thought art could never be pessimistic even when it dealt with the darkest themes - because creativity was always somewhat optimistic.  As with Schnabel’s previous films - I was struck by the visual beauty and quirkiness of his storytelling in both imagery and dialog – though I was a bit annoyed to see him yet again stick his own paintings and sculptures and photographs of his children in all over the place for no apparent reason.                      
                                                       
Afterwards Schnabel came into the auditorium and gave a brief Q&A with John Kelly from The View arts programme on RTÉ 1. Julian had a big black winter coat on covering up his caramel coloured jacket under which he was wearing pyjamas - in a deep, rich, shade of purple he often uses in his canvases. His hair was longish and wild and his beard thick. He had a pair of yellow tinted black glasses on - and a green scarf wrapped around his neck.  Someone asked him why he wore pyjamas he said something about it being like a suit and yet more comfortable. I thought he did it to be different. Everyone needs a gimmick.                                                                                                  

Then some batty woman asked him what he was going to do about the plight of all the old people in care homes in a similar state! What more was he supposed to do? He had just spent two years making this film to give shape to this kind of human tragedy and not in the usual glib: “I do a lot of work of charity” - kind of bullshit way. But Schnabel deflected the question very diplomatically and said his next film would be about the lives of Palestinian women.                                           

In fact, the Julian Schnabel I saw was not the brash arrogant Yuppie I had seen and read in interviews in from the 1980s. Perhaps the critical lashing of his reputation as a painter non-stop for over twenty years - and the death of his mother and father recently had lead him to a far more human understanding of himself and his life – maybe he just grew up. Though, I had to smile a little when I heard him give out about his daughter Stella who is a poet and actress. She was having a strop and Schnabel cut her up: “Stop feeling entitled to everything! The world doesn’t owe you a living! I still love you! Call me when you change your attitude!” Or something to that affect. He was basically attacking an egotistical flaw in her character he had been castigated for possessing - by art critics like Robert Hughes, Donald Kuspit and Brian Sewell in the 1980s. However I thought Schnabel must have been a great father to have – he spoke with real tenderness of his five children and gave special attention to a young boy called Noah in the audience. I wondered what my life would have been like if my father had lived.                                                                                                            
Near the very end, I tried to ask a question by timidly raising my hand. But thankfully I was not picked. When the talk was finished – I lunged up to Schnabel in a panic. “Julian! Julian can you sign my copy of CVJ?” (CVJ was Schnabel’s autobiography of 1987 - which I had bought in 1992 and cherished ever since.) “Yeah sure!” He replied cautiously. “I’m sorry it’s a bit battered!” I apologized. “Don’t worry that means you read it!” He replied. I could hardly bring myself to look him in the eye – I was so terrified. “I fucking love your work! You’re a Hero of mine!” I proclaimed – but still unable to look at him full on. “Gosh thanks.” He replied rather bemused. “I have a new signature I am using.” He said “Oh right cool!” I replied. “Eh I don’t have a pen, have you a pen?” He asked. “Yes! Yes!” I replied - handing him a thick black permanent marker. “What’s your name?” “Eh, Cy… Cypher.” I stammered. “Cypher with an i or a y?” “Eh a y.” I replied almost trembling. He signed on the front cover of CVJ: ‘To Cypher From Baby Pint 08’. “Thank you so much!” I replied. I had brought two of my catalogues in to maybe show or give him - but I quickly decided not to. I did not want to spoil the moment. I didn’t want the rejection – not from him. I fled.             

Some girl asked him something and he said: “Ask Cypher! You two should exchange numbers!” But my head was swimming and all I wanted to do was run away. But then the line to get out of the cinema was so long that I was stuck in the line near him! He was talking to the little boy Noah and saying he would try to get him a poster and sign it. “I don’t usually like posters, I want people to but my paintings!” He told the boy. “You know this is my first time in Dublin I like it!” He said to someone else. Later outside I saw him with friends as I came back from the toilets - but I could not even look at him. My girlfriend took some great photographs of him signing my book.                       

That night I was plunged again into utter despair thinking of everything Schnabel had achieved compared to me. I thought about how; so many of my paintings - were nothing but brazen rip-offs of his various styles – except without his scale, originality or ambition. Then I thought about how utterly selfish and self-obsessed I was - and how little I contributed to society and the lives of other people. Then I thought about the disease of fame and my own sickness. But the following day I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. There were few other people in the world I would care to meet and that at least for the sake of my nerves was a good thing.