The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

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- 80/100 based on 109,200 votes

Forty-three year old Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby - Jean-Do to his friends - awakens not knowing where he is. He is in a Berck-sur-Mer hospital, where he has been for the past several weeks in a coma after suffering a massive stroke. Although his cognitive facilities are intact, he quickly learns that he has what is called locked-in syndrome which has resulted in him being almost completely paralyzed, including not being able to speak. One of his few functioning ... (Full plot summary below)

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Actors in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly:

Mathieu Amalric
Emmanuelle Seigner
Marie-Josée Croze
Anne Consigny
Patrick Chesnais
Niels Arestrup

Full Plot Details

Forty-three year old Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby - Jean-Do to his friends - awakens not knowing where he is. He is in a Berck-sur-Mer hospital, where he has been for the past several weeks in a coma after suffering a massive stroke. Although his cognitive facilities are intact, he quickly learns that he has what is called locked-in syndrome which has resulted in him being almost completely paralyzed, including not being able to speak. One of his few functioning muscles is his left eye. His physical situation and hospitalization uncomfortably bring together the many people in his life, including: Céline Desmoulins, his ex-lover and mother of his children; Inès, his current lover; and his aged father who he calls Papinou. Among his compassionate recuperative team are his physical therapist Marie, and his speech therapist Henriette. Henriette eventually teaches him to communicate using a system where he spells out words: she reads out the letters of the alphabet in descending order of their use in the French language, and he blinks his functioning left eye when she reaches the appropriate letter. Although frustrating at start, he learns to communicate effectively but slowly using this method, so much so that with the help of Claude, a full time translator, he decides on the monumental and seemingly impossible task to keep to his pre-injury commitment of writing a book, changing its focus to life in his current state.

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Movie Reviews

East Bay Express - 10/10 by Kelly VanceAn inventive, challenging, at times emotionally bracing film, audaciously staged and laudably anti-clichéd in its character particulars, yet destined to be more admired than beloved.
Kansas City Star - 10/10 by Robert W. ButlerThe results are emotionally charged but not manipulative.
Film Threat - 10/10 by Matthew SorrentoSchnabel's film is so steeped in the visual that it is surely the purest of cinema.
San Jose Mercury News - 10/10 by Bruce NewmanDirector Julian Schnabel uses his skill as a painter to assemble a collage of fantastical images to reveal the exquisite physical wreck that Bauby has become.
Jam! Movies - 10/10 by Bruce KirklandIt is a masterwork on both an artistic and emotional level.
Chicago Sun-Times - 10/10 by Roger EbertAt the end we are left with the reflection that human consciousness is the great miracle of evolution, and all the rest (sight, sound, taste, hearing, smell, touch) are simply a toolbox that consciousness has supplied for itself.
TIME Magazine - 10/10 by Richard SchickelStill, somewhat shame-faced I have to admit that at some point in the film I began to hear a subversive voice whispering in my ear, and what it was saying was, "Could you blink a little faster, pal?"
Ebert & Roeper - 10/10 by Richard RoeperAn intense, maddening, claustrophobic and awesomely inspiring film.
New York Post - 10/10 by Lou LumenickYou won't have a more viscerally emotional experience at the movies this year.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch - 10/10 by Joe WilliamsAn exquisite metaphor for the redemptive power of cinema. Without an ounce of cheap sentiment, this true story is as profoundly moving and dreamily beautiful as any film in recent memory.

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