Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
EAN: 0786936750119
Format: Closed-captioned
Label: Miramax
Manufacturer: Miramax
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Miramax
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2008-04-29
Running Time: 112
Studio: Miramax
Theatrical Release Date: 2007-12-25

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Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: One word - WOW!
Comment: Before I knew it, I was already an hour into the movie when I glanced to see how much time had elapsed. This is one movie that deserves all the cliches that are so overused today: Riveting, powerful, moving. I'm not into current movies, but I'm glad I made an exception here because it restores my faith in the filmmaking industry that original movies (or, in this case, adaptations from books) can not only be made, but in a way that keeps you watching and has the experience stay with you.

Shooting the movie from the perspective of the late Jean-Dominique Bauby was beyond brilliant. It wasn't done in a contrived way, but, rather, in a way that you felt you were right there with Bauby in a body that, indeed, became a prison.

Other reviewers on this page have covered just about everything regarding the film, but I will put my hat in the ring and say this is a hell of a film - subtitles or not. - Donna Di Giacomo

Customer Rating:

Summary: Beautiful film
Comment: Beautiful film. I'm grateful the filmmaker decided to go against the original plan to shoot it as an English-language film and instead shoot it in French.

After seeing this true story about the last months of a SEVERELY disabled person, it will be a long time before I complain about the problems in my own life.

An inspiring story.

Customer Rating:

Summary: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Comment: This is an awesome story of a man who, rather than give up on life, manages to write his story in a most poetic manner. I should have been sad about his situation, but instead I clapped my hands at his resolve.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A..E..I..O..U have to watch this movie.
Comment: If there was ever a film that illustrated how anyone's life can change dramatically in a matter of seconds, or how perseverance is possible even in the face of the most extreme limitations one could face, this is it. The main character is completely paralyzed aside from his left eye, for the majority of the film, yet still able to get his message across. "The Diving Bell and The Butterfly" is the true story based on the meiors of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a well-known french journalist, author, and editor of 'Elle' magazine, who was left paralyzed after suffering a stroke. He awakes from a three-week coma unable to move, yet the viewer is still told the rest of the story through the eye of Bauby's character, in his world of vision. We hear his thoughts in the voice he was given, but the rest of his words are only told via the pain-staken work of the speach therapists who worked diligently with Bauby as he lay bed ridden. After he is freed from the confines of the hospital, with hired help from Elle, Bauby continues writing the book he had previously planned on writing prior to his stroke. This story is nothing short of inspirational and is one of the most creative points of view I've seen in film. I could never bring myself to complain about a dream involving the lovely Emma De Caunes, only that I wish they had done more with the visions that were outside of Bauby's reality, but besides that, this film is strong, compelling, and definitely delivers a message that should be heard.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Homage to Jean-Dominique Bauby
Comment: An engaging and penetrating adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby's brilliant memoir of the same title. Jean-Do was the handsome young editor of Elle magazine, with the house, the car, a beautiful wife and adorable children, and of course, the other woman. While enjoying the accoutrements of the good life he suffers a massive stroke that leaves him paralyzed from head to toe, but for the ability to blink his left eye. He is afflicted with what is termed locked-in syndrome. He retains the faculties of memory and imagination and, with the help of his devoted carers, is able to complete his memoire by blinking yes or no in response to a particular letter of the alphabet. With the aide of a patient scribe, Jean-Do retraces the defining moments of his short life from the fresh perspective of this unique predicament, inside what he metaphorically describes as his diving bell - the world beneath his skin containing all of his subjective thoughts, his reflexive response to what appears real externally, and what he retains of his past. The aesthetic is represented as a butterfly, wandering at will and gracing the things its touches with its ephemeral beauty. He sees the faces of his loved ones: his wife, lover, children, and adorable carers, and appreciates what he has lost - the capacity to fully express his love for them with a gentle embrace. It is a multi layered film that explores the emotional responses of others to Jean-Do's loss as well. This is one of those rare films that can change your way of seeing. I found it profoundly moving and performed by an outstanding cast. The one shame is that Jean-Do hasn't survived to see what beauty his little butterfly is bringing to the world after all.

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Editorial Reviews:

The seemingly claustrophobic story of a man imprisoned in his paralyzed body becomes a dazzling and expansive movie about love, imagination, and the will to live. After a stroke, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric, Kings and Queen) can only move his left eye--and through that eye he learns to communicate, one letter at a time. With the help of his speech therapist (Marie-Josee Croze, Munich) and a stenographer (Anne Consigny, Anna M.), Bauby writes the stunning memoir The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But such a plot summary makes the movie sound like lofty, self-important medicine--far from it. Director Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, Before Night Falls), working from an elegant screenplay by Ronald Harwood (The Pianist) and with an oustanding cast (which also includes Frantic's Emmanuelle Seigner as Bauby's neglected wife), has created a movie as engrossing and hypnotic as a thriller, a movie that wrestles with mortality yet has stubborn streaks of dark humor and eroticism, that portrays a man who overcomes unimaginable obstacles but refuses to paint him as a saint. Schnabel was once dismissed as a pompous and overblown painter, but he's crafted an intimate visual poem, a humble sonata about life at its most fragile. --Bret Fetzer